The song Paul McCartney thought was made for Pete Townshend
For all of the great music Paul McCartney made on his own, this tune was destined for Pete Townshend before he even played on it.
(Credits: Far Out / Alamy / Trafalgar Releasing)
Music » From The Vault
Thu 16 January 2025 23:00, UK
Some artists are meant to have certain songs. In the words of Shakespeare, some have greatness thrust upon them, and even if they aren’t willing to harness that power in the beginning, it takes the greatest musicians years before they realise their true potential as one of the greatest in their field. Although Paul McCartney always approached his pop expertise from a place of fun, he felt that certain artists are better suited to play one song better than any other.
Then again, McCartney was always more of a craftsman behind the scenes compared to his heroes. Whereas most people like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were interested in their raw performances, McCartney favoured making something that toyed with the listener, often throwing in tiny production tricks that made people really think about what the hell they had just heard.
That didn’t only apply to The Beatles, either. Looking through Wings’s greatest material, albums like Band on the Run and Venus and Mars work much better as a fully fleshed-out record rather than in pieces, especially on the latter, where the opening track crashes into the song ‘Rock Show’ perfectly. It was still McCartney’s band, though, and that meant working with everyone he could think of.
While the thought of working with multiple music legends began when building the ‘Rockestra Theme’ with John Bonham and Pete Townshend in tow, McCartney had grown exponentially by the time he reached the late 1980s. He was now more focused on being a creative visionary and working with more contemporary sounds on Press to Play, and ‘Angry’ was the first time that he ever sounded pissed off in a song.
But this is McCartney here, so the version of anger he has to offer sounds more like a musical number in a standard Broadway show. Aside from the lyrics that try to rhyme ‘claptrap’ with ‘back slap’ are unintentionally funny, the band behind McCartney is fantastic, using Townshend’s signature rhythm guitar on the tune as well as Phil Collins subbing in on drums.
Townshend might not add anything new here, but McCartney felt that only someone with his flair for rhythm could have done the song justice, saying, “I’d kept in touch with Pete after ‘Rockestra’ and Live Aid. Pete’s actually only on ‘Angry’. There’s a chord riff I’d written a long time ago for something else, and every time I played it, I felt like Pete Townshend! There was plenty of those windmill arms when I played it, and I always imagined him doing it.”
Even with Townshend’s chord stabs, that doesn’t make Press to Play any easier to listen to. In fact, this might be the most amount of energy to turn up on the album, with most of the record diving into cheesy territory that borders on dad rock. A tune like ‘Stranglehold’ is close to being good, but outside of the single ‘Press’, there’s hardly anything on the record that couldn’t have been done by someone like Eric Clapton on one of his more laid-back albums.
If nothing else, though, ‘Angry’ at least is Macca trying his best to switch things up compared to his normal routine. Since he has released some of the greatest tunes of the 20th century, hearing him strike out on a novel concept is a lot better than someone who gets stuck into one sound throughout their entire career.
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