Track Listing

1. Song We Were Singing
2. World Tonight
3. If You Wanna
4. Somedays
5. Young Boy
6. Calico Skies
7. Flaming Pie
8. Heaven On A Sunday
9. Used To Be Bad
10. Souvenir
11. Little Willow
12. Really Love You
13. Beautiful Night
14. Great Day

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12307 in Music
• Released on: 1997-04-21
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
Just when everyone has given up on Sir Paul's ever releasing another decent pop song, he turns around and surprises us all with his best album since the mid-1970s. After working on the Beatles' Anthology series, he was reminded of the standards of music he'd long forgotten and was pressed to meet them. Even Jeff Lynne, who helped on much of it, kept himself very much in the background, and let Mac do the right thing, playing and singing most everything, with some help from Ringo and guitarist Steve Miller, whose presence was a mixed blessing. Even if the songs don't scale the heights of the Glory Years, they remind us of the true talent that was McCartney once again. A pleasure to the ears. --Chris Nickson

CD Description
Explaining how the Beatles got their name, John Lennon oncewrote, "A Man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them 'From this day on, you are Beatles with an 'A.'" Paul McCartney obviously has the Beatles on his mind on his first albumsince the BEATLES ANTHOLOGY blitz, and, as the title suggests, he's also keeping a healthy sense of humor about it. Thesongs on FLAMING PIE include a couple of quintessential Paul love ballads; some perky, Everly Brothers-style pop-rock; a stab at Aretha Franklin soul balladry of the sort the Beatles might well have tried in their later days; a screaming R&B throwaway that emerged from a jam with Ringo Starr; and, what the heck, a Texas blues number that features Paul and not-even-close-to-a-Beatle Steve Miller trading vocal lines. Some tunes feature Paul solo; others find him and Beatles disciple Jeff Lynne sharing the instruments and production. A couple add sweet orchestrations by Beatles producer George Martin, and one features Paul's son James on lead guitar.
It's a little bitta this and a little bitta that--sometimes silly, as on the title cut, which is a barrage of John Lennonesque nonsense lines, and sometimes touching, as on the acoustic love ballads "Somedays" and "Calico Skies". The formerfaintly echoes the melody of the Beatles' "For No One"; thelatter is as unabashed (and un-silly) a love song as McCartney has ever written.

Customer Reviews

Flaming Great
According to Paul McCartney, working on The Beatles Anthology project inspired him to record an album that was stripped back, immediate, and fun, one less studied and produced than most of his recent albums. In many ways, 'Flaming Pie' fulfils those goals. A largely acoustic collection of simple songs, 'Flaming Pie' is direct and unassuming, and at its best, it recalls the homely charm of "McCartney" and even "Ram". McCartney still has a tendency to wallow in trite sentiment, and his most ambitious numbers, like the string-drenched epic "Beautiful Night" or the silly Beatlesque psychedelia of "Flaming Pie", fall a little flat. However, when he works on a small scale, as on the waltzing "The Song We Were Singing", "Calico Skies", "Great Day", "Somedays" and "Little Willow", he's gently affecting, and the moderately rocking pop of "The World Tonight" and "Young Boy" is more ingratiating than the pair of the aimless bluesy jams with Steve Miller. 'Flaming Pie' is one of McCartney's most successful albums in every respect, mainly because McCartney is at his best when he doesn't try so hard and lets his effortless melodic gifts rise to the surface, which is evident in this truly wonderful album.

Just a man doing a job-to make music for the fans
Right from Day 1 the critics in one form or another sit behind their desks and push their pens.The World awaits for the judgment from these one time-rock-wannabbes-who-failed and its as if this is the County Court.
McCartney is on trial for a possible failure to communicate and as evidence here's the sales figures from his last album.Members of the Jury make your deliberations.....
The jury returns and the verdict is announced.Rubbish

Yes we've heard it so many times.When it happenned with RAM the result was a chart topper.

So its sales figures which say whether an album is good,bad or indifferent? Nothing to do with a composer who plucks notes out of the air,turns them into songs not even like any of his others and is able to convince millions he did the right thing?

I don't think I'd like to be a rock critic as I'm biased for one thing.I don't think I could say anything about Radiohead-why are their albums selling more than McCartneys-they are boring.
You've got to realise that McCartney has fingers in many (flaming) pies.His ambient and classical output for instance-something which began as far back as the mid 60s and "The Family Way".
This is an album which brings together many names from Beatles days.Its there for anybody who wants it.Sometimes albums don't need to sell in millions to prove their greatness-McCartney's already done that both collectively and individually.
And its also worth bearing in mind McCartney's penchant for reconstructing the Beatles songs or even his own later ones.Here's where Mccartney makes some of the best Beatles Cover Versions-after all he's the custodian of the legacy-the Keeper of the Flame.
As the Stones struggle to recapture former glories McCartney does it effortlessly with every album
With every new album you know he'll keep on trying something new,influenced by everything around him-even his son growing up

A must-buy
This 1997 released album contains fourteen wonderful new songs by Paul McCartney. Although Paul says of this album, "So I wanted to try to get back into some of that; to have some fun and not sweat it." But, it seems to me that this album has some of the best work he has done in years. If you like good, solid Paul McCartney music, then this album is a must-buy for you.

The paperwork with this album includes some nice pictures, the lyrics to all the songs, along with Paul's thoughts on the song. This is a great album that you must buy!