Beautiful Night

Paul had written this song during the mid eighties. A recording made in New York had been lying on the shelf, unused, since 1986, admired by those who had had heard it but not quite the ideal version as far as Paul was concerned.

Working on the Beatles Anthology inpired Paul to collaborate with Ringo Starr again.

Much attention around the release is expected to be caused by director Julien Temple's spectacular - and lengthy - video, which includes scenes of actress Emma Moore stripping naked to go skinny dipping in the River Mersey and also sees Paul performing with a new band of 16-year-old London schoolboys whilst being "bombed" by falling TV sets.

"I think everyone who makes a record always has that option, to leave the daft stuff on at the end", said Paul, "You nearly always fade it out but at the end of Beautiful Night. It has been such a good take that Ringo started having fun, acting like he was a doorman, throwing people out. I love that so much, it's very Beatley. It's a very Beatley idea to do that, because we did a bit of that in the group.

"But Beautiful Night also actually sounds a bit Beatley too. In fact, I swear that at the end of Beautiful Night you can almost hear a sort of very John Lennony voice in there. Listen to it, check it out.

"It was a bit eerie listening to that - and I thought 'Wow! It's so Beatley sounding, that. I love it".

Paul: "Ringo and I had not worked together for a long time before we did Free As A Bird. Then we did Real Love and it was just such a laugh that I said I was doing a new album and I'd love for him to drum on a couple of tracks.

"So I got Beautiful Night together, Ringo came down to my studio and we did it and it was such great fun. It was really good to see that Ringo and I locked in, the Beatles rhythm section, drum and bass, we just locked in. It would have been kindo of disappointing if we'd lost it, but we hadn't. I suppose we'd just played together for so many years with The Beatles that it was still there and really easy to record together".

Ringo added: "Paul invited me to play on Beautiful Night and I said 'sure' because it was a beautiful track. We spent the day recording together and I still feel really comfortable playing with his bass-playing - well, playing with him basically, that drums and bass. We have all that history and it all comes into play when we play together. You just can't dismiss that".

Although he admits to the influence of the spirit of The Beatles Anthology on many of the songs on Flaming Pie, Paul says he didn't set out to replicate his past.

"I didn't consciously start off trying to make a Beatles sound, although these days I don't try to avoid it", said Paul.

"There are a lot of other people trying to make that same sound, with great success too. But that's good, it's a turn-on for me. I suppose you could say that when I play it's sort of a Beatles sound anyway. I didn't avoid it or go for it. It just came out that way".

George Martin put together the orchestra which appears on the track. The single and video were released in 1998. The album was released in 1997.