With all the doom and horror going on at the moment, it’s important to celebrate one of the biggest purveyors of happiness from the past 60-odd years
It Was 83 Years Ago Today
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This McCartney track was one of the b-sides of the 12″ single Hope Of Deliverance. Personally I think it should’ve been the a-side. Happy birthday Paul.
Great song, great video. The guy’s a genius! Or is he? Dunno. I can’t remember what we decided.
I think we decided that because he is male, he can’t be a genius. 🤨
You can’t be a genius if you’ve got a penius?
Nope, he handed in his card in about 1973, but occasionally borrowed it and/or accidentally did a good song. Most of the time, his stuff is not for me, and probably not Fuh You.
Here’s one of those occasions when the genius card was deployed post 73
Oh, absolutely..! This is one of my favourite songs.
Something great from the 90s (Flaming Pie)
Okay, so a strong stomach is required to endure any encounter with James Corden, but it occurred to me while watching this for the umpteenth time that McCartney has brought incalculable happiness to people throughout the world longer than just about anyone else alive. No mean feat. Happy Birthday Paul.
This is the only thing Corden has done that I can tolerate. A really good bit of TV.
Imagine casually walking past Macca’s old house one day and the man himself comes out, full of life. And what a surprise for the visitors to that pub when he popped up with band in full flight.
Well done to Sir Thumbsaloft for playing along and making a lot of people very happy.
Watching this again reminded me that despite the many rewards that comes with it, I would never want to have that level of fame. I don’t like it when somebody looks at me for no particular reason at the bus stop, so I couldn’t cope with a horde of people instantly forming wherever I went. He can’t have been in that house for long, yet he comes out to a massive crowd. And Macca’s bodyguards/entourage might have been clad in fairly inconspicuous blue T-shirts, but being surrounded by your “team” must get a bit wearing sometimes, surely?
Still, happy birthday, Paul, and thanks for the music.
We happened to be in Liverpool doing the whole Beatle thing a couple of weeks after PM did the visit with the car pool karaoke and so on. We did the taxi tour (highly recommended over the bus) and the taxi driver waxed lyrical over Macca’s attitude when in the city, what he has done there and so on (interestingly, what Yoko has done on the quiet too). Apparently, he doesn’t have bodyguards and an entourage, so maybe those in Corden’s film were more to do with TV production…? He contrasted it with some other musical visitors, and mentioned particularly a recent visit by Micky Dolenz. He told an hilarious story about meeting Bob Dylan in Forthlin Road – he didn’t recognise him and was only told by someone afterwards who that scruffy little American was.
I saw this shortly after my mum died. There’s one part that had me in bits, you’ll know it if you’ve seen it.
We should treasure the good things in life while they are occurring, and he’s definitely a Good Thing.
This seems like the right place to share a story I read that illustrates what it’s like to come into contact with Macca and the level of fame and history surrounding him. It’s a while since I read it (in an interview with a photographer in the Times magazine, IIRC) and my memory is very patchy, so don’t hang me on the specifics, but it goes something like this:
A top photographer is sent to get various shots of Paul in some irrelevant place. After a while, Paul decides it’s not working, or both agree that the vibe’s not right. So he says, “Shall we go to Abbey Road Studios and do it there?”
Off they go, and once they’re settled in, the snapper’s happily shooting away when Paul picks up an old but clearly highly prized guitar. “Elvis gave this to me”, the great man says. “Why not do a few pics of me with it? How about that?”
The snapper starts shooting again, with the Beatle playing Elvis’ guitar in Abbey Road, then suddenly he feels the need to stop. “Er, Paul?” he says, nervously. “Erm … I’ve got to ask: is this really happening, or am I dreaming?”
The end.
I expect a lot of people must feel like that when they come into the orbit of somebody who is genuinely, inarguably world-famous. There is fame, and then there is Paul McCartney-level fame. What a strange life it must be when, simply by being yourself, you can transform people into a state where they wonder if meeting you is all a dream.
It begs the question, how would we act if Paul, or anyone that famous, came into our orbit?
I genuinely think I’d be cool because I don’t really ‘collect’. Who knows?
I saw Justin Heyward a couple of years ago, he didn’t see me. I knew who he was (he looked like he did in 67!), I walked on by. OK, not ‘Paul’ famous, but not bad! But why would I say, with his wife next to him… “Loved ‘ ‘Fly Me High'”?
Adore the guy and I can’t remember a year when I haven’t thought – ‘June 18th – Paul’s birthday’.
Have a good one with your family, Paul.
Of course, I was a bit pissed off when we all found out that George was born on the 24th February, not the day after!
21st Century Macca?
Yup, he’s can still do it …
2005 brought Chaos and Creation in he Backyard. I heard the first single off it when I was on my way to register my mother’s death. For me in his top 3 post Beatles and sometimes I think it’s the greatest thing he ever did in those years. This track blows my mind
I kind of like that album, but you can feel him forcing himself not to be rubbish.
Eh?
I mean, he is really forcing himself to do proper interesting songs, not daft fluff like he usually reverts to (Dance Tonight). I think the album sounds a bit tentative for that reason.
A failing marriage and a producer who pushed him (Nigel Godrich) was what helped for Chaos. I don’t get that it sounds “tentative”
And he’s written probably 100 excellent songs since 1973.
The trouble with producers who push him (and genius or not, he’s always needed a tough producer/collaborator) is they tend to get handed their marching orders pretty quick. That said, true, ‘Chaos’ is a brilliant album.
Yes, the exception being George Martin who made periodic appearances in his solo career
Fair enough… I’ll listen again.
It’s been posted here before (possibly by me, I can’t remember) but worth repeating – Ian Leslie’s ‘ article ‘64 reasons to celebrate Paul McCartney’ which he published in the dark days of the pandemic.
https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/64-reasons-to-celebrate-paul-mccartney
…Which was the launching pad for the recent book of his that almost everyone on here was very sniffy about but I thought was really rather good.
Couple of years behind (81 today) but Ray Davies played his part in the “Blokes from the 60s bringing happiness with their songs” stakes.
And as he suggested, he wasn’t like everybody else
Not the best singer, not the best recorded or produced albums, but, for me, at his best, the finest post war songwriter Britain has produced.