Lovesong: Wings - Mull Of Kintyre
Aug 3, 2016 6:46:06 GMT -5
Mrs David Tennant, Albert Fish Taco, and 14 more like this
Post by Prole Hole on Aug 3, 2016 6:46:06 GMT -5
Lovesong: Wings - Mull Of Kintyre
Fictional Interviewer: So... Lovesong?
Prole Hole: Yea, Lovesong. You know, the opposite of Hatesong. Hatesong is all about taking well-known, dreadful songs and ripping them to shreds. This is the opposite, taking a poorly regarded song and finding a reasons to appreciate it. A redemptive reading, if you will.
FI: You're all about the redemptive readings, aren’t you?
PH: *shrugs*
FI: OK so what have you chosen for your Lovesong?
PH: The 1977 little-loved Wings song "Mull Of Kintyre".
FI: Why "Mull Of Kintyre" then?
PH: Well it's just kind of an interesting song to have been so successful. The thing is, "Mull Of Kintyre" is not a complicated song, to put it mildly. It consists of exactly four chords, it's a slow-paced ballad, and there's no denying a certain cheesy aspect to it. All of that is true. Yet context, as ever, remains incredibly important. This slow, cheesy, love-letter to a small part of the Scottish mainland was released in 1977. Ignoring the oddity of writing a love song to a geographical feature in the first place, this really wasn't an obvious approach to take. The first week it hit number one, Queen were the champions, Status Quo were rocking all over the world and Abba were naming the game. Just over a month earlier, Never Mind The Bollocks was released, and six months before that The Clash's first album saw the light of day. So, if nothing else, points for not following the prevailing trends of the time. It's not disco, it's not punk, and it’s not obvious.
FI: Ok fair enough, it strikes out in its own direction. That doesn't make it good, though. That just makes it contextually unusual.
PH: Oh indeed, but it's a good start. What's really remarkable about this approach though, is that it worked. It really worked. "Mull Of Kintyre" was a vast success, the first single in UK history to sell over two million copies, and it remains the biggest selling non-charity single of all time on a first release (the likes of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Candle In The Wind" have now outsold it, but only by dint of being either re-released or charity-adjacent). For comparison, gravel-voiced bland-matic 5000 Bryan Adams sold 1.8 million copies of "Everything I Do (I Do For You)", dreary cheer-averse Scottish rockers Wet Wet Wet shifted 1.88 million copies of "Love Is All Around" (still a traumatic memory for some of us), and ol' leatherlungs herself Whitney Houston scraped just (well, I say just) 1.66 million with "I Will Always Love You". That's pretty good going for four chords and a handful of bagpipes. Especially without a nearby movie to boost receipts.
FI: Ok, that's... quite an impressive achievement. But you've previously stated that sales don't equal quality, they only equal sales. So that's still not telling us why it's a defensible song.
PH: Bit snippy for a fictional interviewer, aren't you?
FI: *shrugs*
PH: Fair enough. But indeed, you're quite right. Sales and quality have no direct correlation. So really, to defend it we must turn to the song itself. And what I find most remarkable about it is how sincere it is. McCartney really, genuinely sounds like he loves this place, and it radiates through every line in the song making it sound like it matters to him, which is not always the case. McCartney, especially in the 70's, was not a master of the sincere, and indeed often had a remarkable ability to not sound like he meant a bloody word of what he was singing – it's a big problem when it comes to taking Wings seriously. For every "Maybe I'm Amazed" (yes, not technically Wings, I know) which sounds passionate and real, there's dozens of songs like "Silly Love Songs" which sound trite and radiate insincerity like a nuclear reactor on overload. Or "My Love", which sounds treacly and massively over-produced to the point of not being able to take it remotely seriously. Maybe he really meant every word of every song, but if he did it certainly doesn't always come across. But "Mull Of Kintyre" is neither of those things, it's just a genuine little slice of bucolic, pastoral music that happens to be very location-specific.
FI: Yes, speaking of location-specific, let's get to the obvious elephant in the room. The bagpipes.
PH: Fuck you, I love the bagpipes.
FI: Erm, yes. Why?
