Paul McCartney Cold Cuts Pitch 1974 | Capitol Records Meeting Los Angeles

Paul McCartney Pitches “Cold Cuts” to Capitol Records – 9 April 1974

Tuesday 9 April 1974 | Paul McCartney

On 9 April 1974, Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney attended a high-level meeting with Capitol Records executives at Capitol Tower in Los Angeles. The meeting combined celebration and business discussion, taking place during a peak commercial period following the success of Band On The Run by Wings.

At the meeting, McCartney was presented with a platinum disc marking over one million US sales of Band On The Run, while also introducing an ambitious concept for a low-cost archival release of outtakes, B-sides, and unreleased material.

The “Cold Cuts” Concept

During discussions with Capitol executives including COO Brown Meggs, marketing VP Don Zimmermann, and promotions executive Al Coury, McCartney outlined a compilation idea originally titled Hot Hitz And Kold Kutz.

The project would eventually evolve into what became known as Cold Cuts — a curated collection of non-album recordings, demos, and studio experiments.

“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!”

— Paul McCartney

Despite initial interest, Capitol were not convinced by the commercial logic of the proposal, preferring to capitalise on the momentum of Band On The Run.

“They didn’t particularly go for that idea. So they didn’t particularly go for that idea. So it went on the back-burner and cooled off, to mix a few metaphors, and then went even cooler when I discovered that it had become a bootleg.”

— Paul McCartney

Saul Steinberg Artwork

McCartney also revealed that acclaimed illustrator Saul Steinberg had created artwork for the project, which remains one of the strongest surviving elements of the unreleased album concept.

“I still have a lovely unused cover the for the album, drawn for me by Saul Steinberg, best known by the public for his New Yorker drawings… This is probably the most compelling reason to issue the album, actually: just to use his cover!”

— Paul McCartney

Although assigned catalogue number Capitol 3419 and briefly scheduled for release in November 1974, Cold Cuts was ultimately shelved and never officially issued.

“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.”

— Paul McCartney (2019)

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FAQs

What was “Cold Cuts”?

An unreleased Paul McCartney compilation project featuring B-sides, outtakes, and archival recordings.

Was Cold Cuts ever released?

No. It was assigned a catalogue number but ultimately shelved by Capitol Records.

Why did Capitol reject the idea?

They preferred to focus on promoting the commercial success of Band On The Run rather than a non-hit compilation.

Does the artwork still exist?

Yes. A cover was created by Saul Steinberg and retained by McCartney.

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