Coming Up (3:49)

“Coming Up” was the opening track from Paul McCartney’s McCartney II album, written by McCartney and released in 1980. Like the rest of the album, the song had a minimalist synthesized feel to it. It featured humorously-processed lead vocals from McCartney, who played all the instruments and shared harmonies with wife Linda.
“Coming Up” is also well known for its video. It is an early example of electronic trickery, with Paul McCartney playing ten roles and Linda McCartney playing two. The “band” (identified as “The Plastic Macs” on the drum kit) features Paul and Linda’s imitations of various rock musician stereotypes, as well as a few identifiable musicians. In his audio commentary on the 2007 video collection The McCartney Years, McCartney identified the four characters that were impersonations of specific artists: Hank Marvin (guitarist from The Shadows), Ron Mael of Sparks (keyboards), the drummer, who was “taken vaguely on John Bonham, even though he doesn’t really look like him,” and a ‘Beatlemania-Era’ version of himself. While others such as author Fred Bronson have suggested that there are other identifiable impersonations in the video, such as Andy MacKay, Frank Zappa and Neil Young[1], McCartney said the other roles were simply comic relief.