Recording: Venus And Mars by Wings

Sea-Saint Recording Studio, New Orleans
Producer: Paul McCartney
Engineers: Alan O’Duffy, Ken Laxton, Roberta Grace

Wings began recording the title track of the Venus And Mars album on 28 January 1975.

‘Venus And Mars’ had Paul McCartney on acoustic guitar, Jimmy McCulloch on acoustic 12-string, Denny Laine on Minimoog synth, and Linda McCartney on piano and Joe English on drums towards the end of the song.

Sometimes you write a song to be a concert opener because you wonder, ‘What am I going to open with?’ ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ is a good one because it’s inviting people to a show – ‘Roll up, roll up for the mystery tour’. We’re inviting people to come in. ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ we use nowadays because it’s got that big-bang chord. Certain songs work just because they’re welcoming, and I do like knowing I’m going to be doing them live. Sometimes I try and craft them with that in mind.

I’ve done this purposefully a few times, and ‘Venus And Mars’ is definitely one of those songs – ‘Sitting in the stand of the sports arena/Waiting for the show to begin’. It has a moody little opening and it’s spirited, and the arrangement is slightly operatic. But I’m less keen on the rest of the song, when it segues into ‘Rock Show’. I sort of get out of it quickly these days and segue to another song, like ‘Jet’.