“Jet” by Paul McCartney & Wings

A tribute to a roaring rocker for Band on the Run’s 50th anniversary.

I’ll be honest: I originally wasn’t going to publish any tribute to Band on the Run.

Part of the reason is, controversial as it may be, I’m not a diehard Beatles or Paul McCartney fan. I can appreciate the extremely long tail of the former’s cultural influence and the latter’s facility with writing catchy hooks, but that’s more or less where it ends. I don’t seek out the Beatles music and play it on repeat on my home stereo. But, and it’s a sizable “but,” a taco joint in Ottawa, Canada, changed my tune (pun somewhat intended—I’m too lazy to change the end of the sentence to something less on the nose).

I was sitting in this restaurant with my wife, and almost immediately, I noticed they had a crate full of vinyl sitting next to the bar and a turntable hooked up to the house’s PA system. No canned streaming playlist, no ambient doldrums. Just honest-to-goodness greatness on wax. As we were putting in our drink orders, one of the bartenders lowered the needle down on Band on the Run, and as soon as those opening guitar chords kicked in, I thought to myself, maybe I’d made a mistake with the newsletter content. How could I ignore this album as part of my content strategy? Had I no regard for overarching consumer tastes?

“Let’s see if this enthusiasm holds beyond the title track,” I told myself. I thought it would take several songs to decide and admit I was wrong. Ultimately, it took the first half of “Jet,” the biggest crowd-pleaser on an LP full of them. We sang along to every word, including the world-famous “oooo-ooooo-oo-ooooooohs.” At some point, I saw that nearly every person in the packed restaurant was doing the same thing. Halfway through a bite of taco or guac, it didn’t matter. No one would let the opportunity to join in pass them by.

So, dear reader, this post is my mea culpa. I apologize to McCartney stans everywhere for thinking I could overlook this track, which is about as perfect as early-70s, arena-sized glam rock gets. Consider it, and the rest of the album, Ottawa approved.