50th birthday of Ram. Paul & Linda McCartney

It was fifty years ago today that Paul McCartney had no band to play with. So instead, he took off for the countryside of Scotland with his wife Linda. Although much criticized back then, the Ram album he produced there is possibly the best album by any of the ex-Beatles. The incredible variety of musical styles on the album means there is always a song to fit your mood. From Wilsonian vocal harmonies to blues, and from light hearted folk to screaming rockers, Ram has it all. Moreover, listening to the album in one go does not at any moment get boring: the album is too full of surprises for that, both in terms of the quality of the melodies, the accents set by individual instruments and vocal lines as well as the variety of styles. Linda McCartney’s voice in most of the songs also adds a lot to the album, giving it further variety and unexpected twists. This album presents Paul McCartney at his best.

The theme of one of the album’s songs Heart of the Country, about wanting to leave the stress of the city and move to the countryside, resonates strongly with me at the moment. Being locked up inside with others 24/7, with the stress of plenty of work to do, but without an escape to get away from it all, and a pandemic seemingly without end keeping me away from my family and friends while putting my health in danger, I strongly feel the urge to get the heck out of the city, and find a calm place without internet where my family and friends could live safely and happily.

The pandemic situation also helps me to imagine the stress McCartney must have felt as the Beatles split up in 1969/1970. As much as the Beatles loved each other, having spent so much time together since they were young lads in Liverpool, they wanted to break free. They had achieved everything any band could ever hope to achieve, but the total lack of privacy and the constant pressure to produce the next best album in recorded history took their toll. They wanted to find out who they themselves were, they wanted to spend time with their wives and children, and they wanted to find out what they could achieve on their own, without the other Beatles to back them up.

But being the Beatles, their break up was put under a Hubble telescope sized magnifying glass. The break up turned nasty, with fights amongst each other over contracts and money, and fights in the press about who caused the break up. Was it Yoko’s meddling or was it Paul’s bossiness? Being the one who announced the break up of the Beatles, McCartney drew a lot of fire. After his first solo album (McCartney) received bad reviews, McCartney was under a lot of pressure to make an album that would be received better. Especially because Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and Lennon’s John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band received excellent reviews. The strong, heartfelt lyrics on these albums played no small role in this.

To get away from the public eye, and to overcome his sadness about the break up of the Beatles, McCartney took off to Scotland. There, he bonded strongly with his wife and kids, and he refound his love for making music. His joy of making music again, away from the public’s pressure and away from his former band mates, can be heard throughout the album. Moreover, after losing his former Beatle bandmates, he found that he could write songs and play music with his wife Linda. She is the co-writer of half the songs on the album, and sings on most too. All of these feelings are wrapped up in the lovely Heart of the Country, about his escape to the countryside.

Photo: Joes de Natris

‘Want a horse, want a sheep, want to get myself a good night’s sleep, living in my home in the heart of the country.’ Yes, please!

The critics back in 1971 would not have any of it, however. As Rolling Stone’s reviewer Jon Landau wrote: “Ram represents the nadir in the decomposition of Sixties rock thus far. […] Ram is so incredibly inconsequential and so monumentally irrelevant you can’t even [hate] it: it is difficult to concentrate on, let alone dislike or even hate.” That’s harsh, even by the standards of the British boulevard press, leave alone a respected music magazine.

Perhaps some critics expected more of the hi-fi productions like on Let it Be instead of the lo-fi production of Ram. Perhaps the sometimes non-sensical or light hearted lyrics were seen as an insult to the Beatles legacy (despite their notoriety for deliberate nonsense) or did not compare well at the time with Lennon’s and Harrison’s deeper lyrics on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and All Things Must Pass. Yet, where Heart of the Country is described by Jon Landau as ‘the lowest point on the album’ with the ‘lyrics about the joys of the country ring[ing] false’, I can’t but relate to the feelings McCartney is singing about. Perhaps replacing Lennon, Harrison and Ringo with his previously entirely unmusical wife Linda was seen as an insult to the fans, although I think her voice is perfect for the roles it plays on this album.

I do not think the original criticism of the album aged well at all. The album is now even being described by some as the first Indie Pop album (much of the information presented in this piece comes from this great YouTube video about Ram, it is worth a watch!). Regardless of whether that is true, the album perhaps was ahead of its time, or simple not the right album at the right time. However, I am grateful for having discovered this album (my dad never played it when I was young; he agreed with the critics when he first listened to it in the early 90s). The album gave me many hours of diversion in a period seriously lacking that, and kept up my good spirits while sorting out the details of municipal politics in the Netherlands for my PhD. This album is definitely not well known enough given its quality. 1/1,

Joes de Natris

absolutely recommends listening to this album!

 

Listen to our Spotify Playlist to find out what we are writing about:

https://open.spotify.com/user/glazu53/playlist/6R9FgPd2btrMuMaIrYeCh6?si=KI6LzLaAS5K-wsez5oSO2g