Back in the U.S. (subtitled Live 2002) is a double live album by Paul McCartney from his spring 2002 Driving USA Tour in the US in support of his 2001 release Driving Rain. It was released with an accompanying DVD to commemorate his first set of concerts in almost ten years.
Band
Using most of the musicians that appeared on Driving Rain, McCartney assembled a new live act composed of Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray on guitar, Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums and keyboardist Paul Wickens, who had been on McCartney's previous two tours, in 1989–90 and 1993.[9] As of 2022, these four musicians are still members of McCartney's touring band.
Controversy
Although McCartney was promoting Driving Rain, the majority of the tour setlist celebrated his past,[2] by featuring a sampling of his solo work with and without Wings, and a substantial number of the hits he had written while a member of the Beatles.[10] On Back in the U.S., McCartney reversed the songwriting credits for 19 Lennon–McCartney compositions to read "Paul McCartney and John Lennon"[11] – a move that author Howard Sounes describes as the live album's "chief point of interest".[12] This gesture was a further attempt by McCartney to establish his legacy following Lennon's death in 1980,[13] having been vetoed from adopting the McCartney–Lennon credit during the Beatles Anthology project in 1995 by his former bandmates George Harrison and Ringo Starr.[14]
The revised credits on Back in the U.S. incensed Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, who threatened to take legal action,[11] while Starr said he found McCartney's actions "underhanded".[12][15] Some commentators observed that McCartney had similarly credited his Beatles songs to "McCartney–Lennon" on the 1976 live album Wings over America[16] and that Lennon had never publicly objected to the reversal;[13][17] in addition, the compositions in question were written with little or no input from Lennon.[12][18] When compiling Back in the U.S., McCartney had decided to act in response to Ono's dropping of his co-writer's credit for "Give Peace a Chance", on the 1997 compilation Lennon Legend: The Very Best of John Lennon.[citation needed] Despite their differences on this issue, McCartney and Starr united on stage for the Harrison tribute concert shortly after the release of the live album.[19]
Release
Back in the U.S. was issued in November 2002 as an exclusive North American and Japanese[1] release (an international edition with a slight track listing change, entitled Back in the World, was released a few months later). Back in the U.S. sold well on export and gained sales of over 2 million globally. The album debuted at number 8 on the US charts with sales of 224,000 copies, marking his highest sales during a single week since the introduction of Nielsen SoundScan in 1991.[20] The album was certified double platinum in America, for shipments of over 2 million units. It entered the top five on the Japanese chart, making McCartney one of the Western artists with the most top-ten albums in that country.[21] Its tie-in DVD proved to be a strong seller as well. Back in the U.S. was the first Paul McCartney album not released on vinyl.
Doggett, Peter (2011). You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup. New York, NY: It Books. ISBN 978-0-06-177418-8.
Kimsey, John (2006). "Spinning the Historical Record: Lennon, McCartney, and Museum Politics". In: Kenneth Womack and Todd F. Davis (eds). Reading the Beatles: Cultural Studies, Literary Criticism, and the Fab Four. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-6716-9.
