The Beatles' Solo Careers Poll - Voting and General Discussion Thread

The first side of LT is sweet! Back to the Egg is the one on which conventional wisdom is correct. Sorry, dudes! I love "Arrow Through Me" and the addled "Old Siam, Sir," can tolerate "Getting Closer," and will dump the rest.

so so pleasantly surprised by "with a little luck" tho, what a cool song that doesn't seem like it deserves to be almost six minutes long, but then, suddenly, it does!

i do like that on every paul record (so far) there's at least a moment if not several where i'm like "oh huh, that's interesting, you've never done that before"

he's never consistent exactly but his songwriting really grows

"London Town" the song should be better-known. the lyric isn't wildly great ("ordinary people it's impossible to meet" - barf) but love that tune and that great soft rainy-day late 70s production....mmmm. in that same vein, but stronger, "With A Little Luck" is one of his very best singles imho. i grew up with it on All The Best so i never had any sense of how well-known or obscure it might be. a #1 in the US! rarely heard now, i fear. don't you feel the comet exploding?

a #1 in the US!

i've never heard it in my whole life!

on listen two i may prefer london town to venus and mars. it's the first time aimless and scattered wings has really worked for me. i mean, what in the world is "morse moose"

a great song

it's true. i put it next to "open your box" on my ballot just bc they feel like they belong together

here's hoping a london town... naked will someday allow shakey to hear "morse moose" without the "morse code" synth (guitar?) effect running through. though i also think it's fair to follow sic's cue and just rock out to the twin freaks mashup with "coming up." that album for me peaks with "mumbo" but boy it's a garden of trainspotting delights for the lifelong paul fan.

i guess i love "getting closer" bc it reminds me of abba

curious what you think of "Again and Again and Again"

xgau otm!

London Town [Capitol, 1978]

McCartney's lyricism is so capricious, so given to inanity and icky-poo, that only at its very best--"With a Little Luck" and the affectionate goof on "Famous Groupies"--does it come on strong. But from its slices of life to its romantic reassurances this is nowhere near as feckless as the Old Band on the Run claque claims--even on the one about the fairy who'll invite us to tea Linda adds a few harmonies that are as charming as they're meant to be. And at the very least you have to be impressed by how steadfastly Paul has resisted supersessions--he's been loyal to his group, which has now recorded longer than the Beatles. B

Finally checking out Old Wave. Maybe it's just taking a couple days off the Ringo marathon but it's sounding a lot better than those last few records. Would never have picked Ric Ocasek's as a good sound for Ringo and Joe Walsh to try and rip off but it at least clears out all the sonic clutter and just gives us Ringo trying to belt out some rock tunes. Makes me wish this had been combined with Gone Troppo in a Cuban Linx-esque dynamic duo "ex-Beatles have fun going new wave" kinda deal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwWVGTRz_fY

^^^ like, this isn't going to change the world or anything but it is wayyyyy more enjoyable than you'd expect from a Ringo cut in 1983. compare to idk Frankie Valli's "Streetfighter" or the Monkees' "Every Step of the Way" and it's damned good. the next song leans charmingly into Ringo's sad-sack schtick with a litany of bad news: "The martians have invaded, it's hopeless."

it's pretty inane but not godawful. and yet he couldn't even get a US label to release it.

curious what you think of "Again and Again and Again"

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, May 22, 2018 11:05 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

turns out i love it

more on old wave: "Be My Baby" taking us back to the trusty old talkbox glories of "Rocky Mountain Way"... "Everybody's In A Hurry But Me" is just a Starr/Walsh/Entwistle/Clapton jam session, apparently... yeah this is a cool album idk man. the cover of "She's About A Mover" doesn't really bring much to the song but it's the kind of thing that should be showing up as a cover on a Ringo record. his cover of "I Keep Forgettin'" doesn't seem to be on youtube. so who knows.

i wish, btw, that george had stuck by covers a bit more! his rendition of "If Not For You" is just so lovely.

this is really just my rockist lizard brain getting switched on but my favorite part of any wings song is when the guitars get thick. (np: "old siam, sir")

back to the egg is fuckin awesome. the simultaneous synth/guitar solo in "to you"? i love hearing paul this loose but not, like, wild life loose

London Town has its highlights, but I'd rank Venus and Mars and Back to the Egg above it. Love 'Cafe on the Left Bank' and 'With a Little Luck' ... it's interesting that Brad is honing in on a lot of the same songs that I rate highly.

