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May-August 1970

Home recordings - "Ram" demos

For Paul McCartney

Last updated on December 8, 2023

Circa 2011, according to a post on the Steve Hoffman Music Forums, a cassette tape containing 29 demos was re-discovered in High Park Farm, Paul McCartney’s farm in Scotland. Those demos are believed to have been recorded between May and August 1970, when Paul, Linda and their two daughters retreated in Scotland to escape London.

If this post is correct, these demos contain songs that would be recorded for the “RAM” album, as well as “Wild Life”.

From Steve Hoffman Music Forums, February 7, 2012:

Recorded in Scotland and in London for a period of 4 months ( May to August ), here is the listing of the 29 songs put on tape just before going to New York ). But sorry, no other infos, and never heard any of them. Just have the listing thanks to a good friend of mine, with handwriting notes by an unknown listener, could be Eddy Pumer. Enjoy. I hope we will hear these one day.


Can you remember an average day of your life. I believe you spent a lot of time in Scotland.

Yeah, at the beginning of the album, when I was writing it, I spent a lot of time in Scotland, and the average day there would be: get up, have breakfast with the family, then maybe go into my little studio. I always had a little four track studio, which is what The Beatles always used to record on. That’s a real discipline recording on a four track, you’ve either gotta know exactly what you’re doing or you have got to start bouncing tracks. You can imagine, when you get into that, it’s addictive.

On a average day, I could have done that. I could have gone for a horse ride, as Linda was a big horse rider. At some point in the day we would have gone for a horse ride. I might have played with the kids, and they liked to go on horse rides too. Then in the evening, I’d drink whisky, of which there was a large supply in Scotland.

I do remember watching an interview where you said you maybe drank a little bit too much Whisky…

Yeah… no I did, yeah. That was kind of a feature of that time, because what happened was The Beatles, towards the end, was very constricting. You were in a corporate world suddenly, and I’m sure you know all about that. It’s not what you get into music for, but it’s there, it’s a fact of life, especially when you were the label. We were doing Apple, The Beatles ‘Apple’, and it got very heavy, so me and Linda escaped with the kids, but the business hassles were still there. So I think I was just trying to escape in my own mind. I had the freedom to have just have a drink whenever I fancied it. I’d go into the studio, maybe have another drink and so on. I over did it, basically, I got to a point where Linda had to say ‘look, you should cool it’.

Did you find at that time that you had a structured way of working? When you did McCartney I through to RAM, was that from a backlog of a big wealth of material or did you stop and have a writer’s block and then write a bunch of new material?

Some of it I had from just sitting around my house with my acoustic. Most of them, I would just sit down and write. Having written with John for all those years, we had a kind of system, which was: you just sat with a pad of paper and a pencil, and you sat at your guitar or your piano, and you make a song, and within about three hours, you should have finished the song. That’s how we always did it. So I continued to do it that way.

I remember with some songs, I would go out into the fields if it was a nice day with my guitar, so those would probably be like ‘Heart of the Country’ and the more pastoral efforts. It was mainly just what I’ve always done. Then, if I would have a writer’s block, I look back now and can say that was the over stimulation. I’d be getting like ‘heeyyyy, nice and fuzzy’ and it’s not a good thing to write. Least for me it’s not. Me and John were always very straight when we wrote, and it was normally in the middle of the day when you had your wits about you.

Looking back on it, the writer’s block that I would have occasionally, would just be getting hung up on a phrase. You know, ‘sweet little long-haired lady’, ‘fine little long-haired baby’, and you’d just go on for hours on this one phrase. What I’d do now – and I was just saying this up in Liverpool to some of my ‘songwriter students’ – is that if you ever get a block, just steamroll through it and fix it later.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Drowned In Sound, 2012

Session activities

  1. Heart Of The Country

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • "great voice and feel"

  2. Too Many People

    Written by Paul McCartney

    Recording • "embryonic version"

  3. 4th Of July

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • Under the name "Why Am I Crying" with comment "embryonic"

  4. The Back Seat Of My Car

    Written by Paul McCartney

    Recording • "wonderful"

  5. Another Day

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • Under the name "Just Another Day" with comment "great"

  6. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • Under the name "Gypsy Get Around" with comment "on ukulele"

  7. Ram On

    Written by Paul McCartney

    Recording • "on ukulele"

  8. Sunshine Sometime

    Written by Paul McCartney

    Recording • "cool"

  9. When The Wind Is Blowing

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • Under the name "Rupert Guitar Song Instrumental" with comment "with whistling"

  10. Little Lamb Dragonfly

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • Under the name "Rupert Little Lamb Dragonfly" with comment "magical"

  11. Smile Away

    Written by Paul McCartney

    Recording • "at the end Paul talks to Linda about having Jimi Hendrix and a jazz drummer for forming a trio to records this song soon"

