Bringing it on Home

Two different takes on Sam Cooke:






Now imagine them fused together.

McCartney at Dodger Stadium

I knew dozens of people at this show. Oddly, none of them offered me a free ticket.

But we live in a world of miracles, wonder, and the intertubes.

I imagine this will be gone shortly.

But while it's up, enjoy.

Now That You Mention It

Live a little, be a gypsy, get around

Senseless But Charming

As long as I'm stuck in the 70s...

This is the Modern World

Michael Jackson is a hologram and Paul McCartney dances with robots.

Welcome to the future. Can I have my Jet Pack now?

What's It All About

A little ditty from Paul McCartney.

And maybe the band should all switch instruments just to make it more interesting.

Because it's just a B-side, so no one will pay attention.

Right?

Live McCartney

I hope I can rock this hard when I'm in my 70s.

Seriously, this is so great it makes me take back half the mean things I've ever said about Sir Paul.

Paul McCartney Live Stream from Jimmy Kimmel Live on Myspace.

New Paul McCartney

Who gnu?



And a bonus radio call-in interview on yesterday's New Music show at XRT. Click here for details.

And Starring Martha as the Dog

Where the Holy Sheepdogs Go

Can't get this song out of my mind today:



This song always seemed unfinished to me. Great hook, but sections that he never bothered to flesh out.

Yet that song got released...

And this one stayed in the vaults:


Go figure.

Another Great Day

True Story

Me: What's that song on the Chase Sapphire commercial that sounds so much like Paul McCartney? I mean, it can't possibly be McCartney, so it's clearly someone who spent a lot of time listening to McCartney and wants everyone to know it.

Go Here, Read This, Listen to That

I'm under the weather this weekend and drowning in work...

But here are a few things that have sparked my musical interests:

Apparently, the Paul McCartney song "Jet" was written about a dog. Or a horse. Or it's just nonsense. Or it's about David Bowie.

Any Major Dude with Half a Heart covers Carole King's Tapestry -- meaning the cover and cover versions of the tracks. Check it out here.

Andrew Sandoval and the For the Love of Harry blog share some cool unreleased Nilsson tracks.

Catch you tomorrow...

I Believe I'm Gonna Rain

Haven't Done A Bloody Thing All Day

The sleepy/druggy music fits in well with the sleepy/druggy video, which gives up about halfway through in favor of a bunch of still pictures.

This is kind of like the little brother of the Abbey Road medley -- great on its own, but always worried it's just a shadow of what might have been.

You Were Standing with A Bootleg In Your Hand

What in the world is he on about anyway?

Here's the essential, existential problem with Paul McCartney:

He can be so effortlessly brilliant that it seems like he's not even trying.

Or he can be so annoyingly sloppy that he seems like the worst kind of hack (albeit a hack with the most amazing sense of melody you've ever encountered).

For example:

When I met you at the station, you were standing with a bootleg in your hand...

Maybe the problem isn't getting Hi-Hi-Hi, it's that you were already Hi-Hi-Hi when you wrote this.

Sweet Banana.




Or should I call you "My Salamander."

Which, incidentally, doesn't rhyme with "oh no, don't answer."



Just saying.

Continuing the Trend

Money for Rope

From the Let It Be sessions, the Beatles doing "Gimme Some Truth":



And the finished version from John Lennon's Imagine album a couple years later:



And here's a Beatles attempt at a Paul McCartney song:


And McCartney's version from Ram:


And, while we're at it:



And a cover by Billy Preston (who played on the Beatles version):


And George Harrison's version from 1970 (the visuals are a bit over-the-top on this one):


And finally a snippet from 2000 (in the same garden with the same gnomes):

Did I Hear You Say That There Must Be a Catch?

Better Hurry Cause It's Going Fast

42 years after writing this song, Paul McCartney finally gets around to singing it live on stage.



And, just for good measure, here's the "original" Badfinger version:

God, It's Such A Drag When You're Living in the Past

Maybe You Can Find Anything on the Interwebz

From 1987 (and arguably better than anything he released in the late 80s) comes an unreleased gem from Sir Paul McCartney:



I wonder what made him shelve this? Fear that he'd be seen as dwelling on the past (or condemning the past)? A gut feeling that the lyrics weren't up to snuff? A deep-seated fear that the Blue Meanies know where he lives?

