C/D Paul McCartney Solo

McCartney II is a very accomplished piece of experimentation, being produced (as it was) in 1979-80. Yes he makes a load of noise about doing it all himself, but he's always done that.

Rockestra w/ Bonham:

What a woeful helicopter smash of an album. How it's Fireman and not Macca being 100% self-indulgent is fathoms beyond my reach.

Armed with this thread's contents I made a best of post-Beatles playlist on Spotify (sorry to those shut out of Spotify):

http://open.spotify.com/user/nickyd/playlist/40YtLVuiEtdisxLcaqhHt1

And then I whittled it down further to stuff I actually liked:

http://open.spotify.com/user/nickyd/playlist/7Ctxim1T5TslHsVGg09feX

(can't stop listening to Back Seat Of My Car at the moment.

Where is Pinefox when you need him?

Paul McCartney is one of those artists that I bet there's a potential CD-R or two's worth of stuff I would absolutely adore - really he needs to be a lot more obscure than he is, so some loving curator could trawl through his albums and B-Sides and make some selections. As it is his commercial/historical clout means the available compilations take the path of least resistance a bit too much.
― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 13 February 2003

"Every Night" from the first solo album is an idyll of a song, very "Railways Conserve The Environment" 1970 (as opposed to, you know, RADICAL 1970) indeed. I'd have liked it if he'd written "Come And Get It" slightly later so it could be his first solo single, because it's better than "Another Day", or if he'd written it slightly earlier so it could be a Beatles single, because it's better than "Hello Goodbye". The promo film for "Helen Wheels" is fantastically evocative. "Hi Hi Hi" is better than "My Ding-A-Ling" precisely because it *isn't* "in the tradition of the music hall" (the hilarious reason given by the ultra-conservative Charles Curran-era BBC as to why it was still playing Chuck Berry's lowpoint when it had banned the Wings song in December 1972).

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Monday, 17 February 2003

I'm listening to Macca on spotify, maybe I can play N's playlist.

I'm not sure though, how those playlists work.

I am just listening to RAM.

you shld be able to just click on the link and it shld open the playlist

Listening to that playlist: whatever else about it, it reminds me of the greatness of 'You Gave Me The Answer'

still on N's playlist; 'Jenny Wren'!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHz_7e7yluM

...hard not to admire that! Love love love the song, beyond all rational justification - so much flourish and energy put into this goofy little idea!

May have linked this before, but: http://www.ummagurau.com/art/doctorcasino/magneto09.mp3 is an unfinished homemade cover of the song from my extremely unfinished (ie, never to be even halfway done) double album of Paul McCartney covers.

current fave solo pmac: "let 'em in"

gotta give a shout out to "little lamb dragonfly".
doctor casino, good to know someone else has been working on the same project as i am! so far all i've got is spot-on versions of "c moon" and "some people never know".

Yeah, Let 'Em In is fantastic! I mean who writes a song like that, such a ridiculous, drug-addled concept for a song. Musically, it's all so regimented with everything in its right place. I guess I'm having trouble describing what's so great and strange about it, but it's a very odd number. Sonic candy about nothing, which I guess sums up Wings pretty well. And it reached #3 here in the States!

x-post

i had this exact thought: "who writes songs like this?" So simple, so addictive. The piano/drums/one note bass line doesn't really even sound like a mccartney tune, until he starts singing, and it all fits together so perfectly. And like a lot of his songs, I have no desire to know what he's talking about, or what any of the lyrics might actually mean.

it is about a doorbell and that is all

McCartney's songs-about-nothing or songs-about-stuff ethos (doorbells, lambs, etc) was perfect for the seventies, no?

Paul McCartney >> Wings

yeah heard 'let em in' (for the first time i think) at dinner the other night with the girl and we were both kinda really into it. maybe i should check a wings rec?

how the hell have I never heard Magneto and Titanium Man

Those mid seventies Wings albums have some good stuff but they defy categorization.

NY Times' Pareles likes the 2 1/2 hour Yankee Stadium gig

At 69, Mr. McCartney is not saying goodbye but touring stadiums and playing marathon concerts. Friday’s set ran two and a half hours, with Mr. McCartney constantly onstage, and it had 35 songs, not counting a few additional excerpts. He played half a dozen instruments (though he didn’t show off his drumming), sang with only a few scrapes in the voice that’s familiar worldwide, and looked as if he was having a boyish romp as he navigated what endure as some of rock’s oddest hits. His hair grew more tousled with every song.

The set drew on Mr. McCartney’s various outlets from the 1960s on: the Beatles, Wings, his solo albums and his once-pseudonymous project the Fireman.

Though he also notes:

There was more than a little familiarity to the concert for anyone who attended Mr. McCartney’s 2009 shows at that other new ballpark, the Mets’ Citi Field, or listened to and watched the resulting live album of CDs and a DVD, “Good Evening New York City” (Hear Music). Once again he wore suspenders over his white shirt. His band lineup hasn’t changed, with Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums, Brian Ray and Rusty Anderson on guitars and Paul (Wix) Wickens on keyboards. Two-thirds of the songs were the same, often in similar groupings and with the same arrangements and first-time surprises, like appending Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” to “Let Me Roll It,” or segueing “A Day in the Life” into “Give Peace a Chance” — a V-sign waving epiphany for the crowd — or explaining that the civil-rights movement inspired “Blackbird.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/arts/music/paul-mccartney-yankee-stadium-concert-review.html?src=recg

Did "Maybe I am Amazed" too

Aw...no birthday wishes on his 70th! My favourite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbKGsEK_T9g

https://twitter.com/SPINmagazine/status/214834929417199616

I shouldn't admit this, but I find all the Facebook posts kind of moving.

https://www.facebook.com/PaulMcCartney?ref=ts

I find I've Just Seen A Face kind of moving. How marvellous it would've been to be a Beatle.

