Paul McCartney Archives | Page 6 of 8 | Hey Dullblog, the Beatles fan blog

McCartney’s Songs of Empathy

By Michael Gerber|2015-01-06T13:40:36-08:00August 6, 2012|Paul McCartney, solo, Wings|

Paul McCartney, possibly empathizing NANCY CARR • Over the years, and especially as a solo artist, Paul McCartney has written many songs expressing empathy toward others. Being the analytical list-making obsessive I am, I've created a catalog of them. Note that I'm not arguing that writing such songs shows McCartney to be a better or more empathetic human being than his former bandmates; I'm interested here in the way his imagination works. John Lennon's written a couple of songs I'd put in the empathetic category ("Whatever Gets You Through the Night" and "Bless You" spring to mind), but often his [...]

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Review: RAM (Paul McCartney Archive Collection)

By Devin McKinney|2016-12-04T18:27:45-08:00July 31, 2012|1970s, 1971, Paul McCartney, solo|

DEVIN McKINNEY • Can anyone think of another pop record whose qualities have been so vindicated, and whose reputation has been so rehabilitated, by time? Though I’ve fought bravely on this site against massed resistance (well, one or two people) to call it something just less than a masterpiece—can’t get past a certain emotional vacuity at the core of things—RAM is so bountifully queer and cleanly, gracefully executed, the beautiful song crowded by the gargoyle-ugly, that finally masterpiece doesn’t matter. I’ve loved RAM since I first heard it. It is Paul’s best solo record by a distance, and one of my favorites [...]

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Keep ‘Em Out vs. Let ‘Em In: An Angle on Lennon & McCartney

By Michael Gerber|2013-10-15T15:17:24-07:00May 23, 2012|John Lennon, Paul McCartney, solo|

John and Paul face off, 1969 Some thoughts about an aspect of Lennon's and McCartney's solo music, prompted by some recent re-listening. -- Nancy After the break up, each Beatle pursued his own musical sensibilities pretty much unchecked. Here I want to look at a difference between Lennon’s and McCartney’s solo music that hasn’t gotten much critical attention: Lennon’s tendency to write songs of rejection and McCartney’s tendency to write songs of invitation. Since we’re considering Lennon and McCartney, everything is maddeningly complicated. Presenting them as opposites or complements overlooks all the ways their music overlaps, and focusing on a [...]

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Re-slamming "Ram"

By Michael Gerber|2014-07-23T12:52:34-07:00May 7, 2012|Paul McCartney|

I thought critical opinion had largely come around to appreciating Paul and Linda McCartney’s Ram, 41 years after its release, but apparently not. It’s true that allmusic.com gives it five stars, having inched its rating up over the years, but a couple of reviews of the remastered album, due out later this month, are déjà vu all over again. The latest issue of Qmagazine gives the remastered album 2 stars. For context, the previous issue included a rapturous 5-star review of the reissues of the Human League’s Dare and Fascination albums, and called Lana Del Ray’s Born to Die a “Must Buy” [...]

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"’Rain’ blows me away"

By Ed Park|2015-01-02T11:51:34-08:00April 9, 2012|1966, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr|

ED PARK • Devin's post about the drumming on "Dear Prudence" spurred me to look up Ringo's comments about his work on "Rain" (reprinted in William J. Dowlding's Beatlesongs): “My favorite piece of me is what I did on ‘Rain.’ I think I just played amazing. I was into the snare and high-hat. I think it was the first time I used this trick of starting a break by hitting the hi-hat first instead of going directly to a drum off the hi-hat . . . . I think it’s the best out of all the records I ever made. ‘Rain’ blows me [...]

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Prudence and the Penis: A Mystery

By Devin McKinney|2013-09-02T08:03:39-07:00April 3, 2012|1968, Paul McCartney, Ringo, The White Album|

We know who wrote it. But who is on the Dear Prudence drum track? DEVIN McKINNEY • Mike's Facebook posting of isolated tracks from "Hey Bulldog" led me to seek out other examples of stripped-down Beatlesongs. This is among the more interesting, for both the music and the controversy. The mystery of the Dear Prudence drum track Did Ringo play the outro drums on "Dear Prudence"? One tends to forget that Paul is credited with drumming this track (recorded during Ringo's brief angry White Album hiatus), because its climactic passage is so utterly Ringoesque. (Plus, recordings like "The Ballad of [...]

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Advisory report

By Ed Park|2015-09-19T00:11:50-07:00March 28, 2012|Paul McCartney|

I'm loving the recent posts and vigorous commentary—I wanted to direct readers to some fresh comments attached to Nancy's groundbreaking "McCartney as the Dickens of Rock" post, below....or just click here.

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The unexpected from Ono and McCartney

By Michael Gerber|2013-08-14T04:02:20-07:00March 27, 2012|Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono|

NANCY CARR • I think Michael’s comments on the previous post about Paul McCartney’s seeking to entertain an audience, while Yoko Ono seeks to instruct one, are right on the mark and help clarify why people frequently can’t stand one or the other of them. What I find interesting about their respective tendencies is that both do their best work (in my opinion, of course) when they ease off those attitudes. When McCartney worries less about whether people will like what he does, and when Ono expresses her musical gifts without apparent concern for whether the results sound explicitly experimental, they sound [...]

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Dance break!

By Ed Park|2015-09-19T00:11:05-07:00March 9, 2012|Paul McCartney|

(Via They May Be Parted)

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Don’t judge by its disturbing cover . . .

By Michael Gerber|2014-12-07T14:22:48-08:00March 3, 2012|John Lennon, Paul McCartney|

“Lennon and McCartney: Together Alone” (2007) is an in-depth look at the solo careers of both men that is comprehensive, well-written and illustrated, and refreshingly free of bias. It’s changed the way I think about some of Lennon's and McCartney's solo music. For example, I’ll never hear “Watching the Wheels” the same way again. I can hardly stand to read anything biographical about either Lennon or McCartney anymore, since so many writers moved to compose book-length works on them are grinding an ax of some variety. Reading John Blaney’s book was, for me, like opening a window and letting welcome fresh air [...]

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