This Is Not A Chair

Paul has done it to us again and slipped it right by us all and nobody’s said a damn word! I mean, when we saw the album with that chair on the front we should have known we were missing something. But no, we just toddled along bitching to ourselves about “that stupid damn chair” and somebody wondered if maybe it was Linda’s favorite chair but nobody even took them up to argue about it.

I got my album two or three days ago (I’d heard the songs, I just didn’t have my own copy) and of course I read every word in the “liner notes” –and even then it took my brain several hours to suddenly sit up and say, “WOW.” I got up and grabbed the box and yes, sure enough the front of the chair on the front of the box and the back of the chair on the back of the box aren’t photos of a chair but paintings of chairs.

But the chair Paul is slouching on and standing behind and doing gymnastics around isn’t the same chair that someone Photoshopped a photo of Paul onto. The chair in the photos that include Paul is covered with brocade that resembles the childlike drawings on the painted chairs.

I have long since noticed in Give My Regards To Broad Street that the man adores very VERY subtitle jokes – some of which I haven’t yet managed to decipher – and this joke damn well is subtitle – I think Magritte would be pleased.

This is not a chair but this is not a painting.

Paul is one wicked funny man !

Reviewing

I have really tried over the years to keep in mind that when someone has decided that they don’t like someone or something, he or she is unlikely to admit it even if they happen to find something about it or him to like or if he or she accidentally does something that they do actually like. It’s entirely to be expected that when Paul McCartney puts out a new album there will be as many opinions as there are people paid (or not paid) to write about music. Somehow the ones who have decided not to like it seem to be just as eager to spread their opinion around as everyone else. The best technique is not to talk about things you dislike and maybe the world will forget about them. That’s the best way; I didn’t say I followed it.

I’m also learning that it’s completely foolish to try to guess who Paul wrote this or that song about. I’ve read a dozen or so reviews of Memory Almost Full today and there’s one guy who thinks the whole album is about how much Paul loves Linda. I think one person or another has named every single song on the album except Dance Tonight as being about Heather Mills. Come to think of it, why on earth did they leave that one out considering that she was on that silly dance show? The truth is for the most part I don’t care who or what Paul thought he was writing about, the question is does the song do it for me?

The second best cheap amusement for the day is reading all the articles (and comments on them) marking the 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band. Here the range of opinion isn’t nearly so great: there are those that feel it was both important and great and there are those who thing it was only one of those things or neither. I only have two things to dsay about that: if it’s so unimportant and not great why are we still arguing about it 40 years after the sales receipt went into the trash? The other thought is that my mother taught me to keep an extra around in a brown paper bag, there are some people you just don’t serve the good stuff to.

My opinion of Memory Almost Full? Great, marvelous, exciting, scary, nostalgic, prescient, fun, sad, terrifying and visionary. In other words, I like it a lot. It is quite definitely an album to listen to several times before you start forming an opinion. The arrangements are intricate, layered and full of color and texture. My favorite? House of Wax and then Mr. Bellamy. I’ve always had a weakness for dramatic music. After that I like Feet in the Clouds a lot. I like the way he winds over and under, around and through without quite touching the melody. I’ve liked an awful lot of Paul McCartney songs in my life but I can’t say there are very many I like more then these. He also proves it truly can be done, a wild and free electic guitar solo without feedback or distotion!

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.