Before recording the album, Wings recruited lead guitarist Henry McCullough and released their debut single, "Give Ireland Back to the Irish", which was banned by the BBC for its political message.

[5] It was initially planned as a double album,[6] and McCartney decided to include some unreleased songs that had originally been recorded during the Ram sessions in 1971, before the formation of Wings.

[11] Before long, according to author Howard Sounes, citing the producer's recollection, Johns was reading a newspaper in the control room at Olympic as the group smoked marijuana and jammed aimlessly in the studio.

[7] The decision came about through EMI, however;[18][19] in addition to believing that the material was not of a sufficiently high standard,[20][21] the record company were mindful of the modest commercial performance of Wild Life and Wings' first two singles.

[27] Breaking with the approach taken on the band's previous releases, the artist credit included McCartney's name rather than Wings alone, and instead of a group picture, only his face appears on the front cover.

Since no artist credit was included with this image, the company issued the album with a blue sticker in the top right-hand corner, identifying the band and listing the songs.

[35] With Apple Records giving precedence to two Beatles compilation albums – 1962–1966 and 1967–1970[36][37] – Red Rose Speedway was not issued until 30 April 1973, in the United States, with the UK release following on 4 May.

[41] The original compact disc version, released by EMI's Fame label on 5 October 1987,[nb 3] contained three bonus tracks: "I Lie Around", "Country Dreamer" and "The Mess (Live at The Hague)".

[42] The bonus content included the reconstructed original double LP version of the album featuring different mixes of "Seaside Woman" and "I Would Only Smile" as to those released on Linda McCartney's Wide Prairie and Denny Laine's Japanese Tears respectively, the singles "Mary Had a Little Lamb", "Hi, Hi, Hi" and "Live and Let Die" with their respective b-sides, early and rough mixes of several songs as well as previously unreleased studio and live recordings, with the latter taken from the Wings Over Europe Tour.

The songs "Country Dreamer" and "Little Woman Love" included on the reissue are the same versions that were previously released on the Band on the Run and Ram editions of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection.

[16] According to author and critic Bob Woffinden, writing in 1981, the album was an example of McCartney "continu[ing] to exasperate his audience" before he and Wings finally won respect with the late 1973 release of Band on the Run.

[52] John Pidgeon of Let It Rock found the side-two medley typical of McCartney's "lazy" attitude to songwriting and said: "Red Rose Speedway sounds as if it was written after a big tea in front of the fire with carpet-slippered feet up; listening to it takes about as much as going ten rounds with a marshmallow fairy."

[53] Village Voice critic Robert Christgau derided McCartney's reliance on "aimless whimsy" and described the work as "Quite possibly the worst album ever made by a rock and roller of the first rank".

"[56] According to author Michael Frontani, a generally favourable review in Rolling Stone, written by musician Lenny Kaye, signified a turnaround from a publication that had been openly hostile towards McCartney since 1970.

[61] Writing in The Rolling Stone Record Guide (1979), John Swenson said that the album displayed "the worst aspects of McCartney as solo artist and band-leader" and was "rife with weak and sentimental drivel".

[62] In his 1977 book The Beatles Forever, Nicholas Schaffner described it as "pleasingly plump music – charming, harmless, entertaining fluff ... a perfect background to lazy afternoons in the sun".

"[44] Beatles biographer Robert Rodriguez views it as "a wildly uneven assortment of songs", of which the selections comprising the Abbey Road-style medley "aren't merely half-finished – they're half-assed".

[64] While describing Glyn Johns' disparaging comments about the finished album as "harsh", Howard Sounes writes: "but in a record review one couldn't award it more than three out of five stars.

[66] On 18 October 2018, it was officially announced that the album reissues of Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway would be released on 7 December 2018, as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection series.

Originally planned as a double album,[68] this is the track listing from drummer Denny Seiwell's acetates of the early incarnation of Red Rose Speedway dated 13 December 1972.

According to McCartney's official website, his archive team found an updated double album track listing from 30 January 1973 that differed from Seiwell's 1972 acetates.