Recording: Mull Of Kintyre by Wings

Spirit of Ranachan Studio, Low Ranachan Farm, Campbeltown, Scotland
Producer: Paul McCartney
Engineers: Geoff Emerick, Mark Vigars

Following the sacking of guitarist Jimmy McCulloch, on 9 August 1977 Wings continued recording ‘Mull Of Kintyre’.

The basic track had been recorded the day before, and featured just Paul McCartney and Denny Laine. This day’s session was primarily for the recording of the bagpipes and drums, played by the 14 members of the Campbeltown Pipe Band.

The pipes on the track are the local pipes band, the actual Kintyre pipers. They all live there now. They are all farmers, farmers’ sons and an ex-copper from Glasgow. They are a nice bunch. We had done the song so I gave them a tape and a fellow came up to my house with his bagpipes. He was going to play them but he decided it would be a bit too loud indoors so we went out into the garden and he starts tuning up. I took my guitar out and found out what key he was in, ’cause I don’t know anything about bagpipes. I still don’t, actually. So we worked it out, I gave him a tape, he went back, rehearsed it with his lads and then came up a couple of weeks later. I said, ‘Are you having any problems with it?’ They said, ‘No, no problems.’

The bagpipers were pipe major Tony Wilson, pipe sergeant Dougie Lang, John McGeachy, Ian McKerral, Archie Coffield, John Lang Brown, and David McIvor, and the drummers were drum sergeant Campbell Maloney, Ian McKenzie, David Hastie, Jimmy McGeachy, bass drummer Tommy Blue, and tenor drummers Ian Campbell and John McCallum.

Studio engineer Geoff Emerick used ten Neumann KM84 microphones to record the bagpipes, which took around three takes to capture. The microphones were then repositioned outside Spirit of Ranachan Studio to record the drums. The drum overdub began at around 10pm, and the players double-tracked their performance.

With the recording complete, Wings’ roadie Trevor Jones brought in a wheelbarrow containing McEwan’s beer, Famous Grouse whisky, Coca-Cola, and lemonade. The young Mary and Stella McCartney were the evenings waitresses, and the party went on until 1am, when the Pipe Band’s minibus arrived to take them back into the town. Some of the musicians, however, were reportedly found comatose on the farm the next day.

When we finished it, all the pipers said, ‘Aye, it’s got to be a single, that.’ It was up to them, really, to do it. I thought it was a little too specialised to bring out as a single, you would have to bring out something that has something with more mass appeal. But they kept saying, ‘Oh, the exiled Scots all over the world. It’ll be a big single for them.’ Yet I still thought, ‘Yeah, well, but there’s maybe not enough exiled Scots,’ but they kept telling me, after a few drinks.

McCartney subsequently received criticism after it emerged that, despite enormous royalties from global sales, the musicians had been paid just a standard union rate of £350, plus £30 for appearing in the song’s video. He later sent a bonus cheque for £200 to each performer. Furthermore, the success of ‘Mull Of Kintyre’ allowed the Campbeltown Pipe Band to record and release their own music.

All the boys are proud to have played on the record. McCartney’s a genius. The pipes are part of Scotland and there is nothing new in that. But now the Arabs are making this offer to teach them how to play, it’s tremendous! I won’t be going because we’re recording soon. Aye, ‘Mull Of Kintyre’ will be on it and it would be disloyal for me to leave the boys now. They’re grand boys.

Paul’s song has done wonders for Kintyre but we won’t be earning royalties from the song. We were paid as session musicians for the job. We did the job and got paid for it and that’s that.