"Beautiful Night" is a song by

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

and is the 13th track on his 1997

album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

Flaming Pie ''Flaming Pie'' is the tenth solo studio album by English musician Paul McCartney, released on 5 May 1997 by Parlophone in the UK and Capitol Records in the US. His first studio album in over four years, it was mostly recorded after McCartney's ...

''. In December 1997, it was released as the third and final

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

from that album, peaking at number 25 in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

(see

1997 in British music This is a summary of 1997 in music in the United Kingdom, including the official charts from that year. Summary Oasis released their highly anticipated third album, '' Be Here Now'', on 21 August (in the UK). It sold 695,761 copies in its fi ...

). The single featured "Love Come Tumbling Down" and "Same Love" as b-sides both of which were previously unreleased tracks and were recorded in 1987 and 1988 respectively. The song was originally recorded in August 1986 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. That version can be heard on the CD single as part of the "

Oobu Joobu # ''Oobu Joobu'' was a radio show created, directed and presented by Paul McCartney. It was described by McCartney as "wide-screen radio". The program aired in 1995 on the American radio network Westwood One and its name was inspired by a BBC prod ...

" section. The 1986 version was officially released as a stand-alone track in 2020 as a free download on McCartney's website. The song is the first of three collaborations McCartney recorded with

Ringo Starr Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the ...

during ''Flaming Pie'' sessions as well as an orchestration by

George Martin Sir George Henry Martin (3 January 1926 – 8 March 2016) was an English record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, and musician. He was commonly referred to as the "Fifth Beatle" because of his extensive involvement in each of the B ...

, recorded at

Abbey Road Studios Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Recording Studios) is a recording studio at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music c ...

Critical reception

A reviewer from ''

Music Week ''Music Week'' is a trade publication for the UK record industry distributed via a website and a monthly print magazine. It is published by Future. History Founded in 1959 as '' Record Retailer'', it relaunched on 18 March 1972 as ''Music W ...

'' gave "Beautiful Night" four out of five, stating that "this epic single stands as McCartney's best ballad since

Only Love Remains "Only Love Remains" is the fourth single from Paul McCartney's 1986 album, ''Press to Play''. The song reached number 34 on the UK Singles Chart. Release The song was released as a 7" single and a 12" maxi single. The single version of "Only Lo ...

and is a testament to his recaptured form on ''Flaming Pie''." The magazine's Alan Jones wrote, "Thus far, much of the attention surrounding the new Paul McCartney single Beautiful Night has centred on how lavish and controversial the video is. But it's a vintage piece of McCartney, quite literally since it's an old song dusted down and renovated with an impeccable

score and one of Macca's best vocals in a good while, with extra Beatley support coming from

and surrogate Beatle

Jeff Lynne Jeffrey Lynne (born 30 December 1947) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer. He is best known as the co-founder of the rock music, rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), which was formed in 1970. As a songwriter, h ...

." Claudia Connell from ''

News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling En ...

'' said that "Macca serves up his best work for years. With Ringo Starr on drums and George Martin producing, it is little wonder that it sounds so much like the Fab Four."Connell, Claudia (14 December 1997). "The Goss The Biz; Single review". ''

''.

Music video

The

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...

accompanying the single was directed by

Julien Temple Julien Temple (born 26 November 1953) is a British film, documentary and music video director. He began his career with short films featuring the Sex Pistols, and has continued with various off-beat projects, including ''The Great Rock 'n' Roll ...

and had to be re-edited as a brief glimpse of a woman

skinnydipping Nude swimming is the practice of swimming without clothing, whether in natural bodies of water or in swimming pools. A colloquial term for nude swimming is '' skinny-dipping''. In both British and American English, to swim means "to move throu ...

caused a minor controversy. Also appearing in the video were

Linda McCartney Linda Louise McCartney, Lady McCartney ( Eastman; September 24, 1941 – April 17, 1998) was an American photographer, musician, animal rights activist, vegetarian cookbook author and advocate, and entrepreneur. She was the keyboardist in th ...