PH: Because they actually function within the music as they're supposed to. We get a couple of verse/chorus runs with the acoustic guitar and some "I've been away for ages but I'm back now"-type sentiments, which are appropriate. Scottish folk music – which "Mull Of Kintyre" is clearly and deliberately aligning itself with – is full of lyrics about people being far across the ocean and longing for the mountains and glens of home, so this feels consistent with the type of music "Mull Of Kintyre" is trying to be. "Far have I travelled and much have I see / darkest of mountains and valleys of green" is a line that could come from any folk song of the last three hundred years. The second verse has the familiar lingering of nostalgia ("Carry me back to the days I knew when") that suggests the laments and melancholia which lie at the heart of so much Scottish folk. There's a real sense of atmosphere being created here. Then, oh just when it threatens to become too much, in crash the bagpipes and they shift the mood of the entire piece. No longer is it reflective or full of melancholy, and no longer is it referencing past travels. Now it's become a triumphant, rousing journey forward, moving from something locked in time to something that carries passion in the present. The bagpipes, in other words, aren't just a cheesy we're-in-Scotland-lets-get-in-the-pipers cliché, but actually serve to shift the mood of the song from reflective and inward-looking to resounding and outward-looking. The pipes are the moment the song becomes a real celebration, and a celebration of the now, not just of the past.
FI: That's... actually a reasonable defence.
PH: How kind. The first lines of the last verse re-enforce this reading. "Smiles in the sunshine and tears in the rain / still take me back where my memories remain". The important word here is still. The tense of the song shifts from the past tense, a reflection on that past, to the present tense – the place and the feelings it evokes still do their work, even now. Everything that location is to the protagonist of the song, everything it means – it's still relevant now, not just an aspect of the past locked in amber, but something that continues to have significance. Something the protagonist always carry with them. Oh yeah, and also bagpipes are awesome and I'll fight anyone who suggests otherwise.
FI: No need for that. Anything else you wish to add?
PH: Look, it's obvious that a Scottish ballad, written by an Englishman in the mid-70's, in three-four time, isn't going to be for everyone. That's pretty clear and perfectly understandable, and even more so now than at the time of its release. But the fact of the matter is "Mull Of Kintyre" sets out to achieve something fairly specific and nails it at every point of the song's running time. It's not hard to understand why, despite it's vast sales, it's not a song much remembered or even especially liked in the UK, and it's sales in the US, Canada and other territories never came close to matching those back home. This isn't a song with universal appeal, but then neither is it a song that really sets itself up to have that kind of appeal anyway. Not in the mood for some tartan whimsy on a wind-swept (read: freezing) beach on the west of Scotland? Then this song isn't for you. But if you are then you could do worse than a sweet, sincere song about really belonging somewhere, wherever you've ended up.
FI: Prole Hole, thank you very much.
PH: You're welcome. Now where's my wine?
FI: *sound of crashing chair, door slams*
PH: Bugger
Fictional Interviewer: So... Lovesong?
Prole Hole: Yea, Lovesong. You know, the opposite of Hatesong. Hatesong is all about taking well-known, dreadful songs and ripping them to shreds. This is the opposite, taking a poorly regarded song and finding a reasons to appreciate it. A redemptive reading, if you will.
FI: You're all about the redemptive readings, aren’t you?
PH: *shrugs*
FI: OK so what have you chosen for your Lovesong?
PH: The 1977 little-loved Wings song "Mull Of Kintyre".
FI: Why "Mull Of Kintyre" then?
PH: Well it's just kind of an interesting song to have been so successful. The thing is, "Mull Of Kintyre" is not a complicated song, to put it mildly. It consists of exactly four chords, it's a slow-paced ballad, and there's no denying a certain cheesy aspect to it. All of that is true. Yet context, as ever, remains incredibly important. This slow, cheesy, love-letter to a small part of the Scottish mainland was released in 1977. Ignoring the oddity of writing a love song to a geographical feature in the first place, this really wasn't an obvious approach to take. The first week it hit number one, Queen were the champions, Status Quo were rocking all over the world and Abba were naming the game. Just over a month earlier, Never Mind The Bollocks was released, and six months before that The Clash's first album saw the light of day. So, if nothing else, points for not following the prevailing trends of the time. It's not disco, it's not punk, and it’s not obvious.
FI: Ok fair enough, it strikes out in its own direction. That doesn't make it good, though. That just makes it contextually unusual.
PH: Oh indeed, but it's a good start. What's really remarkable about this approach though, is that it worked. It really worked. "Mull Of Kintyre" was a vast success, the first single in UK history to sell over two million copies, and it remains the biggest selling non-charity single of all time on a first release (the likes of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and "Candle In The Wind" have now outsold it, but only by dint of being either re-released or charity-adjacent). For comparison, gravel-voiced bland-matic 5000 Bryan Adams sold 1.8 million copies of "Everything I Do (I Do For You)", dreary cheer-averse Scottish rockers Wet Wet Wet shifted 1.88 million copies of "Love Is All Around" (still a traumatic memory for some of us), and ol' leatherlungs herself Whitney Houston scraped just (well, I say just) 1.66 million with "I Will Always Love You". That's pretty good going for four chords and a handful of bagpipes. Especially without a nearby movie to boost receipts.
