Paul McCartney and Me – An Edgy Relationship

Friday 16th January

It has been almost “de rigeur” to dismiss McCartney, almost since The Beatles split up but certainly for many years.  John has been held up as the really creative one and Paul the lucky guy who bumped into him at a village fete at Woolton in the mid-fifties.  But if you look at the record, or actually at the records themselves in the decade since The Fab Four split up until John was horrifically murdered they tell a somewhat different story.  John created a couple of devastatingly good records but then went completely off the boil, churning out a “Rock’n’Roll” record and then a break of five years.  Even his “comeback” record, while good in places was pretty conventional in its sound, and nothing like the brilliance he displayed in the company of Paul.  Maybe he needed the competition or the camaraderie or just the quality control or someone to say “Actually John, that’s crap.”  In the meantime Paul went off and made a brilliant solo album “Ram” which indeed could easily have ranked alongside most of The Beatles records.  He then recruited a new band “Wings” which after a shaky start produced some great music.  Ostensibly a group, this was always Paul’s band and again it suffered somewhat from anyone strong enough to say “Hang on a minute, this isn’t good enough”, although they wouldn’t have lasted long if they had.

Since John’s death Paul has produced masses of stuff, even writing a few Classical pieces.  There have been a few duffers but more than a handful were very very good; “Flowers in the dirt”, “Chaos and creation” and “Driving Rain” amongst them.  Like Madonna though Paul is always searching for new producers to try to modernize his sound, to try to catch the zeitgeist maybe and he sometimes fails.  He has also made a couple of really avant-garde albums under the thinly disguised pseudonym of The Fireman, and his very own “Rock’n’Roll” albums which are at least as good as John’s was.  So, like many old Beatles fans I am never really sure about Paul.  He is obviously a great songwriter, and a brilliant performer, even if he does rely too much on old Beatles numbers in his live shows.  But, and it is always the but – would I really be still buying his records if he wasn’t an ex-Beatle.  Oh, by the way I gave up on Ringo in the seventies – a very lucky man, a great drummer, but hardly much other real talent.  And I was devoted to George, even though he put out some dodgy stuff too.  But actually it is Paul I really have the problem with.  Even when I am listening to him, sometimes I almost wince.  Still a completist I am and will continue, even if his latest offering  “NEW” was only played a few times and I couldn’t really get into it at all, I will continue my edgy relationship with the only really surviving Beatle still making records.