Review – The McCartney Years

I read a number of reviews before I could afford to order my copy of Paul’s 3-disk videos and concerts and, despite knowing that rarely does a reviewer cut him any slack, I was a little afraid I’d be disappointed. Well, I wasn’t. Sure, I don’t doubt that some of the video isn’t absolutely tops in every single video and no doubt they were right that the sound quality here and there isn’t perfect – I’ll never know since I don’t have an expensive “home theatre” attached to my inexpensive and far from new TV. (My computer speakers, however, are top notch just in case you’re interested.)

Sure, one or two of the videos appear dated in a way that isn’t fun and I don’t love absolutely every song but all in all, there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had from the collection.  Some are just plain fun, some are thought provoking, some wonderfully illustrate the song and some are utterly off the wall – If I’d thought about what I wanted them to be, those are the words I’d have used. Most of them look like they were fun (as well as hard work) to do and many of them go to very odd and unusual places, mostly places in Paul’s head. It helps that I’ve always enjoyed surrealism.

I’d end up with a rather long list if I named my favorites but I can mention a few: Fine Line, computer “reduced” and animated in … fine lines; Push, with lovely relaxed ride on the underground, Brown-Eyed Handsome Man with the most inventive collection of line dancers ever conceived; Hope of Deliverance with the torches in the dark and of course Coming Up with Paul and Linda taking all the roles. Not to mention that it’s fascinating to watch the years go by – Paul’s years and the changing band but my own years as well.

So maybe there are imperfections; frankly I’ve found perfection to be more then merely rare in this world. My personal opinion is that if you can’t find something to be entertained by on these disks, you’re working awfully hard at being a party-pooper! Don’t miss the “easter eggs” at the beginning and end of each menu choice!! I think that they are repeats on the credits but there’s a lot of film and music lurking on those disks. For instance, Calico Skies plays on the Setup menu of disk 2 with Paul sititng by a fire in the woods with an acoustic guitar. Not, perhaps, a formal video but an enjoyable illustration of one of my favorite songs.

The concert footage I enjoy as well although I notice that by the time they filmed Rockshow, Paul was tired and perhaps worried; strain is very obvious in his face. He must have been tired as well for the performance at Glastonbury but there’s far less strain apparant. The Unplugged footage is completely different with neither wear and tear or worry burdening Paul’s expression. Watching the videos of the original Wings I do feel that Paul was really pushing to bring the band to real success — I’m not going to examine his reasons as they are pretty obvious — and my research indicates that he succeeded quite well. The videos helped me realize that Wings really was a very different band from the Beatles and I can’t help feeling a good bit of respect that Paul could manage to do it without coming across as something synthetic.

Give My Regards To Broad Street

Broad St. is quite a nice movie musical, particularly if you’re old enough to remember Danny Kaye as well as Gene Kelly and Fred Astair. Yes, the Eleanor Rigby picnic scene grown more then slightly odd but so does the ballet in American In Paris. I know perfectly well that if it had been John wandering around to variations on Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds all the critics would have swooned over it. Because for some reason John is the “rocker” and Paul only some slick pop singer, nothing he does can be right. So It’s a double dream sequence, what’s wrong with that?
It’s obvious, of course, that practically none of the reviewers was actually watching the movie – otherwise they could have subtracted 10 AM from Midnight and not come up with 24 hours. I haven’t actually tried to count the number of sight gags (as opposed to witty fun) in the movie but from the Scotland Yardman’s dropped pants when he hears how much the tapes were worth to the busker near the end, the movie is loaded with both “public” jokes and those accessible only to Beatle fans.
I consider it shameful that none of the critics caught that Paul was playing a joke with his highly orchestrated version of The Long And Winding Road. Use your ears, people, Paul’s not only out-Spectorized Phil Spector, he also did a great recording of the song without turning it into something drippy as Phil did. I’m quite sure Phil noticed.
I do wish I could figure out if there’s a joke connected to the brown document envelope that keeps turning up though. I’ve tried slo-mo, tilt and pause with no luck. And I can feel smugly that few people realized that the Victorian sequence began in around 1865 and ended up in 1890 with appropriate changes of clothing – and that Linda had borrowed George Sands’ outfit.

I have no problem with someone simply disliking this movie, it’s the obvious fact that they didn’t bother to actually WATCH the movie with any real attention and then criticize it for things that didn’t happen or for the lack of things that actually are in the movie that irritates the fool out of me! Of course, Broad St. makes the mistake of not really being a “rock movie” — perhaps because Paul didn’t set out to make a “rock movie” — he made a McCartney movie and one that isn’t anywhere near as bad as the reviewers make it sound.

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 !