November 30th
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
roundly and 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 only the 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 forwarding 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’s 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. If it was
a choice of one or the other, what would it be?
This is what "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on A Broken iPod" is all about:
One track per
day for 366 days on a broken iPod. 366 tracks out of a possible 9553.
From the
obvious (The Rolling Stones), to the obscure (Karen Cooper Complex).
From the
sublime (The Flaming Lips) to the risible (Muse).
From field recordings of Haitian Voodoo music
to The Monkees.
From Heavy Metal to Rap by way of 1930’s blues, jazz,
classical, punk, and every possible genre of music in between.
This is what I
listened to and wrote about for a whole year, to the point of never wanting to
hear any more music again.
Some songs I listened to I loved, and some I hated. Some
artists ended up getting praised to the skies and others received a bit of
critical kicking.
There’s memories of spending too many hours in record shops,
prevaricating over the next big thing and surprising myself over tracks that
I’d completely forgotten about.
But with 40 years of listening to music, I
realised that I’ll never get sick of it.
I may have fallen out of love with some of the songs in this book, but
I’ll never fall out of love with music.
"Totally Shuffled"
Kindle book here:http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CJYZ3CA
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