Backwards Traveller

"Backwards Traveller"/"Cuff Link"
Single by Wings
from the album London Town
A-side	"With a Little Luck"
Released	20 March 1978
Format	7-inch
Recorded	October 1977, January 1978
Genre	Synthpop
Length	1:07 (Backwards Traveller) 2:03 (Cuff Link)
Label	Parlophone (UK) Capitol (US)
Songwriter(s)	Paul McCartney

"Backwards Traveller"/"Cuff Link" is a medley of two short songs written by Paul McCartney that was first released on Wings' 1978 album London Town. The medley was also released as the B-side of Wings' No. 1 single "With a Little Luck". Both "Backwards Traveller" and "Cuff Link" were recorded in October 1977 and completed in January 1978. By this point in the London Town recording sessions, guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Joe English had left the band, so the songs were recorded by only McCartney, Linda McCartney and Denny Laine.

"Backwards Traveller" is only a little more than a minute long. It is a "mid-tempo rocker" in the key of C major. The song consists of a verse followed by two repetitions of the refrain. The lyrics are about the singer going back in time while "sailing songs" and "wailing on the moon." Paul McCartney plays drums, bass guitar, acoustic guitar and keyboards. According to music professor Vincent Benitez, the organ arrangement with its repeating chords gives the song a "retrospective, 1960s-style sound".

Rolling Stone Magazine critic Janet Maslin praises the beginning of "Backwards Traveller" as "brilliant, jolting hard-rock" but laments that it ends quickly as if no one could be bothered to complete it. Author Howard Sounes also complains that the song sounds "half-finished". Chip Madinger and Mark Easter likewise believe that the song had more potential than its ultimate fate as the prelude to "Cuff Link". Author John Blaney describes "Backwards Traveller" as "a typical McCartney pot-boiler". Music critic Tom Waseleski describes it as "a swinging little rocker."

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Wikipedia