M – is for McCartney – The Early Solo years

Tuesday 1st March

It was possibly Paul who really broke up the Beatles, a fragile entity anyway by then; possibly fed up with John’s drug issues and Yoko sitting in on sessions – the magic had gone.  Paul had met and fallen in love with Linda Eastman and was perhaps persuaded that in fact The Beatles were holding his creativity back somewhat.  He released an album while still a Beatle, simply called ‘McCartney’ and with a deceptively cryptic cover it was simply brilliant.  Full of self-produced almost demo tracks it was full of new ideas and sounded fresh and inspired.  He followed this up with possibly his best ever record “Ram”.  This was as good as any of the late Beatles records and was number one on both sides of the Atlantic and stayed in the charts for over a year.  Full of great melodies and this time well-produced it was as if  well-spring of creativity had been set free, a log-jam broken, and a gushing forth of inspired music.

There was some stupid rivalry between John (and Yoko) and Paul at this time and some of his lyrics were interpreted as digs at John ‘We believe that we can’t be wrong’ and ‘you took your lucky break and broke it in two, now what can be done for you?’  but actually most of the lyrics are utter nonsense, like mixing the words catchup and ketchup, so you are never sure what Paul is singing.

And then came Wings.  I think Paul was trying to prove, to himself as much as us, that he could create a “Pop Group” as popular as The Beatles without John.  Well, he almost succeeded, though the beginnings weren’t so great – but by ‘Band on the Run’ he was making great music again.  A string of superb singles followed and despite personnel changes (reputedly Paul was difficult to work with) the band continued for a few years.  My personal favourite Wings album was “London Town” but after a decade he called it a day and decided to go solo again…

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