Some of you will have already noticed that the original Wall of Paul slogan, "Paul Tatara on Movies (and so forth)," now reads "Paul Tatara on Pop Culture (and so forth)." In the winter of 2007, when we launched this site, I knew I'd initially draw readers who were familiar with my CNN and Goodauthority movie coverage, so I mostly wrote about movies. But I live in the same world everyone else inhabits, and I contemplate a lot of things besides motion pictures. It was my goal, then, to eventually examine music, sports, politics, religion, firecrackers, action figures, babies, fast food, heroes, hypocrites, air conditioning, parades, cream puffs, and a slew of other topics that have come to shape my consciousness. Thus the altered, and far more accurate, slogan.Contact Paul RSS Feed
I’ve been on one of my recurring Beatle kicks lately, and, this time around, that includes listening to a lot of Paul McCartney’s solo stuff. There’s no doubt that McCartney’s apparently limitless commitment to cheesy affectations, and a recurring laziness in his lyrics, is off-putting to a lot of people, and it should be. But if you divorce yourself from the cutesy-poo photo-ops, and ignore the weaker songs - every artist writes them, folks - it’s easy to re-realize that this guy is a genius. He’s just done everything he can to make us forget it.
By now, it’s obvious that John Lennon’s murder and ascension to media sainthood has altered the view that McCartney was an equal partner in the most influential of all rock & roll songwriting teams. The Cliffs Notes version is that John supplied the Beatle-bile, and Paul the sugary goop. You know— Mr. Charm was forever hamstringing the surly intellectual.
That, however, is a vast over-simplification. The fact of the matter is, McCartney could, and sporadically still can, rock with the best of them, and his gift for melody is unmatched in the music’s history.
Yes, he’s written a lot of inexcusably fey drivel over the years (“Honey Pie,” “Your Mother Should Know,” “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” and roughly 33% of what he recorded with Wings.) But Paul was responsible for just as many rockers as John was, and McCartney’s (“I Saw Her Standing There,” “Paperback Writer,” and “Get Back,” to name just three) arguably showed more wit.
And, lest we forget, Paul delivered several of the group’s classic R&B covers in a hoarse Little Richard voice that seemed to originate somewhere down around his toes. Hell, it was even McCartney, and not George Harrison, who played that spectacular, finger-in-the-socket guitar break on “Taxman.”
John got more press, especially during his “stoned wise-ass” phase. But Paul was a full partner in the organization.
***
Although McCartney’s post-Beatles work practically defined Seventies rock radio, its easy to see why Britain’s punks later railed against him. There’s a sheen of lifeless professionalism to many Wings tracks that badly undercuts McCartney’s rock & roll pedigree. But there are scores of dazzling tunes from the period that exemplify his joy in making music, even if, again, he often acted like a showbiz doofus to sell more albums.
But cut him some slack. It’s hard not to be self-conscious when every person on the planet is checking to see if you’ve still got the goods, so he took the least painful route by becoming a straight-ahead rock star, someone who looks cool while he plays his guitar. And he did it with more aplomb than could have been expected, given that he’d be forever judged against a version of himself that helped reconfigure the music, fashion, and politics of a truly revolutionary era. You try climbing down from Mt. Rushmore.
Here's a prime example of Paul shaking off the weight of history and simply rocking out in a wildly catchy manner:
***
Right or wrong, “Band on the Run” is now widely accepted as McCartney’s finest solo album, and its strongest songs - the title tune, “Jet,” “Helen Wheels,” and “Let Me Roll It” - are among his hardest rocking. Still in thrall of Abbey Road’s habitual experimentation, he mated his gift for writing mini-suites and old-fashioned barn burners with a glistening production style that owed more to T. Rex and David Bowie than it did the Beatles.
In effect, he was glam without the sparkles, tights, and platform boots. How he managed to dodge that one is anybody’s guess.
Notice that, after the Beatles split, McCartney continued to churn out tracks that were simultaneously off-the-wall and thoroughly engaging. Not an easy trick. One could argue that “Band on the Run” is the single most disjointed tune to ever reach the American top 10...unless you count 1971’s “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.” That one not only fades in and out of two completely different melody lines, but contains an unfathomable string of wacky lyrics that suggest Dylan on laughing gas.
It may not be the kind of thing that frightens parents, but within the realm of commercial record-making, McCartney was still breaking down barriers...or, at least, barreling through the breach that he and Lennon created. He had every right to go there.
If you cherry-pick it, Wings-period McCartney offers up roots numbers and powerful ballads that are very much in keeping with his best 1960s work. Rockers like “Hi Hi Hi” and “Junior’s Farm” are every bit as forceful as “Back in the USSR,” if not as coyly political. And the heartfelt devotional, “Maybe I’m Amazed,” ranks with Lennon’s “Instant Karma” and Harrison’s “What is Life” as a supremely moving example of post-Beatle liberation.
McCartney's best Seventies tunes are packed with vibrant aural and melodic invention, and feature the most absurdly imaginative bass playing you’ll ever hear. And it might surprise people who dismiss him as a total lightweight that he came to grips with his Beatle past in full public view.
“Too Many People,” for example, is a properly scathing indictment of Lennon’s disdain for the amazing journey the Beatles took together, and “Tug of War,” with its lush orchestral accompaniment, is a deeply moving post-mortem on his love-hate relationship with Lennon. Love, it would seem, won out.
Still, I’d argue that the key track from McCartney’s gold-minting period is the oft-denigrated “Silly Love Songs.” Bouncing along with appealing self-deprecation, it’s the most succinct and earnest defense of identity that any rock star has ever recorded. And, once again, the bass line is simply mind-boggling.
Why people constantly take McCartney to task for this remarkably engaging creation is beyond me. This is what he did, and he did it better than anybody else. You can’t exactly fault a confectioner for making great candy. Far from being a depressing document of a significant artist’s decline, Paul McCartney’s output during the Seventies actually reveals an enormously talented man who had had his fill of carrying banners.
Dylan backed off considerably after his near-fatal motorcycle wreck, and Lennon tossed it all away to raise his son. But McCartney started writing nonsense scorchers and silly love songs. Download them, clear your head, and listen to them again. After all these years, you may finally realize there’s nothing wrong with that.
“Band on the Run,” “Jet,” “Helen Wheels,” “Let Me Roll It,” “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” “Hi, Hi, Hi,” “Junior’s Farm,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Too Many People,” “Tug of War,” and “Silly Love Songs” by Paul McCartney (and sometimes Wings). Album: “Wingspan: Hits and History” (2001).
RSS Feed.jpg "John & Paul (could work size).jpg")
.jpg "Paul:Wings (shrunk).jpg")
RSS Feed