Smart Listening

I’ve read quite a few reviews of Paul’s solo albums – both contemporary with their release and retrospective. When reading them, particularly hose written at the time of release, my reaction to their mostly negative criticisms is that the crime Paul’s committed was to fail to fulfill the critic’s expectations. For McCartney (I) and Ram he failed to write a “Beatle albums.” Each subsequent album disappointed whether it wasn’t rock enough or pop enough or sentimental enough, because it didn’t directly build on whatever the critic had come to like in a previous album.

These failings for me underline in the most explicit way possible that Paul’s albums, as a solo artist and as the leader of Wings, carried on the Beatles’ legacy – by not sticking by a winning formula, not stopping with what worked last year, but always carrying us to new ideas and horizons. Ironic that what many critics came to value most in the Beatles received endless criticism when it was Paul’s work.

It’s not easy to approach a new album by Paul without your mind flashing on particular past albums or songs that you particularly like. I’d like Memory Almost Full to have a lot of songs like Monkberry Moon Delight – but I strongly suspect that Paul isn’t going to give it to me. I’ll be working hard not to think of all the songs he’s done that I love when I open up the package and put the new disk on.

I’ve noticed another quality that most of Paul’s albums seem to have for me. The first time I listen to one I’ll find that I like one or two songs and I think a couple will turn out to be songs I don’t like. I noticed that in Chaos and Confusion in the Back Yard. In that album I loved Jenny Wren and English Tea but Riding to Vanity Fair seemed to me to be over-arranged and too elaborate. By the third time through I began to find more and more to like in most of the songs, particularly in Riding to Vanity Fair, made the difference but mostly it was the dense tapestry he creates behind the words that ends up winning my heart.

Then I managed to prove to myself that dumping assumptions and expectations and repeating my listen absolutely must be my practice with McCartney music. I was given a copy of the “lost McCartney II album,” which was the original version but it was not in released. I didn’t like it much. Then one day I was actually really paying attention when it came on and I realized that I’d wanted it to be a continuation of McCartney (I) – and it certainly isn’t that. In reality, II is like I only in being highly experimental. In a sense it’s Paul’s Revolution #9.

When I really listened to it I recognized that it was related to I only because each was, for its time, highly experimenta. I began to get really interested in what was going on. My father happened to be a fan of early electronic music so I’d heard quite a lot of it in the late 50s and early 60s. For me, and I’m pretty sure for my Pa, it was more “interesting” then enjoyable. McC II is “avant guarde” music McCartney style – meaning that you don’t have to move completely into weird-space to actually enjoy listening to it. (Though I’ll agree with the commonest American Bandstand criticism “you can’t dance to it!”

So when Memory Almost Full comes into my hot little hands, I’ll be doing my best to hear it with new ears and I’ll play it 3 or 4 times all the way through before I’ll share my opinions with anyone so I won’t have to eat my words publicly. Whatever is on the new album, it won’t be like Chaos and Creation and it won’t be like Ram either. It will, however, be very much like Paul McCartney.

Was Paul a Social Climber?

If you read any of the published biographies of the Beatles sooner or later you are very likely to run into the comment that Paul was a “social climber.” It is true that Paul’s family hovered on the line between working class and middle class and that his parents wanted very much for him to “better himself.” Certainly they didn’t think that was social climbing. Meanwhile the family lived in council houses (what in the US would be called public housing) provided at little cost as a part of the pay for Mary McCartney’s job as a nurse. They moved several times to better and safer locations and the last house was so “modern” for Britain at the time that it had an indoor bathroom.

John Lennon, as most of us know, grew up in a good neighborhood in a nice, middle-class home (also with an indoor bathroom) despite his later claim of being working class. Both John and Paul were urged to study hard so they would be able to get good jobs and were constantly pressured to avoid using the Liverpool accent but to speak more correctly. Once John hustled his Aunt Mimi out of an art exhibit where Stu’s winning painting was hung when she said, “What’s that supposed to be?” Both John and Paul spoke with a scouse accent deliberately and both were easily able to assume a more posh accent.

