transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:30] Hello, and welcome to My Favorite Album. I'm record producer and documentary filmmaker Jeremy Dylan. And each week, I'm joined by a different guest to unpack the art that's inspired them the most. Well, the Macka Klaxon has sounded, and as long time listeners of this show will understand, when sounded, it must be answered. As Paul McCartney has announced his long-whispered about new album The Boys of Dungeon Lane, set to be released this May, we here at My Favorite Album thought it was the perfect time to look back at the third act of Sir Paul's discography to date. To delve into McCartney's adventures in the 21st century, I'm joined by a returning champion. You know him, you love him from his previous appearance on this show, and from hosting the, I think we can say iconic Beatles podcast, Nothing is Real. Welcome back to the show, Steven Cockcroft.

Speaker 2:
[01:25] Hello, Jeremy. I love coming on this show simply for the introduction. Nobody gives me a better introduction.

Speaker 1:
[01:30] Thank you. I put more effort into that than I do the actual conversation. So it's good to start. At least I'm professional for the first 45 seconds of the show every time.

Speaker 2:
[01:39] It's seamless. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[01:40] So we're going to go through and dive into each record in turn, because I feel like the body of work that McCartney's built up over the last, well, almost 26 years now, the first one coming out in 2001, underrated is like, sure, but what really under discussed, I think is the thing in the way that a lot of artists, latter period work can often be sort of glossed over. So let's go back to where it all started for him in the 21st century with Driving Rain, which came out 25.

Speaker 2:
[02:15] That's insane that it's 25 years ago. I mean, that's a terrible statistic. And the other terrible statistic about this album is it only got to number 46 in the UK album chart. And I think that's something that somebody just told me. I mentioned I was coming on to this podcast to discuss the albums and I said, you know that number 46 just kind of just cracked the top 50. And I thought the nation should hang its head in shame. You know, we've got some terrible things this nation has done, Brexit amongst them, and only getting this record to number 46. Shocking. I love this record.

Speaker 1:
[03:01] And I'm glad because we didn't really have much pre-discussion because I didn't want us to have the chat before we had the chat. But you did mention that you dig this record. And I was really glad to hear that because I feel like people are kind of, even like a lot of McCartney fans are quite sniffy about this album that I've always really liked.

Speaker 2:
[03:17] Very much so. And I have no idea why that is. I got this record on CD when it came out. The vinyl thing hadn't kicked in the revival. But I loved this record from the very first time I heard it, because I suppose he's kind of working with a band. This is something we maybe come on to in some of the later records where he's doing a lot of stuff himself, and overdubbing, and overdubbing, and playing all the instruments. But here, I think the songwriting is really good. I think his voice is really good. He's working with a great band. Yeah. I think some of these songs were set up to be performed live because I saw him on the subsequent tour in America, and there were quite a few tracks, maybe four, which doesn't sound like a lot, but I suppose if you're Paul McCartney, four tracks from your new album is a pretty good strike rate. All excellent. For me, this is the record that I keep comparing all the subsequent albums with. I think, oh, it's his best since Band on the Run. I'm not expecting Paul to produce Band on the Run, much less Revolve or The White Album or Abbey Road, but this is the album from 2001 that I compare everything else that has come subsequently. I don't understand why it's not loved, whether there's no big sweeping orchestrations or big piano ballads, or I don't know, it's just Paul having fun.

