“Band on The Run” by Paul McCartney and Wings

"Band on the Run" is the title track of Paul McCartney and Wings' 1973 album, and it's three songs welded into one, each passage in a different style, stretching past five minutes and making the switchbacks feel like a getaway. That's the whole idea: the theme is freedom and escape, sparked partly by something George Harrison said at a meeting of the Beatles' Apple label, in the same season that Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr cut loose from manager Allen Klein.

The making of it was a getaway of its own. Wings arrived in Lagos, Nigeria, to record, had their demos stolen almost at once, and cut the track as a trio, Paul and Linda McCartney with Denny Laine, at EMI's studio there before finishing it at AIR in London. Paul plays bass, drums, guitars, electric piano and synth, Laine adds guitars, Linda handles the Moog, the Beaux Arts Orchestra brings horns and strings, and Geoff Emerick recorded and mixed it. Released as a single in 1974, it went to number one in America and 3 in Britain.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.