JUKEBOX: So, Who is This Paul McCartney Guy Anyway?
The Internet blew up after the New Year’s Day release of “Only One,” the first track from the long-rumored Kanye West/Paul McCartney collaboration. The blowup wasn’t about the song itself; it was the result of a few tweets from Kanye’s fans implying that they had no idea who Paul McCartney is. And boy, was the Internet-at-large appalled!
The tweets were (likely) in jest, but it doesn’t mean there aren’t many out there who didn’t recognize Macca’s name. And there are plenty more — both McCartney’s and West’s fans — who can’t understand why the guy who wrote “Yesterday” and “Silly Love Songs” would want to work with a hip-hop artist in the first place.
But a closer look at McCartney’s solo work reveals that the collaboration isn’t surprising at all. Macca may be most closely associated with his radio-friendly hits, but they’re only a small part of an eclectic catalog that touches on almost every musical genre out there — country, classical, jazz, electronica, and R&B, to name a few.
1) “Arrow Through Me” (Paul McCartney, 1979)/”Gone Baby, Don’t Be Long” (Erykah Badu, 2010)
Paul delves into the R&B sounds of the late ’70s/early ’80s with a song that would be perfectly at home on a Stevie Wonder or Michael Jackson album. “Arrow Through Me” is also the first McCartney song that was sampled in a contemporary R&B track — Erikah Badu’s “Gone Baby, Don’t be Gone.” Listening to one after the other gives a sense of how perfectly the original fits the R&B genre.
2) “Temporary Secretary” (1980)
This offbeat electronica song — with lyrics straight out of the mouth of one of Don Draper’s less enlightened contemporaries — has become a cult favorite and is about as far away from “Yesterday” as you can get. If you go to a live McCartney concert, you’ll probably hear an even weirder version, as a DJ mixes this with a contemporary techno beat during the pre-show.
3) “Nothing too Much Just Out of Sight” (2009)
Sometimes Macca needs to get away from his own image to really let his musical freak flag fly. This isn’t new for him; it was the concept behind Sgt. Pepper, after all. Since the 1990s, he’s been creating experimental music under a similar pseudonym: “The Fireman.” There are three Fireman albums, and when they were released, only the hardest-core fans knew that the first two — collections of wordless ambient sound collages — were actually Paul McCartney. Macca revealed his alter-ego with 2008’s Electric Arguments, where he — along with his collaborator, Killing Joke’s producer, Youth — challenged himself to create one free-form song per session with no pre-planning. “Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight” shows where Macca’s mind goes when he’s composing on the fly — straight to super hard rock.
4) “Baby’s Request” (1980)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPXnPdsJQOY
Sometimes the experimentation looks backwards too. This 1940’s-style ballad is one of many songs modeled on music hall and Tin Pan Alley standards, going back to McCartney’s pre-Beatles days with “When I’m Sixty-Four.” He returned to the genre in 2012 with Kisses on the Bottom, an album of mostly pre-1940 standards, backed by jazz superstar Diana Krall.
5) Ecce Cor Meum (2005)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAbJgcboG7s
Now let’s go back — way back — as far from the popular music world as possible. Macca has delved into classical music several times, writing four oratorios between 1991 and 2005 and a ballet, Ocean’s Kingdom, in 2011.
6) “Cut Me Some Slack” (2012)
Kanye West isn’t Paul McCartney’s only surprising recent collaboration. In 2012, Paul and the three surviving members of Nirvana — Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear — wrote “Cut Me Some Slack” for Grohl’s documentary Sound City. The supergroup, dubbed “Sirvana,” picked up a Best Song GRAMMY for their efforts, and Macca proved he could write for and front one of the most influential grunge bands of the ’90s as if he were an original member.
7) “Appreciate” (2013)
Paul’s 2013 New album brings us back to the present, a modern album that draws upon a variety of contemporary influences. One of the most innovative tracks is “Appreciate,” an electronica-inspired song that would be at home on both Top 40 radio and a trance station. And that robot? His name is Newman, and he was made at McCartney’s request especially for the video by the robotics geniuses behind War Horse.
Do you have any other favorite 0ff-the-beaten-path McCartney tracks? Tell us in the comments!
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Stephen Lennon