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   CLUB SANDWICH 58

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MINING THE FILM AND VIDEO ARCHIVE

Rather quietly, when he's not been engaged in a myriad other tasks, Paul McCartney has built up a somewhat prodigiously-stocked archive of films and video tapes over the past 20 years. The majority, of course, are sonj promos, most every classic album track or single from 'Maybe I'm Amazed' on. But there are also featurettes and full long-form projects, not all of which have seen the light of a projector, let alone day. This revival of the Club Sandwich series, dipping into the archive, begins with a look at two promos made a full nineteen years apart.

Club Sandwich 58

HEART OF THE COUNTRY Club Sandwich 58

            From the days when promos were not promos but "clips", and when said clips were shot on film, not video, has survived a charming little 16mm print for this Ram album track. Yes, that's right, a promo clip for a track not issued as a single (unless one counts B-sides, that is, for 'Heart Of The Country' served as the reverse of 'Back Seat Of My Car').
            To further emphasise that times do indeed change, back in 1971, Top Of The Pops would feature not just rising chart singles but interesting new album tracks. Had you been viewing - and perhaps you were - the evening of 24 June 1971, you would have seen 'Heart Of The Country', and also a film for '3 Legs', sandwiched between Hurricane Smith's 'Don't Let It Die' (appropriate, really, for crooner Hurricane, when he was the less stormy EMI balance engineer Norman, worked the desk on all Beatles recordings up to 1965) and Smokey Robinson's 'I Don't Blame You At All'.
            "There was a rush," remembers clip editor Roy Benson, "so I went up to the BBC in person, straight from the edit suite in Wardour Street, and delivered the film to the Top Of The Pops office. I was hoping to have a few more days work on it, actually, to do some special optical effects, doubling up images and that sort of thing, but there just wasn't time." Paul hired Benson remembering his sterling and imaginative splicing work on Magical Mystery Tour four years earlier.
            Produced by Paul and shot mute (ie, without sound) on their Scottish farm just a few days before the TOTP broadcast, 'Heart Of The Country' was basically a film of two lovers, Paul and Linda, married but two years, enjoying the freedom of the hills and dunes, nuzzling and holding hands, sauntering on a nearby beach, casting warm glances and galloping their horses up hill and down dale. Linda, actually, was six months pregnant with daughter Stella when the film was shot, and it showed.
            At no point in the film did Paul and Linda attempt to mime to the music: the clip was shot purely to back the sentiments of 'Heart Of The Country', which was very much your typical McCartney lifestyle in 1971. "It's what Linda and I used to call our funky period," remembers Paul today. "We were fed up with the fame and the fortune and tried to turn our backs. It kind of gave us a breathing space before starting again. So that was how we thought to do it, just go and have some kids in Scotland, write a couple of little songs about the heart of the country and let someone film it."
            Canine students might also be pleased to note the occasional appearance of Martha, her legend well established by this time. Clearly an obedient sheepdog, she showed great interest in the socks and boots flung onto the sand by Paul and Linda prior to paddling into the sea toward the end of the clip, as if she were about to fetch and return said items to their owners.