CLUB SANDWICH 70

MINING THE FILM AND VIDEO ARCHIVE

Time, once more, to breeze into the McCartney video vault, waft away the mists of time and consider again a couple of blasts from the past

HELEN WHEELS

            Rock and roll and the motor car were obviously made for each other, so well wedded are the sounds of guitar and drums and the image of male cruising down the highway, female at his side, hair blowing in the wind.
            Few exponents of the art have been able to resist the poetry in motion notion, and, to prove the point, a full 20 years before Paul McCartney "had a full gas tank" in 'Get Out Of My Way', he was getting his "right foot down" in 'Helen Wheels', the video of which we reappraise in this Film and Video Archive spot.
            An unusual song, 'Helen Wheels'. After all, even if you believe the story that Chuck Berry's motoring anthem 'Maybellene' was named after a cow, not many hit singles are named after a Land Rover. And while Americans may take delight in singing about Oklahoma, St Louis and New York, there aren't too many hits that embrace the virtues of British towns the likes of Glasgow, Carlisle and Kendal.
            Be that as it may, 'Helen Wheels' was all of this. Recorded in Lagos, Nigeria, during sessions for Band On The Run, it was issued towards the end of 1973 as a stand-alone single independent of that album. (In America, to be fair, it was included, but this was more of a marketing than an artistic move.) The recent departure of Messrs Seiwell and McCullough meant that Wings, a threesome, were no longer ideally suited to the live performance medium, so a promo film was shot which negated the need for yet another visit to the studios of Top Of The Pops and other such TV programmes of the day.
            In keeping with a deal of Wings' early efforts - what Paul and Linda have often referred to as their "funky" period - the promo for 'Helen Wheels' was a casual, ad hoc business, devoid of intricacies such as a shooting script. Basically, picking up the motoring theme, the film has Paul, Linda and Denny sharing the front bench-seat of an open-top Rolls-Royce, being filmed from a vehicle travelling in front of them. As Roy Benson, who edited the film, remembers, "The footage came into the editing suite daily, over two or three days. Paul would simply bring in the latest cans of film saying 'This is today's lot'. It was all very uncoordinated, very seat-of-the-pants. They simply went out with a cameraman, and also hitched a camera to the side of a car, and let the film run."
            That pretty much describes it, actually - the finished print represents three minutes in the lives of three musicians in 1973, driving none-too-steadily down an English country A-road one autumn day. The sight doubtless would have freaked Paul's motor insurers: he's standing-up and singing (miming)/mugging to the camera and driving a costly Roller at the same time.
            But this wasn't quite all, for Wings also went into the film studio to mime some very brief sequences with their respective instruments, Paul playing the drums (as he had on the recording) as well as lead guitar and his Red Rose Speedway bass, Denny the rhythm guitar and Linda - her hair in ringlets, and each fingernail painted a different colour (well, this was the Glam Rock era) - the synth. There's one especially funny moment when, after giving the camera a Wings hand-sign, Linda accidentally gives a two-finger salute instead of a thumbs-up. The authenticity of the error is proven by the guilty look and slightly embarrassed laughter which quickly follows.
            To say the very least, the Beatles were a hard act to follow, and as Wings were still a comparatively new outfit in 1973, scarcely two years young, band branding was especially important. So in addition to the hand gesturing, the video began with Paul, Linda and Denny unfurling a WINGS cloth banner, and concluded with Paul and Denny returning same its to its folded state. None the worse for this "rough 'n' ready" approach, the finished film easily conveyed the fast moving action of the song and helped push the single to the Top 20 in Britain and the Top 10 in America. Can't be bad.