Pop Culture Lunch Box: Paul McCartney

Showing posts with label Paul McCartney. Show all posts

Friday, April 7, 2023

Things I learned from McCartney’s book The Lyrics Volume 1

Paul McCartney’s massive self-penned 2021 book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present is an excellent read. My local library has the hard copies (it’s a thick, photo and image-heavy two-volume set) and so I’ll be reading the second book on paper rather than on my Kindle. That said, here are the most interesting things I learned about Sir Paul in the first volume:

Paul got the idea to have his band Wings after The Beatles because he still wanted to do music and also saw Johnny Cash playing with a band.
His daughter Stella was a rough birth and Paul saw a vision of angels with wings during that time, leading to his band’s name.
The night John Lennon and McCartney heard “God Only Knows,” their minds were so blown that it inspired them to write “Here There and Everywhere.”
Around the time of Sgt. Pepper’s, the band realized they had access to a sound-effects library and started using them a lot, in songs such as “Blackbird” and “A Day in the Life.”
He did a lot of painting in the ‘90s and always remembered his dad talking about “do it now.” He also thought about all the great painters who obsessed for long periods on individual works and Paul always wanted to keep it fun and get all his paintings powered through and done in one sitting.
Paul says the trick to songwriting is to write something that is easy to remember, because you also have to do that as a musician. His chauffeur said he’d been working eight days a week, and Paul knew that would be a memorable line when he and Lennon wrote it as soon as he hopped out of the car.
George Harrison was inspired by the short stabbing sounds in the music of the movie Psycho for Eleanor Rigby.
Paul says he was pretty “straight laced” and was the last Beatle to take LSD. One night he saw a blue hole in his eye and it formed the basis of “Fixing a Hole.”
Paul actually met Yoko before John and introduced her, in a way, to John.
Paul never could read music and he didn’t like piano lessons when he was young because they were restrictive and boring. And later on, he thinks he might have lost interest in making songs in a band if everyone was just counting out things based on a mathematical formula. I couldn’t agree more. Creating songs rather than writing music has always been what intrigued me and keeps me coming back for more.
“Got to Get You Into My Life” is about marijuana and was inspired by the Beatles’ first experience with the drug. It was in a back room with Bob Dylan and Paul remembers George trying to leave and he chased him around as the two of them giggled endlessly.
“Here There and Everywhere” was inspired by “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys, which was inspired by Rubber Soul. Paul also says it’s his favorite song he’s ever written.
The Rolling Stones of course hung out with The Beatles in the early ‘60s. George told their record label they should sign the Stones and they did, but Mick and Keith told their friends the problem was they didn’t have a single. So The Beatles gave the Stones an album track from one of their records that couldn’t be a single for them because it was sung by Ringo. “I Wanna Be Your Man” went on to become the Stones’s “first big hit.”
When discussing “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” Paul notes that most of what drove him was eroticism.
The diversity and quantity of John and Paul’s writing together is legendary. And Paul notes that once he and John started a song in the studio, they always finished it before leaving the studio.
In the early days of the Quarry Men (named after where John attended, Quarry Bank High School), John, Paul, and George always pretty much knew they would be the core of the group. They always had trouble finding drummers, or even people with drum sets. A guy named Colin Hanton was their first drummer. At their first real recording session, they laid down Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” and an original called “In Spite of All the Danger.” The latter is the only McCartney-Harrison writing credit in history.

Tuesday, June 14, 2022

McCartney in Baltimore continues to show how peace and love (and rock) can still win

It’s always a major life event when I have Paul McCartney tickets. That happened for the third time in my life last night (Indianapolis 1989 and DC 2013 were the others) at Camden Yards in Baltimore. And while our seats were up in the top deck, they were still pretty good and the sound was amazingly great.

It’s very tough to pick out highlights because the whole show was so immaculate, but here are some reflections:

One of the reasons Paul includes so many Wings songs in setlists is that they are so arena and stadium ready. Tunes like Live and Let Die (with its massive fireworks show), Letting Go, Junior's Farm, Let Me Roll It, Let 'Em In, Jet, and Band on the Run are McCartney concert staples. Probably the most glaring omission was Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.
I've Just Seen a Face and Lady Madonna were fun mid-Beatles choices. You Won't See Me and Here, There, and Everywhere would have been great additions.
In Spite of All the Danger was a cool choice from the pre-Beatles Quarrymen.
Getting Better, Blackbird, and Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! were huge crowd-pleasers from the mid/late Beatles era.
Playing Gorge's Something was a truly beautiful highlight. How great would the addition of John's Nowhere Man and In My Life be in future shows?
Speaking of John, having him duet on the big screen for I've Got a Feeling was genius and pulled off without a hitch.
Probably the biggest moments were the songs that I tend not to listen to that much but which are clearly traditionals: Get Back, Hey Jude, Let It Be, and Birthday.
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da works really well in the live setting, and Helter Skelter and She Came in Through the Bathroon Window (like just about the entire Beatles catelog) seem uncuttable.
Finally, I can't imagine there will ever be a better closer than Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End.

Friday, November 28, 2014

Paul McCartney On the Run in the 1970s

In the introduction to a new biography of Paul McCartney's surprisingly under-reported 1970s era, author Tom Doyle discovers a very human side to a person oft-perceived only as an international and almost beyond-human treasure.