FI: Ok, that's... quite an impressive achievement. But you've previously stated that sales don't equal quality, they only equal sales. So that's still not telling us why it's a defensible song.
PH: Bit snippy for a fictional interviewer, aren't you?
FI: *shrugs*
PH: Fair enough. But indeed, you're quite right. Sales and quality have no direct correlation. So really, to defend it we must turn to the song itself. And what I find most remarkable about it is how sincere it is. McCartney really, genuinely sounds like he loves this place, and it radiates through every line in the song making it sound like it matters to him, which is not always the case. McCartney, especially in the 70's, was not a master of the sincere, and indeed often had a remarkable ability to not sound like he meant a bloody word of what he was singing – it's a big problem when it comes to taking Wings seriously. For every "Maybe I'm Amazed" (yes, not technically Wings, I know) which sounds passionate and real, there's dozens of songs like "Silly Love Songs" which sound trite and radiate insincerity like a nuclear reactor on overload. Or "My Love", which sounds treacly and massively over-produced to the point of not being able to take it remotely seriously. Maybe he really meant every word of every song, but if he did it certainly doesn't always come across. But "Mull Of Kintyre" is neither of those things, it's just a genuine little slice of bucolic, pastoral music that happens to be very location-specific.
FI: Yes, speaking of location-specific, let's get to the obvious elephant in the room. The bagpipes.
PH: Fuck you, I love the bagpipes.
FI: Erm, yes. Why?
PH: Because they actually function within the music as they're supposed to. We get a couple of verse/chorus runs with the acoustic guitar and some "I've been away for ages but I'm back now"-type sentiments, which are appropriate. Scottish folk music – which "Mull Of Kintyre" is clearly and deliberately aligning itself with – is full of lyrics about people being far across the ocean and longing for the mountains and glens of home, so this feels consistent with the type of music "Mull Of Kintyre" is trying to be. "Far have I travelled and much have I see / darkest of mountains and valleys of green" is a line that could come from any folk song of the last three hundred years. The second verse has the familiar lingering of nostalgia ("Carry me back to the days I knew when") that suggests the laments and melancholia which lie at the heart of so much Scottish folk. There's a real sense of atmosphere being created here. Then, oh just when it threatens to become too much, in crash the bagpipes and they shift the mood of the entire piece. No longer is it reflective or full of melancholy, and no longer is it referencing past travels. Now it's become a triumphant, rousing journey forward, moving from something locked in time to something that carries passion in the present. The bagpipes, in other words, aren't just a cheesy we're-in-Scotland-lets-get-in-the-pipers cliché, but actually serve to shift the mood of the song from reflective and inward-looking to resounding and outward-looking. The pipes are the moment the song becomes a real celebration, and a celebration of the now, not just of the past.
FI: That's... actually a reasonable defence.
PH: How kind. The first lines of the last verse re-enforce this reading. "Smiles in the sunshine and tears in the rain / still take me back where my memories remain". The important word here is still. The tense of the song shifts from the past tense, a reflection on that past, to the present tense – the place and the feelings it evokes still do their work, even now. Everything that location is to the protagonist of the song, everything it means – it's still relevant now, not just an aspect of the past locked in amber, but something that continues to have significance. Something the protagonist always carry with them. Oh yeah, and also bagpipes are awesome and I'll fight anyone who suggests otherwise.
FI: No need for that. Anything else you wish to add?
PH: Look, it's obvious that a Scottish ballad, written by an Englishman in the mid-70's, in three-four time, isn't going to be for everyone. That's pretty clear and perfectly understandable, and even more so now than at the time of its release. But the fact of the matter is "Mull Of Kintyre" sets out to achieve something fairly specific and nails it at every point of the song's running time. It's not hard to understand why, despite it's vast sales, it's not a song much remembered or even especially liked in the UK, and it's sales in the US, Canada and other territories never came close to matching those back home. This isn't a song with universal appeal, but then neither is it a song that really sets itself up to have that kind of appeal anyway. Not in the mood for some tartan whimsy on a wind-swept (read: freezing) beach on the west of Scotland? Then this song isn't for you. But if you are then you could do worse than a sweet, sincere song about really belonging somewhere, wherever you've ended up.
FI: Prole Hole, thank you very much.
PH: You're welcome. Now where's my wine?
FI: *sound of crashing chair, door slams*
PH: Bugger