One From Column John & One From Column Paul

Back to the Beatles.

With a major hat-tip to the amazing Beatle-obsessed Hey Dullblog, here are two Beatle-related items:

A 1999 interview with Jack Douglas, producer of John & Yoko's Double Fantasy album. Among the amazing facts -- Paul McCartney called the studio during the recording sessions; he and John were planning to get together to write songs together, but Yoko made sure John didn't get the message. (This is interesting in light of another report that John was supposed to come to New Orleans to work with Paul on the Venus & Mars album in 1975, but Yoko became pregnant and vetoed the idea.)

Speaking of Paul McCartney, Geoff Geis, has put together something he calls "Fast RAM" or "Ram on 45." The concept is simple as Geis explains: "My buddy Dan C proposed that people in the era of Ram were so drugged-out that slow music appealed to them more." So he recorded McCartney's Ram album at 45rpm instead of 33 1/3. And the results are surprisingly fun and entertaining. Check it out here.

Surely this is why the Internet was invented!

Updated: Commenter David pointed out that, in the comments to Geoff Geis' blog entry, commenter Alan Benard pitch-corrected the Fast RAM to be less chipmunky. You can hear (or download) the pitch-corrected first side here.

It was 40 Years Ago Today

And so it began.

John Lennon wanted to announce in 1969 that the Beatles had broken up. But Paul McCartney knew they were in the middle of negotiating a lucrative distribution deal for Apple Records (and would get much less money if people thought there would never be another new Beatles album) and talked Lennon out of it.

McCartney himself casually announced the breakup exactly 40 years ago today.

As a way of plugging his first solo album.

In the middle of an interview he conducted with himself.

As if to prove he didn't need anyone else, McCartney played every instrument on that first album himself. (Unfortunately, he also wrote every song himself... even though he didn't have an album's worth of good songs.)

Autotuned Out

I'm Talking to You, 67-Year-Old Rock Stars.

My unsolicited advice to a certain beknighted ex-Beatle?

Here's a list of 10 things you might want to avoid:

10. More plastic surgery. Seriously, dude, your face is looking more and more like Angela Lansbury's every day.

9. The reappearance of your 70s mullet. (C'mon, you're worth a half a billion dollars. Get a haircut that's less than 30 years old.)

8. Sucking up to Simon Cowell on the X-Factor.

7. Mugging for cameras. (Do you even know these days that you're doing it?)

6. Playing the ukulele. Seriously.

5. Rereleasing your albums in "deluxe editions" months after they first appear so your die-hard fans (who waited for Starbucks to open to buy the album in the first place) have to buy it again. Again, you're worth a half a billion dollars -- you don't need to do this.

4. Indulging in endless revisionist history about John Lennon. Yes, yes, you were cool too in the 60s. We get it.

3. Refusing to admit that your vegetarian lobbying stems from being attacked with a ham sandwich thrown by Suzanne Vega's punk boyfriend in the 1970s.

2. Writing and recording a protest song to promote "Meat-Free Monday" in under 5 minutes and then expecting people to take your message seriously.

1. Autotune. As great as it is that the Good Evening New York CD/DVD is the full concert, some of the songs are autotuned half to death. No one expects you to sing perfectly live (especially at age 67)... but it would be nice if you sounded human. (And fuck that "Citi Field" bullshit. It's Shea Stadium.)

Come to think of it, though, I'd rather see a non-autotuned concert for a few hundred people in a record store in Hollywood than an autotuned stadium show shot with 15 High-def cameras.

Paul McCartney Live at Amoeba Music 2007:

Straddling the Fine Line Between Cool and Stupid

It's Not Often That Words Fail Me.

But this is one of those times (h/t to One Poor Correspondent).

Just watch this.


Yeah, that's Ringo Starr looking horrible in an unkempt beard and dorky glasses. And, yeah, the girl is a pre-Princess Leia Carrie Fisher. And, yes, that's Sir Paul McCartney playing kazoo.

My only explanation: The 70s were a lot weirder than anyone thought.