Tag Archives: ’em

#727: Wings – Let ’em In

So I’d got through The Beatles catalogue very quickly around 2009/10; the only logical way was to explore the band member’s solo material. I’m not on my house computer so I’m not able to tell you which albums I went to first and who out the four I listened to the most. As if you would want to know that anyway. From what I remember, Imagine and Band on the Run were instant downloads because I’d always heard just from television that they were must-hears. All Things Must Pass followed along the way. Other songs arrived here and there, including ‘Let ’em In’, which I either heard for the first time via a live Paul McCartney performance or on we7.com where the track played randomly. It was 10 years ago; the mind’s going.

‘Let ’em In’ begins Wings at the Speed of Sound, Paul McCartney’s fifth album with his band Wings from 1976. It’s a comforting track, made to welcome the listener to the record and what’s to follow. McCartney hears people knocking on his door and ringing the doorbell, including his brother and aunt, the Everly Brothers and German professor Martin Luther, and implores everyone to let them into the house to have some good times with some glorious harmonies courtesy of himself, Linda McCartney and other members of the group. All this done with a military-style drum beat that takes over at some points of the track and some tasteful horns during the instrumental break. I enjoy how the verses are basically anchored by one note on McCartney’s piano and Jimmy McCulloch’s bass. Builds a sense of tension that way. And as you think it’s going to fade out to silence, the final two notes of the whole track suddenly jump back to normal volume to properly close it out.

It’s a real song for the family, you know? Just one saying “Hey, good to see you, come inside, we’ve been waiting for ages.” Very sweet.

My iPod #499: Kanye West ft. Adam Levine – Heard ’em Say

“Uh, yeah” are the first ‘words’ we hear uttered by Kanye West on his second album Late Registration, after being ‘woken’ up by the pissed off teacher in the preceding opening skit. And after repeating those words three more times against a booming bass drum, Kanye proceeds to go straight into the first verse in which (and for the rest of the song) he raps about the blunt realities and truths of life alongside a dainty piano sample taken from ballad “Someone That I Used to Love” by Natalie Cole.

I don’t whether to feel happy or sad when listening to this. The soft and smooth instrumentation, from the sweet synthesizers and swooning keyboards are a huge contrast from the confident, joyous curb-stomper opener of “We Don’t Care” – a song released only under two years before. And the falsetto provided by Adam Levine in the choruses doesn’t help but pull on your heartstrings that bit more.

Probably one of the quietest and heartwarming productions Kanye has committed to tape, it is such a pleasant way to get an album such as Late Registration started. Then “Touch the Sky” starts, and then it all seems like it’s back to normal.

Here’s another version of a video you can see.