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

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

can I do a mixed ballot?

listening to We All Stand Together and irl lolling at work paul you so crazy those frogs wtf

with something like Harrison's "You" can't help but think that any other singer (apart from Dylan) would have been thrashed by critics for that delivery

i've sorta been putting off the lennon deep listening, since george and ringo have more unknown territory for me, but it really is about time i cracked him open, it's been eons since i listened to some of those albums...

yeah i thought i was pretty thoroughly familiar with pre-double fantasy lennon but some of the tracks on some time in nyc really surprised me

albeit it was mostly yoko who surprised me

i think the only way i'm going to take advantage of the poll rules is through including a lot of yoko in my ballot. i went through her discography a few months ago but it still feels like i'm getting to know her as a (brilliant, lou reed-esque) songwriter

ringo at the peak of his powers on both plastic ono band records

otm. i love how Ringo's lack of pretension leads him to the craziest places. he's up for drumming on anything. bet if you ask him about the noisier avant garde material he would say "Oh yeah, we just jammed it out, lads" goofy peace sign

can I do a mixed ballot?

what do you mean?

Ringo is crazy good on Yoko's stuff, yeah.

this has got to be about the heaviest thing any of them ever did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCb0TsSIqI0

Ringo getting into Neu territory on that track

for those wondering about how to fill their ballots, I will refer back to the initial posts where I tried to make it clear that *anything* a Beatle played on or had a hand in producing is eligible. So my ballot, for example, ranges well outside John/Paul/George/Ringo solo albums to include tracks from Yoko, Nilsson, David Bowie, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, Ravi Shankar, Ronnie Spector, the Traveling Wilburys and even the Beach Boys

does this one count? not sure about McC's role in the final recording that Cilla Black released:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KyvGnJn5Ms

honestly just going through macca solo is filling out my ballot easily. i am voting for a ronnie spector track tho

that Cilla Black thing is tricky because really you'd have to vote for the demo, I guess? Macca isn't on her released version.

"greenfield morning" is such a cool song

This should get a few votes, George's high quality contribution to the Lethal Weapon II soundtrack
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YaDExzJxP0

it's on my list. I love the extended demonstration of his slide guitarin'.

"open your box"/"hirake" is just the coolest song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1VQahA0-dA

approximately infinite universe is one of the best double albums i can think of but i'd like to specifically rep for "catman"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YU5rbfx_Fo

song kinda makes me think of kate bush five years before kate bush

I can't stress enough how delighted I am that people have come around on Yoko's stuff so much. I get really irritated when I read people slagging her off and all the implied and/or expressed racism, sexism and rockism that comes along with it.