Okay, Brad is now my favourite person in the entire universe and I'll never post anything snarky on the 1975 thread ever again.

someone give me the nobel peace prize

nobel prize for lit, thanks to the bits of fiction you've contributed here

Egg does benefit from a producer (Chris Thomas) instead of Paul.

you gotta defrost your ears re: back to the egg alfred

listening to "To You" for the first time in years and wondering why Paul is shouting on my neck.

u love "old siam"! embrace shouty paul

I didn't say I loved it – sometimes Paul has moments of lunacy only he can record.

otm

The descending section in between the verses (I'm hesitant to call it a chorus) on 'Old Siam Sir' fucking rules.

And “Spin It On” rules

yep

McCartney this millennium is his most consistent period with lots of great songs

I love Chaos and Creation in the Backyard and have a lot of time for Memory Almost Full. Driving Rain I find a bit hit and miss, but it's worth hearing for 'Rinse the Raindrops' alone. New starts off fairly well, but I always end up switching it off about halfway through.

"That Was Me" and "Ever Present Past" are on my list.

good LORD how did I miss these lines from "Deliver Your Children": "If you want good hens/You better feed that hen"

lol good EGGS

like egg yolk, down to the last drop
i keep moppin' it up

From what I've read, the hardcore seemed quite down on Memory Almost Full - there's only really one song on there that comes immediately to mind as being awful and that's 'Gratitude' ...

But 'Ever Present Past', 'See Your Sunshine', 'Only Mama Knows', 'Mr. Bellamy' ...

"You Tell Me," "Vintage Clothes," "House of Wax," "The End of the End"

"Mull of Kintyre": don't believe I ever heard it until the Hits & History comp. Yet is it not so that every British person between the ages of maybe 35-90 knows this song, and that a goodly portion bursts into tears and sings along drunk off they ass when played at the pub? And yet it is utterly unknown to all americans but saddo Beatlemaniacs.

yeah, I got into it from the Wings Greatest comp - have never once heard it "in the wild." It's fantastic but I can believe any UK resident who thinks of it as an unbearable overplayed anthem kind of song.

"Mull of Kintyre". yes i have heard about that song for years, and when i finally heard it, as an America, i was like, what do people see in this song? it def sounded like some English drinking song. apparently it was a giant hit and a beloved classic but i can't see it.

as an American, not claiming to be the entire country. i have never heard anyone talk about this song irl tho.

"Mull of Kintyre" is amazing in how tuneless it is. I can never remember how it goes.

Also heard "We Al Stand Together" for the first time today. That song is batshit crazy.

"London Town" the song should be better-known. the lyric isn't wildly great ("ordinary people it's impossible to meet" - barf) but love that tune and that great soft rainy-day late 70s production

the lyric is kinda bad but also verges on stupid-good for me ("i was accosted by a barker playing a simple tune upon his flute / toot toot toot toot"). regardless the song ascends my ballot every time i listen to it, it's so lovely

Wow, "Mull of Kintyre" to me has always sounded like one of those "this tune hasn't existed for hundreds of years?!" things. It's really beautiful imho, let down only by what Tom Ewing pegs as "standard Highlands postcard imagery." I think there's some memorable lyrical turns, and I'd take it over "Rocky Mountain High."

though most of this thread has been discussing paul's output, I suspect that Lennon will probably do very well in the top 20

some of those Linda songs are p cool btw, she's got great attitude

this playlist is more or less updated btw
https://open.spotify.com/user/betamaxdk/playlist/61os6iMh4h0qY70BawKB5U

seems nobody's mentioned "my mummy's dead" but what an urtext for lennon, will def be on my ballot

"one day at a time" is a nice deep cut from Mind Games in that proto-ariel pink vein

for some reason I really like "whatever gets you through the night"

makes a lot of sense that Lennon has a song called "gimme some truth", so many of his songs are attempts at expressing some existential/spiritual/political/deeply personal truth. I'd never thought much of it before reading this thread but, in contrast, paul indeed has a lot of gibberish songs

"long haired lady" is another cool RAM track

RAM and Flaming Pie are my fav Paul albums, BotR 3rd, and I could (but won't) vote for every track on them, shoutouts to "The Song We Were Singing" and "Heaven on a Sunday"

thread has for obv reasons not been too preoccupied with huge songs but "my sweet lord" is such a jam

too late but I think a fun side poll would have been album covers