Lazy Dynamite

‘Lazy Dynamite’ is the second song in the medley that closes Wings’ second album Red Rose Speedway.

Well, I kinda like the idea of medleys, as it’s structured. It’s sort of operatic, you know. And it’s good fun putting things like this together, finding little links and ways to go from this to that. We had done it on the Abbey Road album, at the end. And what we’d done there was John and I both had bits of songs that we hadn’t finished. So we put them into a medley and it worked. So this was me doing it again.

The song was written by McCartney during Wings’ UK university tour, and initially had the title ‘Baby Dynamite’.

As with Abbey Road, the songs in the 11-minute Red Rose Speedway medley were recorded separately. ‘Lazy Dynamite’ was recorded in three takes at Abbey Road on 16 September 1972, the last of which was chosen as the best. McCartney played piano and sang a guide vocal, and Denny Laine played harmonica.

Denny Seiwell then overdubbed drums, McCartney added his lead vocals, and the band added two tracks of harmony vocals. Henry McCullough also taped an electric guitar part that was left out of the final mix.

‘Lazy Dynamite’ was completed on 8 October with additional electric guitar, drums, and percussion.

I remember it being really torture for the band doing ‘Hold Me Tight’ and ‘Lazy Dynamite’, because it’s very empty. There’s lots of space with just the voice on both ‘Hold Me Tight’ and ‘Lazy Dynamite’. It’s all vocal, almost a capella.

The songs in the medley were never performed live by Paul McCartney or Wings.