"Between 1969 and 1981, McCartney was a man on the run - from his recent past as a Beatle, from his horrendous split with his bandmates, from the towering expectation that surrounded his every move. Behind his lasting image during that period as a Bambi-eyed soft-rock balladeer, he was actually a far more counterculturally leaning individual (albeit one overshadowed by the light-sucking John Lennon) than he was ever given credit for - freewheeling in his hippified way, taking to the road with "a bunch of nutters" for an impromptu, disorganized university tour with the proto-Wings, viewing the world through perma-stoned eyes, and defiantly continuing to flip off the authorities the world over who sought to criminalize him, all the while adopting a shrugging, amused attitude to it all."

Here are some other nuggets from the opening of Man on the Run: Paul McCartney in the 1970s that have my mouth watering to get back to the rest of the book soon.

As 9/11 unfolded, McCartney was parked on the runway of JFK Airport in a commercial jet that was suddenly going nowhere.
He can't really use an iPod because the headphone system of listening to music reminds him too much of working in the studio.
He has his misgivings about reporters, which isn't surprising given all his years spent in the tabloids. "But they're not bastards, they're lovable rogues. They're just not as lovable as they used to be," he says.
He once hit a photographer, but it luckily didn't get reported. "I think he thought he deserved it."
"His eccentricity often gets lost behind his deceptive facade of straightness," Doyle writes.
In the late 60s, he thought about recording an album called Paul McCartney Goes Too Far, but he never did. "I was such a daring young thing. We were on this wacky adventure," he said.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Paul McCartney Plays the Perfect Show at Nationals Park

The only way that Friday night's Paul McCartney show at National Park could have been any better would have been if John, George, and Ringo showed up for one of the three encores.

That said, Paul's crack five-piece band might be unbeatable. They started an hour later than expected, but then kicked in to "Eight Days a Week," which has apparently not ever been played live by any of the Beatles until this tour.

That was great, but I literally started to tear up and feel emotional on the next two numbers: jaw-dropping versions of "Junior's Farm" (always one of my very favorite songs by Wings) and "All My Loving."

While there wasn't a stinker among the 2-hour, 45-minute, 38-song set, notable highlights included:

"Paperback Writer (one of my favorite songs period),"
"The Long and Winding Road,"
"I've Just Seen a Face,"
"Your Mother Should Know (with its Magical Mystery Tour background projections, a part of the show that was awesome before the show and throughout the night),"
"All Together Now (a kids song never before played by a Beatle live until this tour),"
"Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite! (a John song with an intense laser show),"
"Something (a George song with Paul starting it off with a ukelele and a story about how Frank Sinatra always said it was his favorite 'Lennon/McCartney' song),"
"Band on the Run"
"Live and Let Die (with its startling fireworks that amazingly didn't leave the band charred)," and
"Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End" to end it.

And I love that some of my least favorite songs on album ("Hey Jude," "Back in the U.S.S.R.," "Get Back," and "Let It Be.") are so powerful in an arena.

I can die happy knowing that I saw Sir Paul in Indianapolis in 1989 and in an even more perfect show Friday night.

***** out of ***** stars

SET LIST:

Eight Days a Week
Junior's Farm
All My Loving
Listen to What the Man Said
Let Me Roll It
Paperback Writer
My Valentine
Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
The Long and Winding Road
Maybe I'm Amazed
I've Just Seen a Face
We Can Work It Out
Another Day
And I Love Her
Blackbird
Here Today
Your Mother Should Know
Lady Madonna
All Together Now
Lovely Rita
Mrs. Vandebilt
Eleanor Rigby
Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!
Something
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Band on the Run
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Let It Be
Live and Let Die
Hey Jude

ENCORE:
Day Tripper
Hi, Hi, Hi
Get Back

SECOND ENCORE:
Yesterday
Helter Skelter
Golden Slumbers
Carry That Weight
The End

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Best New Albums: June 2012

With the advent of Spotify, I now organize my music a little differently before I decide to purchase full albums. I put the ones I'm curious about into a file called "Albums to Listen To" and I make them available offline for my commute and other headphone-listening travels. The ones that hold up over a couple of listens go into my "Albums to Buy" file. The ones that don't get trashed. Life is too short.

So friends can enjoy all of my obsessively diligent work, I then compile a Spotify folder called "Best New Albums," which I update frequently.

So a new related monthly feature here at the Lunch Box is "Best New Albums," which I'll aim to post around the first of every month. You can stream all the albums mentioned for free at my Spotify link above.

Best Album of the Month:

Paul McCartney - RAM.
This was his first major release post-Beatles and it shows that he hasn't lost any chops, just three really great musical collaborators. The remastered version of the original album and plentiful extras make it an essential purchase.

The Rest:

The Beach Boys - That's Why God Made the Radio
This is the best Beach Boys since "Kokomo." They look pretty awkward in the live performances I've seen on late-night TV, but wow can they still harmonize like no others.

Here We Go Magic - A Different Ship
After I read about the band picking up director/hitchhiker John Waters while touring around the country, I had to check them out. Folky and electronic-y, but unusually warm for those genres.

King Tuff - King Tuff
This is actually the best new album I heard all month (since McCartney's is technically not new). The band is loaded with garage, lo-fi, power pop hooks. And it doesn't hurt that J Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. is the drummer.

Best Coast - The Only Place
I had no right to dislike this band's lo-fi indie debut. Everyone raved about it and that's pretty much my favorite genre of music. But something about it bugged me. This one is less noisy and more melodic. And I somehow like it a lot.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

New Song Sunday: "Paul McCartney's Leftovers"

Sometimes you've just got to write a song with somebody else's words. I wrote "Paul McCartney's Leftovers" today with my own composition, but with many of the words from one of his post-Beatles tunes.

Can you guess which one?

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