Speaker 1:
[04:34] Well, I think that might be part of it. I think we'll touch on this again as we go through other records. A lot of the time, especially, I've found more and more often with music journalism and criticism and cultural criticism over the years, people aren't reacting as much to the actual music and actual songs on a record as they are a narrative that gets built around it. And all this record really had was, it's a new Paul McCartney record. There was no angle on it really to tell a story around. But I think, you know, all those points you've just made, I want to go back to the band aspect of it, because I think in some ways, even though it's a very different sounding record, this is the follow-up to Run Devil Run, which was him getting back into the studio with a great band and being the bass player in the band again, and really having fun mainly just being the bass player and the singer. So when he got together with David Kahn to make this record, and they put Abel Boreal Jr., Rusty Anderson, who would then go to be the core of his live band that he still uses today, and then Gabe Dixon, the keyboard player. From what I understand, they cut most of this record as a four-piece over the course of a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2:
[05:45] Yes. It seems to be very much live in the studio. Then if you look at the liner notes, Paul is overdubbing onto those live tracks. I suppose in that sense, it's maybe a bit similar to the thing that Neil Young does. You take a live track or a live in the studio track, you get that and then you play around with it. But I think he really benefits from having a band. I think Paul likes being in a band. Once he get out of the Beatles, what does he do? He's the only one of the three. He forms a band and they go on the road, and wings go on the road, and 89 he goes back with the Paul McCartney solo artist, but he's got a band that stick with him for quite a long time. That's a good point, I think, about Run Devil Run because that really did obviously loosen him up. He's coming off the back of Linda has died and he's getting over that. I think there's a lot of, you can get a sense of him coming out the other end of that grieving process. I'm not sure is resilience the right word, but maybe it is. I think there is a resilience here on display, and he's using the music to get him through that. Then there are little hints. We've got the obvious track, Heather, little hints that he's coming out the other end and he's establishing a relationship. We can talk about that relationship across future albums, but I just think it's Paul coming out through that and starting to enjoy himself playing music. Sometimes I think what compromises Paul's music is, he's aware of the expectations that the public, that the critics have. I don't think he's playing, he's not making this record for you or for me or for the critics. He's doing it for himself. That's what I like most. You can go back to McCartney I or McCartney II for that same. He's doing it for himself and I think that's what comes across. Plus great songs.

Speaker 1:
[07:34] Yeah. Actually to me, some of my favorite versions of some of these songs are on the live record that came out after that tour that I'm very jealous of you for having seen because to me that was the apex of him as a live act is that period.

Speaker 2:
[07:47] Yeah. I've seen maybe half a dozen times. That was definitely the best show. I saw him in 89 and it was quite, I mean, I was completely overwhelmed that I was seeing a Beatle for the first time. I mean, it was just unbelievable. But yeah, that show, it was a fantastic setlist. I mean, unbelievable setlist if you look back at that live album. I saw him in the States in Las Vegas. It was an unscheduled concert. It wasn't part of the tour and there was some big fight. It was canceled and the MGM, I don't know, offered him $700,000 million to come and play for one night. He diverted the tour and I went to see it. Really good seats. Band was excellent. Mother Nature's song, I think was, yeah. Yeah, you should have been there, Jeremy.

Speaker 1:
[08:30] Yes. Unfortunately, I was in Australia.

Speaker 2:
[08:33] You were in climbing school.

Speaker 1:
[08:34] No, that was my first year of high school, I think.

Speaker 2:
[08:38] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[08:39] But I did buy the live record and probably that was my most listened to McCartney record for a long time. We had the Back in the World version of it in Australia, not the Back in the US that had the one that had Vanilla Sky.

Speaker 2:
[08:53] Yeah, it's slightly different.

Speaker 1:
[08:55] But those versions of particularly, I'd say, Lonely Road and Driving Rain that are on that record are just dynamite. To me, they kick a little more ass than the versions on the record because they've had that extra life to them on the road.

Speaker 2:
[09:13] This is the rehearsal, unsettling the band. As you say, the band still has, essentially.

Speaker 1:
[09:30] Yeah. I had Rusty Anderson on the podcast once, and he sends Dave Karner a message every year on the day they started those sessions, because that booking changed all of their lives. It's McCartney just went like, oh, it's pretty cool. You want to come out in the road guys, and then they've been the longest band he's ever had.

Speaker 2:
[09:49] Yeah. That's the fascinating thing. Longer than The Beatles, longer than Wings. It's a pretty stable lineup, pretty stable set list as well, but certainly pretty stable lineup.

Speaker 1:
[10:00] Well, talking about that, the flip of that is the next record goes completely the opposite direction. What should have maybe been called McCartney III, Chaos and Creation in the backyard?

Speaker 2:
[10:11] I absolutely agree. This is, I've actually written down here, McCartney III. I don't know why it wasn't called McCartney III, because my understanding is he had started to record the follow-up, Driving Rain, with the band, and then he broke off those sessions and created this with Nigel Godridge. Then he came back to those sessions and then we get the next album after that. So I don't know why he breaks off to do that. Usually, you think about McCartney I, McCartney II, it's a reset. It's a period of something turbulent is happening and he's looking to reset. But here, he seemed settled in a band. Got a great, really successful tour, his partway recording songs for the next album and he just decides to go and do something else. I'm not sure why. Is it Nigel Godrich? Does he want some of that radiohead back shine?

