He is candid (although the story is widely known to those who've done a bit of reading) in saying that when he handed Come And Get It to Badfinger – which he demoed playing all the parts himself, and got mixed, in 20 minutes – he insisted they play exactly as it was: “I understood that they wouldn't want to slavishly copy something I'd done and I understood they'd want to bring their own thing to it, but I was afraid that giving them that freedom would cock it up.” The result is that you will probably go back to Confidante on Egypt Station, for example, with a new appreciation. In his interesting introduction – more revealing than recent interviews – McCartney talk about growing up, how his mum and dad (and his mum's death) influenced him in terms of behaviour, and the working class origins which shaped him within the wider family.Īnd when he gets to speaking about a song he roams freely between the song and lyrics, the period, the influences and ideas which drove it. Housed in a handsome box, the heavyweight two-volume Paul McCartney, The Lyrics – subtitled “1956 to the Present” – is an insight into his thinking about songs, perspectives to take, creating narrative, disguising autobiography, surrealism, word associations and so on. Okay, not every song is an Eleanor Rigby or even a Please Please Me. He couldn't love you more than I do, tell me who he is.” Tell him where to go, tell him I love you so. The lyrics are brief: “Tell me who he is, tell me that you're mine not his, he says he loves you more than I do, tell me who he is. There's even a previously unknown Beatle song Tell Me Who He Is, written in the late Fifties/early Sixties of which he says, “I would have sat down with the idea of a girl having been unfaithful, or the suggestion she's being unfaithful. It was very quickly followed by the McCartney III Imagined album where the songs were remixed by the likes of Beck, St Vincent, Khruangbin, Phoebe Bridgers, Anderson.Paak and other hip names.ĭoesn't hurt to work with Dave Grohl, Kanye and Rihanna either if you want to keep your profile high.Īnd we could be cynical and note that at exactly the time of the Let It Be reissue, the Get Back book of studio transcripts and Peter Jackson's three-part, six hour Get Back film for Disney +, that McCartney now drops on us two lavish hardback volumes of his lyrics full of drawings, handwritten lyrics, letters, previously unseen photos and the stories behind 154 alphabetically-arranged lyrics of his Beatles, Wings and solo album songs, as told to editor Paul Muldoon. On the release of his Egypt Station he suggested it was a kind of concept album and that drew attention to it (it was about as much a concept album as Sgt Pepper) and his 2020 lockdown album was billed as McCartney III to link it to his solo I and II releases (19). It was a smart move, and he was full of them. That is 10,000 outlets in 29 countries.Īn estimated six million people heard it. He was also free of his EMI contract and could sign with any record label in the world.Īn unusual but very canny move: the Starbucks/Hear Music deal meant his album was played in every Starbucks all over the world on the day of its release. People had stopped listening because there was just so much McCartney music already in the world. but few could probably name his previous album. He was 65, had done 21 studio albums plus a few live ones, compilations and so on - as well as the Beatles and Wings catalogues . In 2007 he had a new album Memory Almost Full ready for release but he knew he was of little interest to a new generation or radio programmers. That all three others had, at one time or another, also quit only be drawn back into the fold became of little consequence: McCartney was the one who left.Īlthough, as Lennon put it at the time, it was like one guy standing alone on a stage yelling, 'That's it, I'm quitting”.Īs time went on however McCartney became much more circumspect, doing interviews which he would ration carefully (notably exclusives with Mojo and Q magazine) in which he would be jocular and hand out some often familiar Beatle anecdotes again, or – as he did for a while – hint that the great lost Beatle track Carnival of Light might come out soon. By saying he couldn't foresee a time when he'd write with Lennon and had no plans to work with the Beatles again, he was immediately cast as the one who walked away. The grave misstep came when he wrote his own Q&A to go out with his solo debut McCartney in 1970. When it came to promoting his albums, Paul McCartney – after a bad start – became more canny.
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