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McCartney III

Started by Menu, October 17, 2020, 04:12:26 AM

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Menu

Quote from: SteveDave on October 19, 2020, 02:46:34 PM
And this version from the "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" session https://youtu.be/bIw3mLChTSo If they'd done it like that I would love that song. As it is...meh.

Can't agree with that. It sounds fucking terrible. Like his Lady Madonna on the Casio a few months ago.

Replies From View

Quote from: Phoenix Lazarus on October 19, 2020, 06:38:11 AM
I remember McCartney once recounting that, while larking about in the studio, they once sang a version of Get Back addressing Asians in Britain and saying 'get back to where you once belonged'!

The Commonwealth Song.  It's on bootlegs.


Edit:  sorry, somebody responded to this already with a link to it!

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: Menu on October 20, 2020, 03:10:48 AM
Can't agree with that. It sounds fucking terrible. Like his Lady Madonna on the Casio a few months ago.

Yeah it's the only song on Let It Be I like, I find that version atrocious.

Sin Agog

Sean Lennon interviewing Paul from a couple of weeks ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCe8fdBeTCs


Bernice

McCartney II is maybe my favourite Beatles solo album. Coming Up, Check My Machine, Waterfalls, Summer's Day Song, Darkroom, fuck it, even Temporary Secretary is kinda great. Macca dicking about and fully indulging his often overlooked weird side and coming out with a load of perfectly realised oddball, new wave nuggets.

Beagle 2

I'm absolutely all over this. I just hope it's rough and ready and basically just him pissing about. The guy's nearly 80 and I expect nothing from him at this stage, but ever since I got into his solo stuff I've wanted another album of Paul pissing about in a studio by himself with no pressure.

Look, obviously it won't be some amazing classic, but even if I get a few sparks of Macca lo fi inventiveness that's more than I expected from him ever again.

But I do find it impossible to be cynical about Paul McCartney and I have learned that people do noooo like that attitude.

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

I feel exactly the same way about this. It won't be a classic, no one expects that, but it may well have its moments.

shagatha crustie

Trailer

https://youtu.be/tMtFqPRdj7o

Feel like he's in dialogue with lennon creatively no matter what he does (in a good way). When his (dreadful IMO) last album came out, the Imagine Ultimate Mixes were being announced - and with everyone in 'Lennon turns 80' mode this month and the giant boxset, now this happens.

I agree with Beagle 2 - he's most endearing when he's not overthinking it or chasing the hits, but just putting his musicianship, love of music and eccentric side on display.

Bernice

I'm oddly excited for this, and I haven't given a toss about a McCartney release in my lifetime. Obviously gearing up for disappointment there.

Head Gardener


SpiderChrist


SteveDave

I bought a "Spotify Exclusive" version of this last night whilst in drink. My friend sent me a link to get it and it was (relatively) cheap.

I presume I'll have to pay £10 a month to keep it. Boom and indeed arse. 

Pauline Walnuts

Quote from: SteveDave on October 22, 2020, 02:59:51 PM
I bought a "Spotify Exclusive" version of this last night whilst in drink. My friend sent me a link to get it and it was (relatively) cheap.

I presume I'll have to pay £10 a month to keep it. Boom and indeed arse.

Could have been better,

https://shop.paulmccartney.com/collections/color-lps/products/we-all-stand-together-7-picture-disc

Menu


Beagle 2

Quote from: OnlyRegisteredSoICanRead on October 22, 2020, 03:58:36 PM
Could have been better,

https://shop.paulmccartney.com/collections/color-lps/products/we-all-stand-together-7-picture-disc

Ha, I would absolutely love that, if I actually had a record player and some disposable income. It's an age old boring argument I know, but I don't get why people my age are cynical about the Frog Chorus, being kids when it was a thing. I could see how it would make you cringe if you had actually grown up with the Beatles or were too young for it to have been aimed at them. You know what they say, if you remember the Frog Chorus you weren't there. But that's bollocks because I was there and it was great... ON ACID!!!11

PlanktonSideburns

hopefully its all just him making confused sounds into a space echo with rolling jungle breaks under it

