Gerry McGee:Wings’ first release under the Columbia label was the discoinspired ‘Goodnight Tonight’ single, which was promoted with a simple yet stylish video of the band dressed in 1920s gear, intercut with the band in present-day 1979. The song was completely different from anything Wings had done, and it showcased Laurence Juber’s excellent classical guitar work throughout the cut.
Geoffrey Giuliano:The record's acoustic B side, incidentally, "Daytime Nightime Suffering" remains Paul and Linda's all-time favorite solo track. Ironically, it is one of the artist's most obscure, virtually never-played, tunes.
Gerry McGee:When Wings were recording Back to the Egg, Paul had announced to the other band members that if they could come up with a good enough song, it would be recorded and put on the B-side of the single. Such a generous gesture opened financial doors for the other band members, as the song could earn a small fortune as the flip side of a hit single. Each member—including Linda—spent the weekend trying to compose the song, but when Monday morning rolled around, Paul announced that he had written “the one.” It was included as the B-side of “Goodnight Tonight,” which hit the top ten on both sides of the Atlantic in the spring of 1979 and went gold in the United States.
On 16 March 1979, the documentary of the 1975-76 world tour was belatedly and finally televised as Wings over the World in the United States (8 April in the United Kingdom). The delay was primarily due to the quality of the sound that was recorded with the film footage. “The sound wasn’t that excellent,” Paul said. “If you try and re-record the sound again, you'll lose the whole atmosphere.” He and Chris Thomas worked with various electronic equipment to remedy the problem. Although interesting to view, the Wings of 1976 was not the Wings of 1979, and the project was simply two years overdue to capture any new fans.
Howard Sounes:There was a Beatles reunion that spring in the neighbouring county of Surrey, where Eric Clapton was celebrating his marriage to George Harrison’s ex-wife. After being married to George for eight years, Pattie had left the former Beatle in 1974 for his close friend, three years after which George married his secretary Olivia Arias. Eric married Pattie on tour in March 1979. Two months later, a marquee was erected in the garden of the Claptons’ Surrey mansion, Hurtwood Edge, and 800 people attended a belated wedding reception. The guests included the cuckold Harrison, whose friendship with Eric and Pattie had survived the changing of the guard, a testimony to the freewheeling spirit of the decade in which they’d all come to maturity. Also present were Paul and Ritchie.
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