I feel that the best way to look into the question of whether or not Paul was a social climber is to examine his record in contrast to John the self-declared workingman.

Paul’s first serious girl friend seems to have been Dot Rhone. Dot lived in a good neighborhood only because the house had been left to her parents and living there was less expensive then renting a place. There seems to be no doubt that Paul knew of the family’s problems including her father’s drinking.

At about the same time, John began dating Cynthia Powell, who lived in quite a good neighborhood. Her father had been quite well off although after his death she and her mother had little money to spare. Cyn dressed very well and spoke posh.

John hung out with Stu at art school and followed him in admiring the American “Beat Poets” and other intellectual activities. Paul occasionally joined them at parties where he tried to disguise his youth and inexperience by projecting a “French” air.

George, in Anthology [Tape 1, 37:300] “We didn’t have uniforms and Johnny Gentle had this posh suit…” The band also bought matching jackets before leaving for Hamburg for their first gig there. Earlier, the Quarrymen had a prescribed outfit that included white sport coats for John and Paul. Brian’s switching them into suits was not as major a change as John later makes it sound.

John, as well as Paul and George, thought that Brian Epstein’s air of the upper class (and his money) would be good for the Beatles.

Astrid, who became Stuart’s fiancé (John was also very interested in her) came from a good family and lived in a good neighborhood. She was another art student and her good taste and interest in the modernist movement in Europe gave her a very elegant air in herself.

I believe that the first surfacing of the accusations that Paul was a social climber came when he began dating Jane Asher (and living in her house though this wasn’t widely known). The Asher’s did live in a nice neighborhood particularly favored by doctors, very middle class. Every member of the family worked but they don’t seem to have lived in a particularly expensive manner. Mrs. Asher cooked though they no doubt had someone come in to do the housework. Dr. Asher used the house as his office as well as the family home. Their friendships appear to have ranged very widely from middle class “country” to London intelligencia (Peter Asher, the son of the family and a good friend of Paul’s was very much a part of this crowd.) Jane and Paul went to theatrical first nights and stayed with friends of the family in the country but the aristocracy doesn’t seem to have been a feature of their life.

All the Beatles knew Marianne Faithful and Tara Brown who had aristocratic connections but who were part of the club scene in London.

John, George and Ringo all bought houses in what was called the stock-broker belt – in other words the new rich making up part of the upper middle class. John and Ringo’s houses were decorated professionally in “early rock star.”

Paul’s house in London is in an area called “St. John’s Wood.” It appears to have been a nice but not particularly upscale neighborhood. I’m sure that now it’s very, very expensive now due to its location. It’s my impression that the house was a good buy although it did need work before Paul could move in. Paul and Jane chose the furniture that is described as good but neither expensive nor necessarily in matched sets. Most biographers mention that Paul kept a lace cloth over the dining table; a custom not usual in the middle or upper classes. If Paul failed to realize the class distinction of this I’m sure it would have been noticed and mentioned by Jane.

Paul’s farm in Scotland was at least in part an investment and tax advantage. It remained unimproved until late 1969 when he and Linda stayed there for several months. I believe it is on the plain side still.

Linda Eastman’s father was a self-made man who lived very well on his earnings as a lawyer specializing in representing artists and musicians. Her grandfather immigrated to the US from Poland. Linda’s mother was one of the heirs to a department store chain and died when Linda was in her teens. Linda may have had an allowance, in any case her father expected her to either go to school or support herself, which she did, becoming a free-lance photographer. Some time after they married, Paul bought a home outside the city, feeling it would be more suitable for their children. It was neither large nor fancily decorated.

