Band on the Run
Band on the Run
Seventeenth studio album by The Beatles
Released: November 30, 1973
Genre: Rock • pop rock • folk rock
Producer: George Martin • The Beatles
>SIDE ONE:
>1. Band On The Run
>2. Going Down On Love
>3. Jet
>4. Photograph
>5. The Light That Has Lighted The World
>6. Let Me Roll It
>
>SIDE TWO:
>1. Out The Blue
>2. Far East Man
>3. No Words
>4. Steel And Glass
>5. Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me)
>6. Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five
The Beatles had managed to receive positive reception of Mind Games but did not achieve the massive success as Imagine had gotten. Not long after the album’s release, The Beatles shortly embarked on a short UK tour for the first time since their final concert at the NME Annual Poll-Winners’ show in May 1966. They would play around 23 tour dates across in Britain and the tour’s setlist would be filled with Beatle classics such as “Come Together”, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, “It Don’t Come Easy” and “Maybe I’m Amazed” as well as performing new songs and in there for their latest album and unreleased material that would later end up on future projects and ending off the shows with a classic Beatle cover that was a staple of their live set of Little Richard’s “Long Tall Sally”. Despite its announcement being low at the time from the media personnel, the reception for the concerts were fairly positive. But the Beatles were growing concerned about their popularity and their artistic status as a group, and thought about if they attempted to keep things ongoing like this, it would immediately cause their split as a whole. And after the final show for the Britain tour at the Newcastle City Hall on 10 August, John and Paul forged out a plan that would definitely change for the band’s recording career.
“We thought it’d be good to get out of the country to record, so we asked EMI where they had studios around the world. There were some amazing countries where they had studios and I thought ‘Lagos… Africa… rhythms… yeah’, cause me and Paul especially were huge fans of African music and thought it would be really amazing to record there.”
- John Lennon, 1980.
For the first time since 1973, The Beatles were keen to record outside the United Kingdom as they were starting to get tired of recording in the same studios that they have been for the past couple of years. They would request from EMI a list of their international recording studios and after months of planning and searching out, they would all select Lagos in Nigeria to record their next album. When asked why the band had picked the location to record there in 1988, George Harrison recalled it would be a glamorous and exotic location where he and the band could sun on the beach during the day and record at night. However at the time Nigeria was run by a military government with corruption and disease commonplace, after the end of a civil war in 1970.
The band arrived in Lagos on August 30th, 1973. Recording for the album began two days later after their arrival and soaking around in the country, with initial overdubbing and mixing made to it only three weeks later. EMI’s studio, located on Wharf Road in the suburb of Apapa, was ramshackle and under-equipped. The control desk was faulty and there was only one eight-track tape machine. The band wouldn’t bring any session musicians, aside from their usual producer George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick and saxophonist Howie Casey and also bringing their wives in there sans Lennon, who instead invited his then-partner and assistant May Pang following his split from Yoko Ono due to the couple going through martial problems and he would bring his then 10-year old son, Julian which would be the first time that Lennon would start to reconnect to his son since his divorce with Cynthia Lennon in 1968.
Most of the album’s material were written in the year earlier and despite not being a concept album similar to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; its lyric themes reflect with escape, freedom and also reflecting with forgiveness and loneliness with primary examples of “Going Down On Love” and “Far East Man”. While the songs are individually credited by each member in the band respectively, there were a few songs that are credited by two members. “Photograph” was written by both Ringo Starr and George Harrison while on a luxury yacht in South France in early 1971 and was intended for its inclusion for Imagine and Mind Games, but were thankfully saved up for this album. “Far East Man” was written by Harrison and Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood in late 1972, during a period of their estranged marriages with their wives. Most famously, “Let Me Roll It”, “No Words”, “Four Walls” and “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink To Me)” were credited under the old Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership and marking the first time that the pair had worked together since “Gimme Some Truth” on Imagine.
The recording sessions were still laid-back and lightweight similar to last time though it would come to no surprise for all four of them facing with the most challenging draw-backs that they had to deal with while in Lagos. Aside from the challenges presented by the substandard studio, various incidents plagued the Beatles' stay in Lagos. After the second week, McCartney was confronted by Afrobeat pioneer and political activist Fela Kuti who publicly accused the group of being in Africa to exploit and steal African music after they visited his club. Though when Kuti went to the studio one day to confront the band, Lennon and McCartney played their songs for him to show that they contained no local influence. Famously, while out walking one night against advice, Paul and Linda McCartney were robbed at knifepoint. The assailants made off with all of their valuables, stealing a bag containing a notebook full of handwritten lyrics and songs, and cassettes containing demos for songs to be recorded. Though the notebook would be retrieved thankfully, the tape would be lost for almost 50 years, until it was discovered for nearly a decade and would be sold at an auction for around $400,000 in 2024. The following day after the mugging, George Harrison would collapse in the studio and was sent to the hospital. The official diagnosis was that he had suffered a bronchial spasm brought on by too much smoking and McCartney was confronted by Afrobeat pioneer and political activist Fela Kuti who publicly accused the group of being in Africa to exploit and steal African music after they visited his club. Following the hospital incident, The Beatles hosted a beach barbecue to celebrate the end of recording and later playing and jamming some old rock and roll covers that the group were familiar with attended by Cream drummer Ginger Baker and Nigerian musician Remi Kabaka, and on 23 September 1973, they flew back to England, where they were met by fans and journalists. Upon returning to London, the group received a letter from EMI dated before the band had left England, warning them not go to Lagos due to an outbreak of cholera.
“I remember that we were confronted by an Afrobeat musician named Fela Kuti and if I recall from Paul’s story, he told us that we were stealing their music influence when we arrived in Africa and we were confronted and we had to playback our songs to him to prove that we weren’t trying to take it. And the following day, we had our valuables stolen by an army of gang people and then the next day after that horror, I’ve fainted in the studio because I wasn’t able to breathe and couldn’t feel air in there and it was definitely a nightmare and it seemed that death was looming to me.”
- George Harrison, 1987.
Not long after returning and recording the majority of the basic tracks in Lagos, The Beatles would spend October 1973 to finish the album and transfer many of the eight-track recordings made in Nigeria to sixteen-track George Martin’s AIR Studios in London. They continued overdubbing the Lagos recordings throughout October and all of the album’s orchestral arrangements were conducted by George Martin and were taped at AIR in a single day on 17 October. The final stereo mixing was briefly done at the more familiar EMI Studios London by the end of October.
Band on the Run would release on 30 November 1973 in the UK, releasing one week later in the US on 7 December. The album was undoubtedly a commercial and critical success, debuting at #9 in the UK Albums Chart and #7 in the US Billboard 200 before eventually topping at #1 one week later and it stayed there in the charts for 7 weeks. The reception of Band on the Run was immediately positive from music critics, while others praising the album as one of the greatest albums in the early part of the 70s. Writing for the NME, Charles Shaar Murray stated: “Band on the Run is a great album. If anybody ever puts down The Beatles in your presence, bust them in the snoot and play them this. They will thank you for it afterwards.” Retrospective reviews were Yet, knowing that this was their greatest album since Abbey Road, The Beatles had finally regained their artistic status and the album made the group know that they were still keeping up for the early 70s and still thinking about where their next step would go on next. In 2012, it was ranked at #127 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.