After a year of ploughing through YouTube for videos, reading Wikipedia articles and downloading Beatles albums, the time came that it only made sense to listen to each member’s solo material. 2010 was the year. Not knowing where to start, I chose what I presumed to be the most popular solo albums – leaving me the options of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, Band on the Run and All Things Must Pass. Not too bad to start off with. My own experience with Band on the Run has varied with time. Twelve years ago, I thought it was great from front to back. Now I don’t revisit it too much. The songs are still enjoyable, but it does sound really 70s. Which does make sense seeing as it was recorded then. But you know when you hear something and it sounds like it could only have been released during that time.

So I haven’t really listened to a track from that album for some time, except ‘Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five’ which, in my eyes, beats all of the others on there hands down. It’s the album’s big finale. It’s a bop. It brings the album’s themes of love and escape into focus here, overloading it with a dramatic production of busy minor-chord pianos, harmonious backing vocals, organs, the whole lot. I don’t know if anyone’s put it down to a tee of what the track is about. McCartney stated that he had the song’s first line in his head for months before eventually carrying on with it. But what I gather from it is a ‘love will conquer all’ kind of message. While everyone’s thinking about themselves and their own worries, Paul and Linda (who I assume he’s probably singing about) don’t have so much of a burden because they have each other. Although, it could just be a case where the lyrics came to McCartney and sounded good with the music with not much thought put into them. It’s all speculation.

Really, the highlight of the entire track is its ending, which really begins with two minutes left of its running time. While Paul McCartney’s adlibbing in the background, grunting, yelling, wooping, making all kinds of noises, the instrumental builds and builds. McCartney’s going wild on the guitar performing these bends and licks. A droning synthesizer is introduced followed by blaring horns. What I think is a clarinet comes in and pulls of this crazy run of notes. The music gets louder and louder before crescendo-ing into its explosive final chord, which then segues into a reprise of the album’s opening track. I get goosebumps every time. A big fan of songs with great endings over here, and this one is up there with the best of them.