51 years ago today my favorite Beatles solo album was released. Best Beatles solo album? Certainly George’s All Things Must Pass and John’s Imagine could qualify. But my favorite, the one that most approximates the genius and joy of The Beatles for me, is still Paul’s Band on the Run.

It opens with the title track, a three-part medley all in one song. Paul had attempted the medley-in-a-song before on Ram with Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey. Albert, like Paul’s Yellow Submarine, was just a twee bit too cute for my tastes. The song Band on the Run, on the other hand, could have easily fit into the medley on side two of Abbey Road. It’s that good. (And it includes the best line with “county judge” in it of any I’ve heard.)

Next up, my favorite song about a dog. (It helps that my son-in-love pilot and daughter have a dog named Jet. And a cat named Bennie. Apple doesn’t fall too far.) Jet is as good a soft rocker as Paul would ever release. Great in concert tune, too.

The album mellows a bit with another one of Paul’s ballads à la And I Love Her and Here, There, and Everywhere. The lyrics to Bluebird make no sense but it’s a beautiful paean to Linda. Side one then ends with Paul giving the middle finger salute to his old mate, John, on Let Me Roll It. Paul started the war with a photo on his second solo album of two beetles copulating along with biting lyrics on Too Many People which prompted John to write How Do You Sleep, and back and forth they went. Again, the lyrics aren’t Shakespeare, but Paul could always write a great rock riff when he tried, and this is one of his best.

Side two is, like so many albums, a drop in quality but Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five is awesome. It rocks with a prog element to its music and lyrics that you won’t find in many other Beatles songs. And, of course, the transition into an outro of the title track wraps the album up brilliantly.

Band on the Run was the album that reignited Paul’s career, going to number one here and being the top-selling studio album of 1974 in the United Kingdom (beating out hugely successful and brilliant albums like Dark Side of the Moon, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, and Quadrophenia). It’s a wonder though that the album got made at all. First, Wings’ lead guitarist quit literally days before the band was to depart to Nigeria to start recording. Next, Wings’ drummer quit the night before the departure. So, Paul, Linda, and Denny Laine went off as a threesome to the military junta-led Nigeria. In Nigeria, they were warned not to leave the grounds of the hotel or recording studio for fear of being killed. One night Paul and Linda foolishly left on foot and found themselves being followed by a car. Five young men jumped out and held a knife to Paul’s throat as they robbed the McCartneys of everything they had on them. Jewelry. Money. And Paul’s cassettes with demos of all his songs for the album. (Most likely the thieves threw the tapes away or recorded over them; if they’d kept them they would easily sell for mid-six figures today.)

Even with all that adversity, or perhaps because of it, Paul created his best post-Beatles work.