Recording sessions for RAM took place in New York, at the "A and R" studios between January and March 1971. As well as the 11 1/2 tracks for this album listed below, other tracks are recorded which will appear on future albums, singles, and some will remain unissued. The extra tracks recorded at these sessions are :
"Another Day" and "Oh Woman Oh Why", released as a single.
The first recorded version of "Seaside Woman" (a future single),
"Dear Friend" saved for the album "Wild Life",
"Get On The Right Thing", left until "Red Rose Speedway",
"Little Lamb Dragonfly" unfinished until the "Red Rose Speedway" sessions,
"Now Hear This Song Of Mine" released on "Brung To Ewe By",
"When The Wind Is Blowing" and "Sunshine Sometime" saved for "Rupert The Bear" years later,
and unreleased tracks, "A Love For You" and "Rode All Night" ... the latter evolved into a song given to Roger Daltrey called "Giddy".
With advance orders of over 100,000 "Ram" entered the U.K. charts straight in at number 1, where it knocked The Rolling Stones album "Sticky Fingers" off of the top slot. Unfortunately, after two weeks in pole position, Sticky Fingers regained it's place. Still, with the sales it did achieve, "Ram" is announced that it is the "Best Selling Album of the Month".
Paul and Linda filmed some home movies in January of the year, which later were edited together to become a "promo" video for the album. At the time in 1971, the top U.K. music T.V. programme was "Top Of The Pops" and it had an album slot, and it is here on 24th June that "3 Legs" and "Heart Of The Country" are shown in a very rare screening.
The highly glossy sleeve has artwork by Paul and photographs by Linda. The images include two beetles mating, and a very pointed picture of two clowns in Bags. Hidden on the front cover in the right-hand wavy design are the letters "L.I.L.Y." - "Linda I Love You".
There is also a rare limited edition "Ram" publicity single (1,000 copies) called Brung To Ewe By. It includes 15 short adverts by Paul and Linda which are intended as radio teasers, with a repetitive refrain of "Now hear this song of mine", plus sounds of the McCartney sheep bleating !
The album includes six tracks with joint husband and wife writing credits, which annoyed Lew Grade, who owned the publishing company. Linda has to undergo stringent interviews to state her part in the creation of the tracks.
More controversy (and publicity ?) occurs when John Lennon takes some of the tracks to be personal insults, and retaliates later in the year on the Imagine album with the tracks "How Do You Sleep" and "Crippled Inside".
Finally, Paul was so pleased with the tunes on "Ram", that he made a full orchestral re-make the same year under the pseudonym Percy "Thrills" Thrillington, although it wasn't released by E.M.I. until 1977.
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