Format 7", 12", cassette Genre Rock | Recorded April/May 1985 | |
B-side "Write Away" (7")
"Write Away" and "Angry" (12") Released 27 October 1986 (7" and 12")
17 November 1986 (cassette) Length 5:14 (album)
3:50 (7")
6:56 (remix) (12" and cassette) | ||
"Pretty Little Head" is a song by Paul McCartney, cowritten by McCartney, and 10cc guitarist Eric Stewart. The track is on his sixth studio solo album Press to Play. The track was McCartney's 38th single, and his first which failed to chart, so, in an attempt to boost sales, he released his first ever cassette single. It still failed to reach the top 75.
Contents
Release
The single was released at a length of 3:50 on the 7" release (remixed by Larry Alexander), and as a 6:56 remix (mixed by John Potoker) on the 12" release on the same day, 27 October 1986, and an extra track, "Angry", was added to the 12". The cassette version was the same as the 12", and was released on 17 November 1986. Both of these lengths are different from the album version, which has a length of 5:14. (See Press to Play).
"Write Away", the single's B-side, is included only on the CD release of the album, resulting in the back of the single listing the A-side as "From the album" and the B-side as "From the compact disc".
Track listing
- "Pretty Little Head" - 3:50
- Remix by Larry Alexander
- "Write Away" - 3:01
- "Pretty Little Head" - 6:56
- Remix by John 'Tokes' Potoker
- "Angry" (Remix) - 3:36
- Remix by Larry Alexander
- "Write Away" - 3:01
Video
A music video, directed by Steve Barron, was recorded for the song, which features a girl running away from home after she witnesses her parents in an argument; she then finds herself in a big city. The girl is actress Gabrielle Anwar. McCartney appears only in a short cameo role, which he filmed in London on 18 October 1986. The beginning of the video contains an excerpt from "She's Leaving Home," a Beatles song written and performed in 1967, for the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
Reception
Reviews of the song, and the album as a whole, were mixed. The song has been described as "wild, hi-tech experimentation", and as "computer-laiden, spacey-sounding, boomey-drumming, while Rolling Stone magazine described it as "dreamily abstract".