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Macca
Paul McCartney has a new album coming out. We're being told that this is the one where he reinvents himself. It's dark and it's searching and the best thing he's done since Abbey Rd. Jolly good. Sir Paul reinvents himself at least once a decade, issues the groundbreaking new album, garners some TV coverage and everyone is very happy for him and plased to see that boyish mug of his again and then the groundbreaking new album joins all his other groundbreaking new albums in unplayed obscurity.
But maybe this is really the one. I hope so. I've been waiting 35 years for Sir Paul's genius to arise and shake itself and astonish us once more.
I know it's mildly heretical to say so, but Paul was the creative
motor of the Beatles. I'm not saying John wasn't a genius (because he was) but if it had been left to him he'd have sat in his Surrey mansion all day long watching TV and once in a blue moon he's have gone into the studio to record something he'd scribbled down on the back of an envelope during the commercial breaks. Paul was the ambitious, motivated one. The experimental projects- Sergeant Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour- were things he set up. He was the one who wanted to go back on the road. In fact I've just formulated a new theory
as to why the Beatles broke up. It's because the other three were lazy bastards and Paul drove them too hard.
I keep meaning to explore Paul's post-Beatles oeuvre but there's just so much of it and I don't know where to start. I assume that his work since 1970 has been inferior, but I don't know for sure because (like you and you and you) I've never sat down and listened to it. I know Mull of Kintyre and the Frog Song and one or two other bits and pieces and that's it. So maybe we've got him wrong. Maybe it's us- his audience- soured by the break-up of the Beatles- who have written him off prematurely- and the work has been amazing all along.
Wouldn't it be fun if this were so?
But maybe this is really the one. I hope so. I've been waiting 35 years for Sir Paul's genius to arise and shake itself and astonish us once more.
I know it's mildly heretical to say so, but Paul was the creative
motor of the Beatles. I'm not saying John wasn't a genius (because he was) but if it had been left to him he'd have sat in his Surrey mansion all day long watching TV and once in a blue moon he's have gone into the studio to record something he'd scribbled down on the back of an envelope during the commercial breaks. Paul was the ambitious, motivated one. The experimental projects- Sergeant Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour- were things he set up. He was the one who wanted to go back on the road. In fact I've just formulated a new theory
as to why the Beatles broke up. It's because the other three were lazy bastards and Paul drove them too hard.
I keep meaning to explore Paul's post-Beatles oeuvre but there's just so much of it and I don't know where to start. I assume that his work since 1970 has been inferior, but I don't know for sure because (like you and you and you) I've never sat down and listened to it. I know Mull of Kintyre and the Frog Song and one or two other bits and pieces and that's it. So maybe we've got him wrong. Maybe it's us- his audience- soured by the break-up of the Beatles- who have written him off prematurely- and the work has been amazing all along.
Wouldn't it be fun if this were so?
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George Harrison left the Beatles TWICE because when they were recording, Sir Paul had him play everything EXACTLY as written, note for note, no variation no nothing.
This is a fact, in fact Sir Paul talked about it on Fresh Air the other night.
YOur theory is disproven, Tony. Paul was a meglomaniac. Creative, no doubt. But I suspect one of the reasons he and John Lennon couldn't get along at the last was that they BOTH wanted to be boss. Too many cooks and all that stuff.
That said, I'll be anxious to hear the new music.
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No improvisation. No 'this might sound better here'. That isn't creative, it's dictatorial.
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And maybe he was right. Those Beatles tracks are definitive as they stand. No cover version has ever improved on the originals.
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I can understand this. He has a precise vision of what he wants. This would have been fine if his band had been Paul and the Also-Rans but as it was the Beatles he had two other considerable artists (and egos)to contend with.
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