You Gave Me The Answer – Cold Cuts

A couple of months ago during the ‘Paul Is Live’ Q&A series. Paul explained that there are thousands of recordings taken from improvised jams during soundchecks that may or may not be used one day... This prompted many of you to get in touch to find out if any of these might be released in the near future. Unfortunately, we have no answers for you yet – however we can finally shed some light on a similar question…

_Back in the 70s there was a rumour you were working on an album called '_Cold Cuts' made up of unreleased outtakes. If this is true will you release 'Cold Cuts' in the near future?

Paul: The original idea was based around a title I came up with and quite liked which was Hot Hitz and Cold Cuts. I thought it would be great, you just put all your top hits on it and then some “cold cuts”. But actually when I mentioned it to my record label at the time, they didn't like the idea of the cold cuts, they wanted everything to be hits, hits, hits! So they didn't particularly go for that idea. But what has happened over the years is many of those cold cuts – which are B-sides and unknown tracks – have been released in our remastered Archive Collection series…

PM.com: It sounds a little bit like our website feature Sticking Out Of My Back Pocket where we refer to those tracks as ‘deep cuts’.

Paul: Maybe one day it would make an album. The funny thing is, I was friends with an American artist that I admire a lot called Saul Steinberg. I asked him if he would do a cover for it and he did. It's a nice thing! So, I've got the cover and maybe one of these days it will get released. The thing is, how much can you release without it looking stupid, you know? New album, Archive Collection reissues, and then The Beatles stuff! So, it's hard to slot in another thing, but maybe one of these days. It would be an interesting little thing!

In the office, we have several favourites from Paul’s “deep cuts” such as ‘The Song We Were Singing’ and ‘Dear Boy’ which are always on our playlists. Let us know your favourites in the comments below…