  12. Love Is Long

    Recording • "with Linda and unknown verses"

  13. Eat at Home

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • Under the name "Eat At Home/Buddy's Breakfast/Indeed I Do", with comment "medley with Linda, loose"

  14. Monkberry Moon Delight

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • Under the name "Monkberry Moon Delight/Frenzy" with comment "medley, wonderful and crazy"

  15. Get On The Right Thing

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • "another chat between Paul and Linda at the end about Jimi's possible involvement, great take"

  16. Little Woman Love

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording

  17. Country Dreamer

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • "with insects noise"

  18. Long Haired Lady

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • "with Linda"

  19. I Lie Around

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • "country feel"

  20. 3 Legs

    Written by Paul McCartney

    Recording • "drunk version, totally out of tune"

  21. We're So Sorry

    Recording • a.k.a Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey - "drunk too"

  22. A Love For You

    Written by Paul McCartney

    Recording • "bluesy slow version"

  23. She Can't Be Found

    Recording • a.k.a Hey Diddle - "country tune"

  24. Some People Never Know

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • "great home version"

  25. Hands Across The Water

    Recording • a.k.a. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey - "fun but too long"

  26. Tomorrow

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • "with a fun quote about yesterday at the end, Paul said he wrote this as a game"

  27. Big Barn Bed

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • "embryonic version on guitar"

  28. Great Day

    Written by Paul McCartney

    Recording • "with the kids around"

  29. I Am Your Singer

    Written by Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman / McCartney

    Recording • "with Linda"


Going further

Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989

With 25 albums of pop music, 5 of classical – a total of around 500 songs – released over the course of more than half a century, Paul McCartney's career, on his own and with Wings, boasts an incredible catalogue that's always striving to free itself from the shadow of The Beatles. The stories behind the songs, demos and studio recordings, unreleased tracks, recording dates, musicians, live performances and tours, covers, events: Music Is Ideas Volume 1 traces McCartney's post-Beatles output from 1970 to 1989 in the form of 346 song sheets, filled with details of the recordings and stories behind the sessions. Accompanied by photos, and drawing on interviews and contemporary reviews, this reference book draws the portrait of a musical craftsman who has elevated popular song to an art-form.

Buy on Amazon

Eight Arms to Hold You: The Solo Beatles Compendium

We owe a lot to Chip Madinger and Mark Easter for the creation of those session pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details!

Eight Arms To Hold You: The Solo Beatles Compendium is the ultimate look at the careers of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr beyond the Beatles. Every aspect of their professional careers as solo artists is explored, from recording sessions, record releases and tours, to television, film and music videos, including everything in between. From their early film soundtrack work to the officially released retrospectives, all solo efforts by the four men are exhaustively examined.

As the paperback version is out of print, you can buy a PDF version on the authors' website

Buy on Amazon

Maccazine - Volume 40, Issue 3 - RAM Part 1 - Timeline

This very special RAM special is the first in a series. This is a Timeline for 1970 – 1971 when McCartney started writing and planning RAM in the summer of 1970 and ending with the release of the first Wings album WILD LIFE in December 1971. [...] One thing I noted when exploring the material inside the deluxe RAM remaster is that the book contains many mistakes. A couple of dates are completely inaccurate and the story is far from complete. For this reason, I started to compile a Timeline for the 1970/1971 period filling the gaps and correcting the mistakes. The result is this Maccazine special. As the Timeline was way too long for one special, we decided to do a double issue (issue 3, 2012 and issue 1, 2013).

Paul McCartney writing

Talk more talk, chat more chat

Notice any inaccuracies on this page? Have additional insights or ideas for new content? Or just want to share your thoughts? We value your feedback! Please use the form below to get in touch with us.

Hailey • 1 year ago

worth saying the single source for this is a Hoffman post, until there's more information that supports this tape existing it would be worth stating this as of dubious authenticity


The PaulMcCartney Project • 1 year ago

Thanks Hailey, you're right, and I will reformulate.


Luca • 1 year ago

Hi, the tape exists, according to the information among collectors (not only rumors). Two tracks from this tape emerged so far:

- "Country Dreamer" (only on bootleg, surfaced many years ago, must be around 2005. It is not widely known but it's a fascinanting recording)

- "Indeed, I Do" (officially released on the Wild Life reissue in 2018, but appeared in a longer version on bootleg in the mid-Nineties, where you can hear - at the end of this song - the ukulele used for "Ram On")


webvan • 6 days ago

This tape is also mentioned in the McCartney Legacy 69/73 and based on the comments there it seems they've heard it...or are reproducing the comments made by the "listener" ? For instance they mention the ukulele on "Gypsy Get Around".


The PaulMcCartney Project • 6 days ago

Thanks webvan. "McCartney Legacy Volume 1" is on my shelf ; but haven't read it yet !


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