Mention a Paul McCartney tune with drums and vocals by Ringo Starr, and an orchestral association by George Martin, and also you may suppose we’ve landed at some unspecified second in Beatles historical past. In reality, we’re speaking about an underrated second in Paul’s solo catalog, and the elegant ballad “Beautiful Night,” which made its UK Top 40 debut on the chart of December 27, 1997.
The monitor was the third and closing single from McCartney’s Flaming Pie album, which had already yielded the “Young Boy” and “This World Tonight” releases. “Beautiful Night” stands as one thing of a hidden gem in Paul’s solo profession, with its fairly melody and evocative lyrics resembling “I won’t need a castle, they’ve got castles in Versailles…and I’m still stranded, wondering why.”
The tune had been round for a decade, with a model reduce in New York in 1986 however shelved. The new take was co-produced by McCartney and Jeff Lynne, with whom Paul had labored on The Beatles’ Anthology mission of 1995-96; it was after the 2 former bandmates had been reunited on Anthology that Paul steered he and Ringo document one thing new collectively.
The day after they reduce the monitor, the pair collaborated once more on “Really Love You,” additionally featured on Flaming Pie. That gave trivia followers a captivating new query, because it was the primary time a tune carried the writing credit score “McCartney/Starr.”
Further Beatles connections
“Beautiful Night” additionally had backing vocals by Linda McCartney, its launch as a single coming solely 4 months earlier than her tragic loss of life from most cancers on the age of 56. Martin’s attractive orchestration was recorded, as appeared solely proper, at Abbey Road Studios, on St. Valentine’s Day 1997. The Beatles’ connection was additional enhanced by the presence on that date of engineer Geoff Emerick.
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The tune had a false ending adopted by an uptempo coda, on which Ringo’s backing vocals can clearly be heard; after some closing studio banter, he pretends to be ushering the musicians out of the studio by saying “on your way, thank you.” Surprisingly, “Beautiful Night” didn’t develop into a significant chart merchandise, getting into the UK chart at its No.25 peak earlier than falling to No.37 in a four-week run within the Top 75.
Buy or stream “Beautiful Night” on Flaming Pie, in its Paul McCartney Archive Collection version.