november 29th extract

Paul McCartney-No More Lonely Nights-All the Best!   

Now here shuffles up someone who has definitely got more than one good song in them. Actually, it’s hard to think of a bad song, a really truly naff and awful song that he’s written. I even include The Frog Chorus, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer and Mull of Kintyre within that. These, I guess are some songs of McCartney’s that are roundlyand widely seen as beyond the pale, trite, slushy, sentimental and nonsense. I honestly believe that even these songs are ten times better than most other relevant songwriters could come up with. Granted, they aren’t the best songs he’s ever written but there’s a certain amount of charm in there; it’s difficult not to finding yourself humming along to “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” or ending up with “Mull of Kintyre” going through your head all day ,even if you simply have just heard a snippet. As for the “Frog Chorus”- isn’t it just possible that there might just be a bit of snobbery involved? In the hands of say, Brian Wilson or some other recognised eccentric, it would be considered as a bit of wackiness and even as a clear sign of undoubted genius. However, because it’s a song that Paul McCartney wrote and just because it is Paul McCartney, universal scorn is heaped upon it and perversely it’s seen as a yet another clear sign of his unredeemable naffness.

 There’s another point that should be made along the way. Paul McCartney made much better music post-Beatles when he wasn’t hampered by the other three moptops. To me it’s clear that Wings were a much better band than the Beatles. If you just look at the Beatles albums; “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver” are pretty good, there’s bits on “Sgt Peppers” and “The White Album” that are brilliant (but those really are onlythe tracks that McCartney had a strong hand in) and “Abbey Road” and “Let It Be” would have been much more coherent and made much more sense as solo McCartney albums. (The early Beatles albums can now easily be discounted as mere historical curios that won’t stand the test of time).Overall, whenever I find myself listening to any Beatles album I end up fast fowarding or skipping quickly through tracks written by Lennon or Harrison to get to McCartney’s songs.  There’s so much wrong with Lennon and Harrison’songs that I could go on and on for ages, but here’s just two examples. Firstly, imagine what it would be like now if some rich pop star wrote and released a song whinging and moaning about how unfair it is that they have to pay so much tax? And on top of this they coated themselves in some mystic Eastern hippy shtick?  Secondly, and this is just stating the obvious, isn’t there just a tinge of irony about a multi-millionaire making even more money by releasing a song imagining there’s no possessions? Lennon was always held up as the true artist within the Beatles but that’s only due to his association with Yoko Ono. He couldn’t write a tune to save his life and when faced with a blank canvas in his solo career to come up with something fresh he banged out a set of tired rock and roll tunes with Phil Spector. It was McCartney who was not only the real tunesmith but the sole member of the band who was (and still is) prepared to try something wilfully uncommercial (see “Carnival of Light” which the release of was nixed by Harrison and his solo work with Youth as The Fireman). On top of this is the fact that Lennon, Harrison and Starr all professed themselves just to be lads from Liverpool and kept banging on about the city years after they all pissed off somewhere else. McCartney is the only one who maintained his links with his birthplace and actually did something of real, lasting value for his hometown.

Listen to any Wings or Paul McCartney solo records in comparison to anything by the Beatles and if it was a choice of one or the other what would it be?