For me, the greatest smitten-at-first-sight song ever written. I always like to think it's about Linda, although chances are it's not. (It started off with a different title, for one thing.) Extremely moving. "I have missed things and kept out of sight."

I don't normally listen to their (pre-1966?) romantic songs and hear literal inspirations - though they must be there. But I know what a joy it is to make songs, and it would be great to make something near as good as the basic song of I've Just Seen A Face. And then, if I had pals around to add that needlessly amazing intro, it would be my best ever day. They had many such days. The line you quoted is terrific.

Enjoyed Paul McCartney's 2 hrs and 45 minute gig Friday night at the Washington Nationals Ballpark. Yes, I now see via google that the story he told about Jimi Hendrix covering Sgt. Pepper and Jimi asking Eric Clapton to tune his guitar, he told before in 2009 and maybe other times. Still liked his instrumental cover of "Foxy Lady" even if his current band are pretty generic. Still enjoyed his other stories even if he has told them before, plus his goofy dancing and arm-waving.Yes, I know his setlist for this tour never changes much.
His bass-playing, guitar-playing, piano and organ-playing all were pretty good-- and that voice of course. "Paperback Writer" and others still sounded great.

http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/paul-mccartney/2013/nationals-park-washington-dc-7bd956d4.html

what'd he play organ on?

btw I'd love a list of solo electric guitar greatest hits besides the obvious choices. Unless the album credits say otherwise, I tend to credit Denny Laine or whatever other Wingman.

I just wish he'd tell more stories about, y'know, his post-Beatles songs...

Are you sure.../!

He did talk about going on vacation with his current wife and it was raining the whole time, but she was wonderful and he wrote "My Valentine" for her. He has told this one before too:

http://www.beatlesbible.com/people/paul-mccartney/songs/my-valentine/

x-post-- Hmmm, maybe that wasn't an organ but just a smaller piano. I was far away, and it was turned in such a direction that it was hard to see and the sound wasn't the best. He had a baby grand up there as well, that was bigger. Saw one review mentioning two pianos, and others did not address this. But he has played organ in the studio

I had a couple of friends at that show. One of them took his oldest son (age 9), making it his very first rock concert.

He also had a friend (stadium employee?) grab him an actual setlist off the stage:

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1069998_10151812003280337_557449061_n.jpg

"Junior's Farm"!

Yep.

x-post

Nice. Yes, a fair amount of kids there. Plus it seemed lots of folks for whom it was likely their first concert in a long while

wow he does 1985 and Mrs Vandebilt these days? pretty cool, suprising.

Yeah, was stoked to see those in there! Did he do like a "play through all of Band on the Run" set a few years back? Could imagine that kind of kicking those into the rotation. Had "Mrs Vandebilt" stuck in my head the other night while biking up one Vanderbilt Avenue.

Did he ever do a "play through all of Band on the Run" set?

Did not know these details about the recording of that album in Nigeria-- http://www.ibtimes.com/band-run-40-years-ago-paul-mccartney-saved-his-career-album-made-under-duress-nigeria-1346223

I may have just imagined that set! Seems like the kind of thing that could have happened, is all. The making-of that album is so nuts, really points up this thing of "how come Wings stories never get told," that one is out there but I know absolutely zip about the making of most of the other records.

London Town was recorded on a boat.

That's all I got.

PR emil I just got:

GOING UNDERGROUND
Paul McCartney, the Beatles, and the UK Counter-Culture
Coming to DVD on October 1st

In the mid-1960s the often rigid and colourless British way of life was irrevocably transformed by the emergence of a cultural underground movement. Led by a loose collective of young radicals, they introduced new social, sexual and aesthetic perspectives. Operating out of the heart of London, their various activities, from 'The International Times' - a bi-weekly journal that no hipster could be seen without - to the psychedelic nightclub UFO, promoted alternative lifestyles and values, and sparked a social revolution

This film not only traces the history of this underground scene, but also explores its impact on the pre-eminent British group of the era, The Beatles. Although they were well established by the time the movement emerged, Paul McCartney in particular, was closely linked with several of its key players, and through his exposure to cutting edge concepts brought ideas directly from the avant-garde into the mainstream.

Featuring many new interviews with key players from the time including; IT editor and long term friend of Paul McCartney, Barry Miles; founder of IT and UFO club organiser, John 'Hoppy' Hopkins; founder of UFO and Pink Floyd producer , Joe Boyd; Soft Machine drummer, Robert Wyatt; drummer from experimental improvisational collective AMM, Eddie Prevost; proprietor of Indica, the counter-cultural gallery, John Dunbar; Underground scenester, vocalist with The Deviants and IT journalist, Mick Farren; plus author of 'Days in the Life: Voices from the English Underground 1961 - 1971', Jonathon Greene; Beatles expert, Chris Ingham and Mojo jounalist Mark Paytress.

Also includesrare archive footage, photographs from private collections and music from The Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Soft Machine, AMM and others.

Been enjoying "The Alternate London Town" for more than any other proper solo/Wings album.