Paul mccartney son5/5/2023 ![]() “When we can start working again, at least we’ll be ready to go,” he says. He made demos of all the songs last year and he’s having them transposed into sheet music so a rehearsal pianist can accompany the actors in readiness for preproduction. He’s also been making some of the final preparations for It’s A Wonderful Life, the musical he’s been writing for the past three years based on the famous Frank Capra movie. Current projects include High In The Clouds (an animation project that has been bought by Netflix), a special reissue of Flaming Pie and a 50th anniversary limited-edition release of his first solo album, McCartney. McCartney is having a busy year, even if he has spent several months cocooned in his East Sussex farm. Don’t forget “Dear Friend”, about which the Independent journalist Richard Williams once said, “If ‘Dear Friend’ had been the first track on the White Album instead of the last track on his least successful post-Beatles effort, it would be as well-known as ‘Yesterday’.” Personally, I think he can be forgiven anything for writing the exultant brass coda at the end of his 1982 hit “Take It Away”, one of the most glorious, epiphanic 42 seconds you’ll find on a record anywhere. Many, many things McCartney’s written in the past 50 years are easily as good as anything he wrote in The Beatles: “My Brave Face” ( Flowers In The Dirt, 1989), “Every Night” ( McCartney, 1970), “Young Boy” (1997’s Flaming Pie) or “Some People Never Know” ( Wild Life, 1971) or “Ever Present Past” ( Memory Almost Full, 2007). Imagine “Monkberry Moon Delight” ( Ram, 1971) on the White Album or “Letting Go” (the 1975 single) on Abbey Road. ![]() Try replacing “Good Day Sunshine” with “Let ’Em In” ( Wings At The Speed Of Sound, 1976), say, or “Martha My Dear” with “Girlfriend” ( London Town, 1978). Yet his work has continued to pop and fizz and it’s possible to imagine lots of his solo work sitting quite happily next to Lennon’s abrasive psychedelia or Harrison’s partially composed complaints on any number of Beatles LPs. Although it inspired the 1973 Wings hit of the same name, in the song’s video McCartney drives an open-topped Rolls-Royce. It was bought in 1970 to get around his farm in Scotland and to drive to and from London. McCartney with his beloved Land Rover, ‘Helen Wheels’. ![]() What could top being – along with David Bailey, The Rolling Stones and Michael Caine – pretty much responsible for the 1960s? What could top being a Beatle? Here is a man who gave his name to The Ramones (Paul Ramon being McCartney’s old stage and hotel check-in name), whose “Yesterday” is the most popular song of all time (2,400 mangled cover versions and counting) and who conjured up the bass part for John Lennon’s “Come Together” in a jot. And listening to Paul McCartney talk in 2020, it would be easy to believe that he is the biggest Beatles fan of them all.Īnd why wouldn’t he be? Come on, what could possibly top having five records in the American Top Ten at the same time? What could top playing Shea Stadium to the loudest crowd in history? Or making Sgt Pepper? Or “Hey Jude”? Or “Let It Be”? What on earth could possibly top being revered by an entire generation? Or two. The success of Craig Brown’s recent (and highly entertaining) book One Two Three Four: The Beatles In Time demonstrates the continued fascination with the most important group in pop. However, even I was surprised by how willingly he volunteered stories about The Beatles when I interviewed him recently. And in the past 25 years or so, he has often talked about the band – or, more specifically, his friends John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr – with the same enthusiasm his fans always have.
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