So, am I ready to write a review of Memory Almost Full? I’ve got several thousand words done already from commenting on the album, the individual songs, the reviews, the critics themselves and what the album means to me. Thousands of words and I suspect even I am not really interested in reading them all. Worse yet, they don’t even begin to communicate how I feel about this album. In the year and a half I’ve been seriously learning about the Beatles, learning their history–that of the Band as well as that of each member and close associate–I’ve come to have a lot of respect for McCarthey’s talent and ability. Perhaps one of the most attractive thing about this album is that it showcases those talents in their full maturity without loosing his playfulness and humon.Play McCartney (I) right after listening to Memory; yes, it’s very much the same man with almost 40 more years practicing his art.
First of all, the album absolutely blew me away. I now truly understand that most difficult of Beatle words; “gobsmacked.” I’m confident that it means the way I felt the moment when the album really hit me. That wasn’t the first time I listened to it or even the second; it was either the third or fourth. I was sitting right here in front of my computer with the speakers neatly aimed at my ears while it played and built and quite suddenly it crashed into me.
It’s more then just difficult to write a review of this album; if you’ve really listened to it, your mind and emotions are, at the very least, a bit unsettled. Not necessarily by what is said but by the way he leads you into and out of the songs, tweeks your own memory bank and finesses you into a look back at your own life. Truly listening to this album puts you on a mad, dark roller coaster ride; helter skelter you’re up and then you’re down—serious, happy, puzzled, abandoned. Who else would write a song for mandolin and work-boot? Who else could?
Paul’s voice, as always, is confident and pure (when that’s what he wants.) The album is full of music difficult to sing well. Considered simply as an additional music instrument, the human voice has more variety and flexibility then any other. The possessor of a remarkably elastic and true voice, Paul exploits it fully from a clear, warm, open low to an equally warm and pure high and an assortment of rocker-raucous inbetweens. Knowledge and practice beat youth and beauty most days.
I’ll take Paul at his word; that he generally isn’t thinking about what’s going on in his own life when he writes a song; he just makes up a song. He knows that some of his fans can’t resist trying to link the love songs up with his wives or children or somebody and his sad songs with whatever. I don’t think it seriously irritates him but if he ever did write any songs about HM, I suspect they’ll never be recorded and the demo tapes are ashes. On the other hand, I wasn’t able to resist making some tentative and not really serious connections in House of Wax—the Beatles were the House, Beatlemania the walls and who each of them really is/was are the secrets hidden in the yard. Anyway, if you need to know, House of Wax is my favorite (at the moment) in the album. I was on the verge of getting angry about the women “scream and runn around,” let’s not get into the female hysteria bit, but he pulled a major save with “Like wild demented horses.” Now that’s some imagry I can really dig!
I’m not going to go through this album song by song. It opens with a bounce, a gentle rocker (albeit with words to think about) and a 100% solid gold McCartney silly love song of unusual beauty. (Though I’d like to know where he found those butterflys that buzz) Having made his polished bow to expectations and the past, Paul proceeds to bounce our heads off the floor, walls and ceiling! This album could just as well been titled “It’s About Time” in more ways then one. While I’ve found that a lot of people who really liked Chaos and Creation in the Backyard don’t like this one as well, and visa versa, I’ll admit to being very, very fond of both.
As a whole, the album is definitely disturbing. It is crafted to arouse mixed emotions and it surely must have been deliberate. It comes close to setting up a dissonance in your brain the way the Beatles used subtle dissonance to help the girls scream. Did Paul deliberately select songs that would have this effect? Is the somehow a concept album? Not an album for people who hate thinking.
Also not an album safe for the knee-jerk (you can leave the “knee” out, I don’t mind) McCartney haters. Number 3 on the Billboard chart in the US, number 1 on the internet album sales, number 2 in downloads and number 5 in Britain, either means that Paul has managed to accumulate a vast number of devoted fans OR it’s a damn fine album. Doesn’t make the whiners look too good as the waffle around citing one of Paul’s early solo albums as his best work – we remember how much those same albums were hated at their release.
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