Wheels Ain't Coming Down
| "Wheels Ain't Coming Down" | |||||||||
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| Single by Slade | |||||||||
| from the album Return to Base..../ We'll Bring the House Down |
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| B-side | Not Tonight Josephine | ||||||||
| Released | 27 March 1981 | ||||||||
| Format | 7" Single | ||||||||
| Recorded | 1979 | ||||||||
| Genre | Rock | ||||||||
| Length | 3:37 | ||||||||
| Label | Cheapskate Records | ||||||||
| Writer(s) | Noddy Holder; Jim Lea | ||||||||
| Producer(s) | Slade | ||||||||
| Slade singles chronology | |||||||||
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"Wheels Ain't Coming Down" is a single from rock band Slade, released in 1981 from the album We'll Bring the House Down although it was originally featured on the previous 1979 album Return to Base..... It was written by lead singer Noddy Holder and bassist Jim Lea. The single peaked at #60 in the UK, spending 3 weeks on the chart. Although it was not a hit, the track kept enough momentum going.
The first 20,000 copies of the single were in a picture bag.
The track was considerably lighter than the previous hit single We'll Bring The House Down as it was a previous Slade track and not new material for the time. Slade's comeback at the Reading festival in 1980 attracted many metal-band fans. The most likely reason for this track's failure to be a hit was likely due to not being heavy enough in sound as many new Slade fans were mainly interested in heavy metal.
The meaning of the lyrics were based on a plane flight that Holder and Lea were on to Los Angeles where the plane looked as though it was going to crash. The song's line "me and Midlands Misery" referred to Lea's nickname.
The B-side, "Not Tonight Josephine" was previously the B-side to Slade's 1979 single "Sign O' The Times" from the album Return to Base..... "Not Tonight Josephine" was later issued to CD via the 2007 compilation B-Sides and the remaster of "We'll Bring the House Down".
In a March 1981 interview with Daily Star, the newspaper wrote "The song called 'The Wheels Ain't Coming Down' was written about a ride had in a plane in America when Lea and Holder thought they had just 45 minutes to live." Holder stated "Jim and I were on the way to a radio station when the captain told us he could not get the wheels down to land. We were diverted to another airport for a crash landing. It's not a great feeling knowing you might have only 45 minutes left in life. We drank all the booze there was going. Happily the pilot brought the plane down safely."
The single was recorded, mixed and cut at Portland Recording Studios.
A promotional video was created for the single which has been officially unavailable since creation and wasn't even shown to promote the single at the time. It has surfaced on YouTube in recent years.
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Wikipedia