Yoko Ono, on the other hand, was the daughter of a wealthy samurai family and in school she was friends with the son of the Emperor pf Japan. After their marriage, John bought a very large manor called Tittenhurst Park and spent a great deal of money in alterations. After he and Yoko moved to the US they owned several houses in various parts of the country, a yacht, and as many as 6 apartments in the very expensive luxury Dakota complex.

None of the Beatles appear to have used their fame as an entry into a posh social life – the primary goal of most social climbers. While Paul was inarguably impressed with the Asher’s lifestyle, it wasn’t their social lives but the way they organized their day and their interest in what was new and interesting that most caught his attention. Although if any of the Beatles had been interested in social climbing, John appears to be well in the lead, it’s my conviction that they retained their earlier focus on money enough to support personal choices and lifestyle without any thought of achieving some special rank in society. They turned down invitations to star at Royal Command Performances after the first and totally avoided invitations from ambassadors and the like. They did once accept an invitation to attend an event connected with the university at Oxford. Barry Miles’s impression of Paul’s social life shows him primarily participating in the club scene like many of the other British rock musicians and with the people involved with the Indica bookstore and gallery.

” Bettering yourself” unavoidably has some tinge of social climbing although the immediate rewards in more money and a better home in a less violent neighborhood are the more important. True social climbing tends to be about going to fancy parti es and hobnobbing with the rich and famous. The Beatles were the rich and famous but they show no signes of seeking to mix socially witih either the aristocracy or old money — which they certainly could have done if they wanted to.

I suspect the whole thing about Paul’s alleged social climbing began with one of the early magazing or biography writers making the comment and everyone from there on out copying it without a thought of whether there was any evidence to support it or not.

Paul’s Date

I’m not going to make a habit of commenting on newspaper stories about “the divorce” (shades of the 1930s) but one in the March 25, 2007 — The Mirror Is more then just a bit too much.
MACCA: OUT OF THE FRYING PAN by Carole Malone
But the biggest drawback is that Ms Guinness, 52, has spent most of her adult life ricocheting from one unsuitable man to another. There was a time when she had relationships with almost every top-ranking musician ever to have a hit – Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger and Bryan Ferry to name but a few.
I realize it’s too much to expect a tabloid editor to draw the line at puerile accusations based on abysmal ignorance. That’s their basic stock in trade. Not only does Ms Malone obviously consider dating rockers and princes for fun (and no doubt for games) is the equivalent of putting out to Arab arms dealers for cash; she tries to reanimate the fictional feud between The Beatles and the Rolling Stones – which only existed in the imaginations of earlier tabloid geniuses and a second-rate record company that dropped the golden ball on The Beatles.
She also is apparently oblivious to the fact that Paul’s “good wife” Linda had her own flings with many of the same rockers before she married Paul. Or that Paul could manage a pretty darn good fling his ownself.
Frankly, I think any single woman of 50-something who doesn’t have a “past” can safely be assumed to be too boring for Paul.

Eleven Reasons I Like Paul McCartney

1. I like melody, I like pattern and form in music, I like Santana best of the Guitar Heroes mostly because he always remembers that there is a melody. Paul writes very good melodies and sometimes very beautiful ones.

2. He doesn’t sing the same song over and over the same way. He doesn’t write the same song over and over. He doesn’t pick an arrangement that worked once and use it over and over.

3. He enjoys performing but he can go off and be alone too. He has fun and he isn’t afraid to try something new.

4. He can write truths outside his own personal experience. “How Kind” may very well be about something that happened to someone else. You can’t really jump to conclusions about who Paul’s songs are about.

5. He’s always known who he is and what he wants and he has the intelligence, energy and drive to have gone out and gotten it – and then he thought of others things and went out and did them.

6. He got a really lousy deal from the other Beatles and continues to get it from damn near everyone else. Everyone wants him to recreate the Beatles and they get mad when he doesn’t. Of course, they’d be mad if he did!

7. I like the fact that he backs his perfectionism but doesn’t come apart when, inevitably, it doesn’t quite come out perfect.