Menu

Quote from: Beagle 2 on October 23, 2020, 02:57:04 PM
Ha, I would absolutely love that, if I actually had a record player and some disposable income. It's an age old boring argument I know, but I don't get why people my age are cynical about the Frog Chorus, being kids when it was a thing. I could see how it would make you cringe if you had actually grown up with the Beatles or were too young for it to have been aimed at them. You know what they say, if you remember the Frog Chorus you weren't there. But that's bollocks because I was there and it was great... ON ACID!!!11

I think it's a beautiful arrangement and a lovely sentiment. I wouldn't be surprised if the lyrics had some origin in the strikes against Thatcher in the 1980. If you read them on the page they seem like a kind of solidarity with the class struggles at the time. I know that seems ludicrous when considering the finished product. But I think it maybe.......mayyyyyy beeeee.......possible.

non capisco

Quote from: Menu on October 23, 2020, 11:11:40 PM
I think it's a beautiful arrangement and a lovely sentiment. I wouldn't be surprised if the lyrics had some origin in the strikes against Thatcher in the 1980. If you read them on the page they seem like a kind of solidarity with the class struggles at the time. I know that seems ludicrous when considering the finished product. But I think it maybe.......mayyyyyy beeeee.......possible.

I think you're probably right, there. We All Stand Together could certainly be read as a left wing protest song in defiance of the times, especially seeing as it came out in 1984 when Thatcher's government were arguably at their most visibly and brazenly "fuck 'em" with the miner's strike and that whole brutal war of attrition. You can sing it today about local responses to step in and provide free food for disadvantaged children after Johnson's pack of slugs voted "nah, fuck 'em. Fuck those children. Let them fucking starve" and it resonates perfectly. As you say, a lovely sentiment. It seemed for years to be lazy shorthand for the absolute nadir of the bloke who used to be one of The Beatles (people always called it 'The Frog Song' as well) but I can't think of a lovelier melody that he wrote in the 1980s. You could make a case that you prefer Spies Like Us to We All Stand Together but I'd think you were mad.

shagatha crustie

Things people say are his worst thing but are actually GREAT:

We All Stand Together
Wonderful Xmas time
So Bad
Honey Pie
Rocky Raccoon
Any Wings album

Actual crimes against music:

Mull of Kintyre
Freedom
Ob-La-Di
Fuh You
That godawful 80s film (the hit from it aint bad though)

Somewhere in the middle:

Ebony and Ivory (the original demo is a gorgeous hymnal thing on electric piano, the single version is an abomination)

SpiderChrist

Quote from: shagatha crustie on October 24, 2020, 09:22:04 AM
Things people say are his worst thing but are actually GREAT:

Wonderful Xmas time

Can't agree with you on that one. Mind you, I don't like Christmas, so that probably doesn't help.

Retinend

Quote from: SpiderChrist on October 18, 2020, 10:21:49 AM
I've nearly finished it (currently at Nov 1962) and tbh I can't wait to get to the end cos the level of detail is indeed ridiculous, and fucking exhausting too.

I've said this before, but something in the way he wanks on in interview about there being no books that did the Beatles justice before this doorstopper strikes me as disrespectful and self-agrandizing. Yeah that's not a direct quote but it's always the subtext of what he's saying and he never gets sick of intimating how unprecedented his level of research is. 

Revolution in the Head is a great book because it is a combination of insight and research. Perhaps Lewisohn manages to strike the balance (let me know) but my gut feeling is that he prefers research for the sake of research. Take the Mal Evans Let it Be example (not sure if this is from the book, but let's roll with it for the sake of an example): does it really matter that it was originally a dream about Mal? In McCartney's mind it quickly became about his mother in the process of writing the song.

The way Lewisohn has alienated himself from the inner circle indicates to me that his book is not worth reading. Dangerous to say, not having read a book, but I wish someone could post a "Top 10 facts worth knowing" from this book which supposedly "sets the record straight". But how can you set the record straight without having a direct line to the thoughts and feelings of the two living Beatles?

