Tug of War (Paul McCartney album)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Tug of War, Paul McCartney's fourth solo studio album, carries the weight of a man who had lost nearly everything. Released on the 26th of April 1982, it arrived just sixteen months after John Lennon was murdered outside his New York City apartment. It was also the first album McCartney made after his band Wings dissolved, leaving him, for the first time in his adult life, without a permanent musical home. The questions this album raises are hard ones: how do you make music when grief is this fresh? How do you rebuild a reputation that critics had spent years quietly dismantling? And what happens when you bring in the one man who understood the Beatles from the inside?

• 2. The Sessions Begin

  ›

  Wings had barely regrouped in July and October of 1980 to rehearse new material when everything changed. McCartney had already called upon George Martin, the former Beatles producer, to help give the project direction. One of the first pieces they worked on was a song written for Rupert Bear, the animated character whose film rights McCartney had acquired in 1970. That song was "We All Stand Together". The productive sessions ran until the 9th of December, the morning McCartney woke to news that Lennon had been shot dead the previous night. He and Denny Laine had been mid-session recording a song called "Rainclouds", a future B-side. Both Martin and McCartney agreed, without much debate, to stop entirely and return only when they were ready.

  In February 1981, two months after Lennon's death, McCartney resumed work. The sessions moved to AIR Studios in Montserrat, in the Caribbean, running from the 3rd of February to the 2nd of March. That month, McCartney recorded alongside Stevie Wonder, Stanley Clarke, Carl Perkins, and Ringo Starr. The Montserrat sessions closed with two Wonder collaborations: "Ebony and Ivory" and "What's That You're Doing?". 10cc guitarist Eric Stewart also became a frequent collaborator during this stretch. Further sessions that summer took place at Martin's AIR Studios on Oxford Street in London. The album proved so fruitful that several tracks were set aside for a follow-up, Pipes of Peace, which arrived in 1983.

• 3. An Unlikely Gathering

  ›

  The personnel list for Tug of War reads like an improbable reunion. Ringo Starr, the last surviving Beatle McCartney regularly worked with, contributed drums on three tracks. Carl Perkins, the rockabilly pioneer, played electric guitar and vocals on the song "Get It". Stevie Wonder, whose collaboration with McCartney produced the lead single, brought his vocals, synthesizers, Fender Rhodes, drums, and percussion to the record. Stanley Clarke handled bass guitar on two tracks. Steve Gadd, one of the most recorded drummers in the world, played on "Somebody Who Cares" and "Wanderlust".

  George Martin, who arranged and produced the sessions, also played Fender Rhodes on two tracks himself. The cover was coordinated by Hipgnosis, the design studio behind some of the era's most iconic album art. The painting on the cover is an abstract oil work by Brian Clarke, a frequent McCartney collaborator. Clarke's painting was built over a transparency of a portrait of Paul taken by Linda McCartney, who also sang backing vocals on eight tracks and is credited as the album's photographer.

• 4. Critical Reception

  ›

  Rolling Stone critic Stephen Holden called Tug of War "the masterpiece everyone has always known Paul McCartney could make", praising both its music and its songwriting consistency. Writing in The Boston Phoenix, M. Howell went further, arguing that the album went "beyond anything that McCartney ever indicated he was capable of", describing it as simultaneously bouncy and frightened, joyful and fierce. Not everyone agreed. Robert Palmer, writing for The New York Times, called the album "exquisitely crafted though lyrically flawed", finding McCartney's words frequently "clichéd or mawkish", though he acknowledged that at its best, the record matched McCartney's work with the Beatles.

  In the Village Voice's annual Pazz and Jop critics poll, which compiled the best albums of 1982, Tug of War landed at number 34. Wingspan author Mark Lewisohn weighed in with a pointed verdict: he thought it was a better album than Band on the Run. The album was nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards in 1983. That year, it also attracted nominations for Song of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Pop Vocal Performance for "Ebony and Ivory", and Best R&B Vocal Performance for "What's That You're Doing?".

• 5. Commercial Impact

  ›

  "Ebony and Ivory", the duet with Stevie Wonder, was released in March 1982, ahead of the album, and reached number one in many countries. Tug of War followed in April and matched that chart performance, becoming a worldwide number one. In the United States alone, it sold over one million copies in the year of its release. The follow-up single, "Take It Away", reached the top ten in the United States. In the UK, the album sat at the top of the charts; in Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, Sweden, and West Germany, it also peaked at number one.

  The album's commercial success mattered in part because McCartney's critical and commercial standing had been seen as slipping before it. Tug of War is credited with restoring his reputation after what critics had characterized as a lean period. McCartney also received nominations at the American Music Awards in 1983 for Favorite Pop/Rock Male Artist and Favorite Pop/Rock Single, and at the Brit Awards, Martin won Best British Producer for his work on the record.

• 6. Reissues and Legacy

  ›

  The album was first released on compact disc in the United States on the 29th of February 1984. A remastered CD followed in 1993 as part of The Paul McCartney Collection series, though the B-sides "Rainclouds" and "I'll Give You a Ring" were left off entirely. In 2007, a further digital remaster appeared on the iTunes Store, adding a solo version of "Ebony and Ivory".

  The most substantial revisiting came on the 2nd of October 2015, when Hear Music and Concord Music Group released a deluxe edition as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection, alongside a companion reissue of Pipes of Peace. The deluxe box set contained a 112-page essay book, a 64-page scrapbook, a remixed version of the album, and a DVD that included the music videos for "Tug of War", "Take It Away", and "Ebony and Ivory". Eight of the bonus tracks on that release had never been made available before. The 2015 deluxe edition received a nomination for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in 2017.