The Wonder of It All: Wings’ Venus and Mars at 50

The 50th anniversary vinyl reissue is out today. David Quantick looks back at Venus and Mars

There’s a pattern in many artists’ careers. When someone has released an all-time classic album, very often the follow-up record is essentially the same as its predecessor, only not as good. Just as movie sequels are rarely good as the originals, so some albums too have sequels that don’t quite reach the same heights. There will be similarities in, say, artwork, or musical direction, or stylistic tics, but the end result is somehow not as thrilling. Famous examples include Queen’s A Night At the Opera and its weaker follow-up A Day At The Races. Some Bowie fans might say that Ziggy Stardust is more original and exciting than its steroidal successor, Aladdin Sane (often known as ‘Ziggy In America’). And what is the American LP version of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ but a rather lumpy Sgt. Pepper echo?

In 1973, Paul McCartney and the remaining members of Wings released Band On The Run, the first entirely consistent, constantly entertaining, and musically brilliant Wings album: previous efforts had been both varied and variable, low-key or low-fi. Band On The Run was different: it was muscular and commercial, without sounding anything like The Beatles: and it provided the template for the rest of
Wings’ career: strong, commercial pop songs that sounded great on the radio and worked well in arenas.

Its successor was Venus And Mars, an album full of strong commercial pop songs that sounded great on the radio and worked well in arenas, and whose only fault was that it wasn’t Band On The Run. And this was unsurprising, because, consciously or otherwise, Venus And Mars was something of an echo of Band On The Run. Both albums begin with their title track, making a statement: both albums
later reprise the title track (probably as a nod to Sgt. Pepper). There are guitar-driven singles (‘Jet’, ‘Letting Go’), classy ballads (‘Bluebird’, ‘Love In Song’) and – if we’re counting B-sides not on the album – telly themes (‘Zoo Gang’, ‘Crossroads’).

And both albums sound BIG. Gone is the home demo vibe of McCartney and Wild Life. Absent is the smooth intimacy of Ram and Red Rose Speedway. Wings in the mid-1970s were a band who intended to make an impression: FM radio in the USA, rather than wonderful Radio One in the UK. To that end, McCartney made albums that followed the template of soundtrack single ‘Live And Let Die’: full- sounding songs with complex arrangements and loads of hooks that leapt out the radio. And, just as importantly, songs that would sound great in stadiums (less than six months after the release of Venus And Mars, Wings would undertake a 13 month world tour and became one of the biggest bands in the world).

Wings in the mid-1970s were a band who intended to make an impression

David Quantick

There were other changes, too. Venus And Mars was the first solo Beatle project not to be released in the US on the troubled vanity label Apple Records, instead coming out on Capitol. There was a new Wings, too: the core of Paul and Linda McCartney with Denny Laine expanded to include guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton (Britton, famed among fans for his interest in martial arts,
would later be replaced by Joe English). With the addition of a touring brass section, this new Wings was bigger, louder and aimed at arenas. This was a band filled with confidence – a confidence many felt McCartney had lost in his early post-Beatle career, when everyone (including his former band mates) was either slagging him off or suing him. With Band On The Run, Paul had shown that he could make big,
successful, self-assured music again: and his confidence had returned to such an extent that he felt able to include some Beatles’ songs in his live set, as if to say that his new material was fit to stand beside the old.

But this was to come. After the success of Band On The Run, the McCartneys and Laine plus Jimmy McCulloch went to Manchester’s Strawberry Studios to record McGear, the superb solo record by Paul’s brother Mike McGear (known to some fans as “the lost Wings album”). After a short spell on a farm near Nashville, where McCulloch was arrested for drunk driving, Wings recorded one of their boppiest singles, the aptly-named ‘Junior’s Farm’ [a standalone single, not on Venus and Mars] and in November 1974 the new line-up, now with Geoff Britton on drums, went into Abbey Road to record three songs, one of which (‘Medicine Jar’) was sung by Jimmy McCulloch. The band then went to New Orleans, where it became clear that the non-drinking, non-smoking Britton, did not fit in, especially in a band that already contained the volatile, troubled McCulloch. That, and issues with his drumming meant that two weeks in, the McCartneys paid a visit to the drummer’s hotel room and told him things weren’t working out. Britton left the band, the sessions continued with Joe English, and Venus And Mars came into being.

Like most albums made by Paul McCartney, Venus And Mars is wildly eclectic. This time round, there are rock songs (‘Letting Go’, ‘Rock Show’, ‘Medicine Jar’, ‘Magneto And Titanium Man’), ballads (‘Love In Song’, ‘Lonely Old People’), pop classics (‘Listen To What The Man Said’), vaudeville numbers (‘You Gave Me The Answer’), R&B songs (‘Call Me Back Again’) and even a tune from a soap opera (‘Crossroads’, whose theme, composed by Tony Hatch, was much better than the show it bookended). Despite the variety and the presence of McCulloch, this is very much a pop album, and it is for this that the album (and the work of Wings in general) has been denigrated: in an era of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, the
breeziness of Paul McCartney’s writing was seen as somehow lacking in significance or relevance (and, as many ex-Beatle fans had committed the crime of getting older and having jobs and families, McCartney was also responsible for promoting domesticity).

Venus And Mars is neither The Dark Side of the Moon nor Physical Graffiti (despite the namecheck for Jimmy Page in ‘Rock Show’). It isn’t Abbey Road and it isn’t, as may have been said here, Band On The Run. Despite being a varied collection of songs, it sometimes lacks light and shade. But its weakest moments are better than many people’s best moments, and its best moments are fantastic. Nobody – and I mean that literally – nobody can write a song as cheerful, as optimistic and as carefree as Listen To What The Man Said, with its tumbling riff, its joyful tune and, in my far from humble opinion, with one of the greatest lines in the history of pop which also sums up the brilliance of pop – “the wonder of it all, baby”. Not quite disco, not quite New Orleans R&B, ‘Listen To What The Man Said’ is a defence of love and a precursor to Macca’s definitive manifesto, 1976’s ‘Silly Love Songs’: if you don’t get caught up in its wide-eyed gallop, you’re almost certainly dead. (The album’s other single, ‘Letting Go’, was less – much less – of a hit, but it’s still great, which may explain its surprise return to McCartney’s live set in 2025.)

In its various incarnations on LP, CD and so forth, over the years, Venus And Mars has received differing levels of care from reissues. Sometimes it comes out laden with extras like ‘Lunch Box/Odd Sox’ (original 1987 CD reissue) and the lovely ballad 4th Of July (2014 Archive Collection), and sometimes it just comes out. This time round, at 50, this issue sees the light of day as a half-speed mastered vinyl pressing, in packaging that includes original stickers and posters.

In any format, it remains an extremely good album which makes up in consistency for anything it lacks in unpredictability. In the warm light of day, this is a record whose merits far outweigh its weak points. 50 years on, Venus and Mars are still all right tonight.

Review by David Quantick. The 50th anniversary vinyl of Venus and Mars is out today and the new Dolby Atmos Mix should be available on streaming services.

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Paul McCartney & Wings

Venus and Mars half-speed mastered vinyl

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Tracklisting

Venus and Mars Paul McCartney & Wings /

• Vinyl
  • Side One
    1. Venus and Mars
    2. Rock Show
    3. Love in Song
    4. You Gave Me the Answer
    5. Magneto and Titanium Man
    6. Letting Go
  • Side Two
    1. Venus and Mars – Reprise
    2. Spirits of Ancient Egypt
    3. Medicine Jar
    4. Call Me Back Again
    5. Listen to What the Man Said
    6. Treat Her Gently – Lonely Old People
    7. Crossroads