(her final appearance in a music video) and the band

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(although they are shown performing with McCartney, they did not contribute to the recording of the track). The video debuted during an appearance on ''

The Oprah Winfrey Show ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', often referred to as ''The Oprah Show'' or simply ''Oprah'', is an American daytime broadcast syndication, syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicag ...

''.

Track listings

*7" , CD1 #"Beautiful Night" – 5:03 #"Love Come Tumbling Down" – 4:21 #"Oobu Joobu" (Part 5) – 10:15 (CD only) *CD2 #"Beautiful Night" – 5:08 #"Same Love" – 3:53 #"Oobu Joobu" (Part 6) – 8:33

Oobu Joobu information

The "Oobu Joobu" songs are a series of demos, interviews, and unreleased songs jumbled together into one track. The name is taken from McCartney's radio program, ''

''. *"Oobu Joobu" (Part 5) contains: #"And Now" – 0:10 #"Oobu Joobu Main Theme" – 1:14 #Beautiful Night Chat – 0:09 #Paul and Ringo talk about "Beautiful Night" – 2:06 #Ringo Chat – 0:09 #"Beautiful Night (Flaming Pie Mix)" – 1:31 #"Beautiful Night (Original Version)" – 4:02 #Goodbyes – 0:17 #"Oobu Joobu Main Theme" – 0:37 *"Oobu Joobu" (Part 6) contains: #"This One" (jingle) – 0:08 #"Oobu Joobu Main Theme" – 0:32 #"Oobu Joobu We Love You" – 0:15 #Paul talks about

Abbey Road ''Abbey Road'' is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It is the last album the group started recording, although ''Let It Be'' was the last album completed before the band's break-up in April 1970. It was mostly re ...

– 0:43 #"

Strawberry Fields Forever "Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released on 13 February 1967 as a double A-side single with "Penny Lane". It represented a departur ...

" (Paul solo) – 0:14 #Paul talks about Abbey Road – 1:31 #"Come on Baby" – 0:54 #Paul talks about Abbey Road – 0:18 #"Come on Baby (contd.)" – 0:33 #Paul ends chat about Abbey Road – 0:22 #"Okay are You Ready" (jingle) – 0:10 #"Love Mix" – 3:02 #"Widescreen Radio" (jingle) – 0:05 #Goodbye – 0:18 #"Oobu Joobu Main Theme" – 0:48

Personnel

– Lead vocals and backing vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, piano, Wurlitzer electric piano, hammond organ, additional percussion *

– backing vocals *

– backing vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar *

– backing and lead vocals, drums, percussion *

– orchestral arrangement * David Snell – conductor *

Geoff Emerick Geoffrey Ernest Emerick (5 December 1945 – 2 October 2018) was an English sound engineer and record producer who worked with the Beatles on their albums '' Revolver'' (1966), '' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (1967) and ''Abbey Road ...

– orchestral sessions audio engineer *

Jon Jacobs Jon Jacobs (born 10 September 1966 in Derbyshire, England) is an English actor, entrepreneur, director, producer, writer, and creator of the avatar Neverdie from the virtual world ''Entropia Universe'' that Reuters described as "a legendary ad ...

– orchestral sessions engineer *Peter Cabbin – orchestral sessions engineer * Paul Hicks – orchestral sessions engineer *

Susan Milan Susan Milan ( ; born 3 September 1947) is an English professor of flute of the Royal College of Music, classical performer, recording artiste, composer, author and entrepreneur. Biography Susan Milan was born in London, the daughter of civil s ...

– flute

Charts

References

External links

Paul McCartney – Beautiful Night
at Graham Calkin's Beatles Pages. {{authority control 1996 songs 1997 singles Paul McCartney songs Song recordings produced by Jeff Lynne Parlophone singles Songs written by Paul McCartney Song recordings produced by Paul McCartney Music published by MPL Music Publishing Music videos directed by Julien Temple Music video controversies