Paul McCartney & Wings’ classic album Band on the Run arrived 50 years ago this week. Coinciding with the milestone comes news that an expanded reissue of the record will be released on February 2, 2024. The deluxe Band on the Run 50th Anniversary Edition will feature the original 10-track U.S. version of the album. Additionally, they’ll be an extra disc offering “underdubbed” mixes of the nine songs from the original U.K. release.
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The Band on the Run (Underdubbed) collection features mixes of the nine tunes stripped of orchestral overdubs. These previously unreleased rough mixes were created by longtime Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, with assistance from Pete Swettenham, in October 1973 at producer George Martin’s AIR Studios. The record’s track list features an alternate running order that reflects how the songs appeared on the original analog tapes found in McCartney’s archives.
“This is Band on the Run in a way you’ve never heard before,” McCartney said in a statement about the stripped-down mixes. “When you are making a song and putting on additional parts, like an extra guitar, that’s an overdub. Well, this version of the album is the opposite, underdubbed.”
The expanded Band on the Run will be available as a two-CD set, and as a double-LP collection that features a half-speed-mastered edition of the 10-track version of the album, cut using a high-res transfer of the original 1973 master tapes. A single-LP version of the reissue also will be available, as will a digital release of the Band on the Run (Underdubbed) collection.
In addition, Band on the Run will be made available for the first time on the Dolby Atmos format, in a new mix created by Giles Martin and Steve Orchard. In advance of the reissue, the “Underdubbed” mix of the song “Band on the Run” will be released as a digital track this Thursday, December 7.
You can pre-order the Band on the Run 50th Anniversary Edition now.
Released in the U.S. on December 5, 1973, Band on the Run became McCartney’s most successful post-Beatles studio album, selling more than 3 million in the U.S., and spending four non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart in 1974.
Band on the Run included three top-10 singles: the chart-topping title track; “Jet,” which reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100; and “Helen Wheels,” which peaked at No. 10 on the Hot 100. In the U.K., “Helen Wheels” did not appear on Band on the Run, and was issued as a non-album single.
Meanwhile, McCartney currently is winding down his 2023 Got Back Tour with his backing band in Brazil. The trek continues tonight, December 4, with a show in Belo Horizonte, and wraps up on December 16 in Rio de Janeiro. Check out his full upcoming schedule at PaulMcCartney.com.
Here’s the track list for the deluxe versions of Band on the Run 50th Anniversary Edition:
Disc One: Band on the Run
1. “Band on the Run”
2. “Jet”
3. “Bluebird”
4. “Mrs. Vandebilt”
5. “Let Me Roll It”
6. “Mamunia”
7. “No Words”
8. “Helen Wheels”
9. “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)”
10. “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five”
Disc Two: Band on the Run (Underdubbed Mixes)
- “Band on the Run”
- “Mamunia”
- “No Words”
- “Jet”
- “Bluebird”
- “Mrs. Vandebilt”
- “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five”
- “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)”
- “Let Me Roll It”