All that said, my bias is that I really find it hard to care enough about the Hamburg years to read such a large book that never leaves Hamburg.

the science eel

Quote from: Retinend on October 24, 2020, 10:41:26 AM

The way Lewisohn has alienated himself from the inner circle indicates to me that his book is not worth reading. Dangerous to say, not having read a book, but I wish someone could post a "Top 10 facts worth knowing" from this book which supposedly "sets the record straight". But how can you set the record straight without having a direct line to the thoughts and feelings of the two living Beatles?

Research. He makes it his business to interview every fucker alive who ever had anything to do with them. That's why the books take so long to write.

I take your points, tho', but I'll say it again - it's an incredible book and you really sink into the whole world, it's terrifically involving for something so 'two-dimensional'


What's this 'alienated himself from the inner circle' lark?

Retinend

I forget where I heard it. Probably the Steve Hoffman forums now I think about it. But "any fucker alive"? What about Macca and Ringo? Pretty big omissions. Apparently he was not welcome to interview any of the inner circle. I fully acknowledge that this is a rumour (no official Apple press release of "NO MARKS CLUB") - but you can put it to bed if you give some examples of inner circle access in Tune In. No pressure though - if I am ignorant then it is my problem; not yours.

FredNurke

Harrison took agin him because he thought he'd leaked information (something he denies) and Olivia is continuing to freeze him out, apparently. He still seems to be on good terms with McCartney, even if Macca didn't agree to be interviewed - and arguably that might be to keep the peace with the others. He also says that he places more value in interviews they gave at the time, rather than now, because their memories these days have been shaped by what they've said in the interim (and even, in at least one case, by a snippet of info he himself uncovered which they'd forgotten).

the science eel

You could argue that the full story is better told by stitching together all the little anecdotes from people whose paths they crossed (Hamburg club owner, Cavern regular, Quarrymen member, Parlophone engineer) than by Paul and Ringo.

Retinend

Good point. I think it's a book I'll have read but I'm not happy about the fact.

Food for thought, though: is it better to be a master of research, occasionally inane, or a master of narrative, occasionally bullshitty?

Menu

Quote from: non capisco on October 24, 2020, 12:08:09 AM
I think you're probably right, there. We All Stand Together could certainly be read as a left wing protest song in defiance of the times, especially seeing as it came out in 1984 when Thatcher's government were arguably at their most visibly and brazenly "fuck 'em" with the miner's strike and that whole brutal war of attrition. You can sing it today about local responses to step in and provide free food for disadvantaged children after Johnson's pack of slugs voted "nah, fuck 'em. Fuck those children. Let them fucking starve" and it resonates perfectly. As you say, a lovely sentiment. It seemed for years to be lazy shorthand for the absolute nadir of the bloke who used to be one of The Beatles (people always called it 'The Frog Song' as well) but I can't think of a lovelier melody that he wrote in the 1980s. You could make a case that you prefer Spies Like Us to We All Stand Together but I'd think you were mad.

Couldn't agree more, NC. Also, as a child at the time, it was so magical. Must have watched it hundreds of times. (It was our only video along with one showing Morecambe and Wise's musical numbers. They both give me a sort of proustian rush)

Menu

Quote from: shagatha crustie on October 24, 2020, 09:22:04 AM
Things people say are his worst thing but are actually GREAT:

We All Stand Together
Wonderful Xmas time
So Bad
Honey Pie
Rocky Raccoon
Any Wings album

Actual crimes against music:

Mull of Kintyre
Freedom
Ob-La-Di
Fuh You
That godawful 80s film (the hit from it aint bad though)

Somewhere in the middle:

Ebony and Ivory (the original demo is a gorgeous hymnal thing on electric piano, the single version is an abomination)

'So Bad' is beautiful. One of my favourites. But, yeah, 'Freedom' is unforgivable. I set up a direct debit to Al-Quaida as a protest.

Menu

Quote from: Retinend on October 24, 2020, 10:41:26 AM

All that said, my bias is that I really find it hard to care enough about the Hamburg years to read such a large book that never leaves Hamburg.

That's basically where I'm coming from too. Unless people on here rave about it I'll not be interested in that time-period at all. And, like you say, Revolution in the Head is amazing. I've read that so many times it's sort of dimmed my love for The Beatles! It's kind of exhausted it because it's so comprehensive and definitive. Do you know what I mean?