Legendary rock musician Paul McCartney has released "Man on the Run - Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack" (UMe, Capitol Records / Universal Music Group), the companion album to a new documentary chronicling his creative rebirth in the 1970s. Arriving alongside the feature film Paul McCartney: Man on the Run, directed by Oscar winner, Emmy and Grammy Award winner Morgan Neville, the project looks back at one of the most transformative decades of McCartney's career - the years following the breakup of the Beatles and the rise of Wings.
Charting the rise of Paul McCartney in the 1970s
The album includes timeless hits and essential songs from the vast and artistically important catalog of Paul McCartney and the Wings, a brief overview of Paul's creativity in the 1970s presented in 12 songs, bringing together the key material of their work, capturing the ambition, reinvention and willingness to take risks that defined his post-Beatles era.
T428-10© Paul McCartney under exclusive license to MPL Archive LLP. Photographer Linda McCartney
Highlights include previously unreleased material such as "Arrow Through Me (Rough Mix)," taken from the 1979 Back to the Egg sessions, and "Live And Let Die (Rockshow)," from the 1980 concert film Rockshow. There is also another previously unreleased rarity "Gotta Sing Gotta Dance", a song that was originally part of the 1973 TV special "The James Paul McCartney".
The album flows through milestones including the hits 'Band on the Run', 'Mull of Kintyre', 'Coming Up' and 'Let Me Roll It', forming a cohesive narrative of reinvention rather than a simple greatest hits collection.
The documentary "Paul McCartney: Man on the Run" chronicles the musician's transformative decade after the breakup of the Beatles and the rise of his new band, Wings. With stunning archival footage, great photographs by Linda McCartney, and through numerous interviews with Paul, Linda, Mary and Stella McCartney, members of the band Wings, as well as with Sean Ono Lennon, Mick Jagger, Chrissie Hynde and others - the film returns to and explores that time through a uniquely vulnerable focus.
Director Morgan Neville describes the project as an exploration of how McCartney went from escaping the Beatles' shadow to running towards his own creative identity. The film and soundtrack together frame the 1970s not as a mere postscript to a great career, but as another upward trajectory.
"When talking about the greatest artists of the 1970s, the list rarely includes Paul McCartney. Not because he wasn't great - he was undoubtedly one of the greatest artists of the decade, but because of what he had already done. Paul was in the biggest band in the world, which in turn created its own gravitational force. In my film, 'Man on the Run,' I wanted to look at Paul's impossible escape from that great and long shadow of the Beatles," describes the director Morgan Neville. "How could anyone cope with the weight of such expectations but by doing the unexpected? I also saw that during the decade Paul stopped running from something and started running towards something else - his own voice, his own family, his own life. This is the story of someone finding himself", explains Morgan Neville further adding that the soundtrack is crucial to the full impression of that journey - a journey told through music. "Each of the songs is the result of a creative impulse, as well as the version of Paul that he was in those moments. Through the song, he spoke, not only to the world, but also to himself. And we are lucky to be able to listen to him." Taken together, the documentary and accompanying soundtrack underline a narrative that is now increasingly clear: the 1970s were not a transitional period for McCartney, but marked a complete reinvention of the artist who once again became one of the world's best-selling artists. Physical editions and exclusives The album follows the cinematic aesthetic and is available in several formats. Collectors can choose from a limited edition New York Taxi Yellow vinyl produced by Jack White's Third Man Pressing, exclusive Tangerine Peel Orange vinyl, as well as standard black vinyl and CD. Each vinyl edition also includes a special "Man on the Run" poster. Both a CD and a digital album are in circulation.
