Music: Yer Blues

Blame the last-day-of-school mania that has largely taken over my legitimate place of work, but I came across a priceless item by David Samuels in Slate today on the Beatles. There’s a passage that is particularly telling:

Is McCartney insecure? Is he jealous of Lennon? Is there money involved? All of these questions are more interesting than Back in the U.S., an album that provides listeners with a rough idea of what it would be like to have Paul McCartney play your wedding. On "All My Loving," the ex-Beatle is audibly short of breath. On "Blackbird," the schmaltziest Beatle follows lines like "take these sunken eyes and learn to see" with a creamy lounge-singer "mmmmmm." "Carry That Weight" features Paul forgetting the words and repeating the phrase "Oh, that magic feeling," like the Sunday afternoon entertainment at the Daughters of Israel nursing home lounge.

Officemates and I mentioned earlier how some people are Beatle-bipartisan (though they generally like one Beatle more, they accept all Beatles songs as their own), and others are Beatle separatist (fans of only songs by favorite Beatles). While I’m a bipartisan, I can see the point of being a separatist. Being a bipartisan who leans John, it was out of desperation that I went to see Paul McCartney a few years back. Samuels hits the nail on the head. McCartney’s live show was more like a three-dollar oldies concert (though infinitely more expensive) than a show by one-fourth of the greatest pop band of all time. As on the unfortunate live album in discussion here, when McCartney shifted painfully from hollow Wings superhits to Beatles tunes that combine pain, love and power with incredible songcraft, Paul just sounds empty.