8. I think the brief picture, in a dream sequence in Broad Street (when Paul sees himself as a street busker) is very self revealing. I suspect that if he should find himself without all his money, he’d simply go out and find a way to make some.

9. He plays bass and I’ve always had a severe weakness for bass. Moreover, he plays bass extremely well.

10. He is truly creative. He came up with rhythms that now have become standards. He even was probably the precursor of Disco even though he no doubt hated it as much as all other musicians do.

11. He’s done a good job of keeping to his early decision to be nice to his fans. Of course, he does expect the fans to return the gesture! He is very disappointed in the few who overstep any reasonable bounds.

An Extra Just Because. He’s got a good, intelligent, sense of humor.

McCartney Album

McCartney Album
I’ve spent weeks attempting to figure out why Paul’s first solo album was not merely criticized but seriously slammed by so many. Of course, each person must have had his or her own particular set of motivations as well as their personal reaction to any music but when so universal an opinion is expressed it seems likely that much of the motivation will be alike.

To begin with, listening to it for the very first time, prepared to find it a less then perfect first effort, I was quite simply blown away! Not that every cut is a perfect example of song writing or arrangement or whatever. I’m sure that I could find reasonably legitimate criticism of most, if not all, the songs. I can find criticism of Mozart, after all! But separately and as a whole, it’s certainly not anything like disastrously bad. In fact, without prejudice, it‘s simply great to listen to. Variety, subtlety, beat, it’s all there.

What thoughts or emotions lead people to seek out reasons to criticize another’s work; anger, hatred, jealousy, bribery, perhaps desire to please others? All these things definitely played a real part (well, I don’t actually know about bribery but anytime Allen Klein not to mention Yoko Ono are involved I don’t think you can count it out) in the reviews of Paul’s first solo album. However, I don’t think that they were the only things nor really the most important. I think the real problem, and it continues at least up to the release of Chaos and Confusion in the Back Yard, is that Paul didn’t produce the album they expect because McCartney simply wasn’t a “Beatles album.”

John had released 4 albums, George 2 and Ringo one before Paul’s was released. McCartney looked to people like the last chance to have a real Beatles album, post Beatles. Instead they got the news that, as everyone had certainly known, the Beatles really were over and McCartney wasn’t at all a Beatles album.
The Swinging Sixties were gone and the Beatles were too. People were disappointed and a lot of people react to disappointment with anger. John had made it clear that Paul was on his shit list as had George and even Ringo said a couple of unkind things; Paul had been the one who publicly implied that there would never be another real Beatles album and there was this album review to write. You’re a reporter, the Beatles will be news more then ever for the next little while and John was always good for something quotable, so who do you want to be happy with your review? Three Beatles or one; it’s a pretty easy equation to solve.
Besides, McCartney is soft! It’s about love and marriage, not the proper subject of rock; girls, heart-break, drugs, acid trips and angst, that’s what rock is about these days. There are all these instrumental bits, you can understand all the lyrics and then there’s that weird rhythm in Momma Miss America and what kind of a song title is that? So it was easy to ignore it as it played through only once and slam it real good. Obviously, none of the other Beatles could really be Beatles alone but surely Paul was the least Beatle of them all. So it really didn’t matter how lovely some of the melodies Paul was doing sounded, didn’t matter how he played, how exciting the rhythms were, what great songs he wrote about finding love and happiness; it wasn’t the Beatles and it must be his fault.

After that, people got in a habit, sure the reviewers may like John, George or Ringo’s releases or not, but they were invariably grudging at best when it came to Paul’s. I’m not going to go dig up sales figures, I do know that the public in general did like Paul’s after Beatles (hereinafter “AB”) work because they bought records. By the end of the 70s a lot of Paul fans didn’t even know he’d been in some other band before Wings! Then John was shot dead and nothing can ever change the things he said, not even the things he said later.