In addition to including several of McCartney's hits with Wings, the album features performances of five of his Beatles songs: "Yesterday", "Lady Madonna", "I've Just Seen a Face", "Blackbird" and "The Long and Winding Road".

[2] This caused McCartney to release the album as a three-record set, compiled from various shows from the band's North American tour during May–June 1976.

McCartney's sound engineer listened to 800 hours of tape and selected the five best performances of each song from the 30-song set list.

[5] According to Wings drummer Joe English, "it took forever to get those 'Wings over America' tapes ready for the live album.

[22] In a retrospective review, AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine explained the wild success of the triple album: "The Beatles mystique was still very much attached to record and artist alike – at the time, John Lennon had seemingly burnt out a major chunk of his talent, George Harrison was losing his popular edge and had done a disastrous 1974 American tour, and no one was expecting great things from Ringo Starr – and it seemed like McCartney represented the part of the group's legacy that came closest to living up to fans' expectations.

"[7] Two related releases followed the album: the TV documentary Wings Over the World and a film titled Rockshow, purporting to contain a complete show from Seattle.

[nb 2][1] Along with McCartney's Ram and Tug of War albums, Wings over America was reissued in the US on compact disc on 18 January 1988.

Disc three All tracks previously unreleased, recorded live at the Cow Palace, San Francisco, 13 and 14 June 1976.