Speaker 1:
[11:04] Well, it is actually, that is my understanding that it was Nigel Godrich who pushed him into doing the do-it-all-yourself method. Yeah, I do think there is a bit of that and it's a funny dynamic with McCartney because he is someone who keeps up, keeps listening to new music. You see him at people's gigs all the time like current artists, which I think is really cool and he gets inspired by that and wants to work with some of those people. But I think he's also resistant to any sense that he needs the help of anyone younger of a substance generation to do the thing.

Speaker 2:
[11:40] I think that's true. He does seem to have a quite fractious sometimes relationship with individual producers. Glenn Johns left the Red Road Speedway because it was just sort of aimless jamming. You have stories of him falling out with Hugh Pageham and Eric Stewart. When was the last time you wrote a number one, that kind of conversation. He's very aware that he is Paul McCartney. But at the same time, he wants to tap into the new sounds. I mean, certainly Godrich was, I suppose, the very end at the time with Beck and Radiohead. There was a name that was sort of in circulation. This is an album that everybody else loves, and I like bits of it, but I don't love it. It doesn't help that I have a terrible pressing of it on vinyl, which is just unplayable. They released it on, I never had it on vinyl. They released it on gold vinyl. I bought it through Paul's store and it is shockingly badly pressed. Everybody seems to love this album. I don't like it and that's putting it too strongly. I don't love it and I think I blame Nigel Godrich for that. I think there's a kind of airlessness in the sound and you are very aware that Paul is playing all the instruments. You are aware that this is something that has been built up from a drum track or a piano track and it has that feel. It does not have an organic feel about it.

Speaker 1:
[13:14] Yeah, I do think there is a, I suspect one of the reasons why he ended up being drawn to Nigel Godrich was this concept that Radiohead were doing for them what the Beatles were doing in 1966. And so if you want to do something cool and interesting that's on the cutting edge of mainstream rock music, that was the person to collaborate with. And I think the difference is though that the Beatles made incredibly warm music where Radiohead make cold music. And that's not a criticism. I think like that is part of the special source for Radiohead, but it's very antithetical to McCartney in particular. So I think there is a coolness to this album that comes out of the collaboration with Nigel Godrich. Because this was the album that got all the like plaudits and great press and everything that I think we both feel that Driving Rain might have deserved because there was this narrative around it's Paul McCartney with Radiohead's producer and he's playing all the instruments himself. And because it had been 25 years since he last did that, everyone forgot that he's done that a few times before already.

Speaker 2:
[14:22] Yeah, I think that's right. And there was a tremendous promotional push on this album. There were different versions of the album. There were singles, there were extra tracks, there were press kits. He was popping up all over the place. He really pushed this hard. And you're right, the narrative was, Paul is cutting edge and he's working with the radio. I mean, it was less, it's Nigel Godridge by name, than he's doing something like Radiohead are doing. But I hadn't thought of it that way in terms of the slightly cool or cold aspect of Radiohead music. But yeah, I think that's probably exactly right. There isn't a warmth here that you expect. If you listen to McCartney I, it does have a nice warm organic feel. Even all of the machines that they used on, that he used on McCartney II, it's funny, it's got humor, it's engaging. There's a certain clinical quality to this that I don't like. It starts really strongly. I mean, I think the first three songs are unbeatable. But that's a problem because for me, after that, the songwriting starts to tail off and you get English tea, which is almost a parody of McCartney doing a parody of people who parody McCartney. It's just so twee, as it says in the song. He's sort of ticking boxes. It's just not an album I've ever want to. I think that's coming across.

Speaker 1:
[15:43] Well, I think the point you make about those first two, and I wonder if the reason why this didn't get the McCartney III title, or I guess also at the time, there wasn't that revisionist love of those first two McCartney records that has grown to be subsequently, but also those were self-produced albums as well. I think that's a big part of why those have that scrappy, homemade quality that makes them so lovable, and whereas this is an incredibly high-end sounding, perfectly recorded situation. I do think it works. There's some songs where that, like Jenny Rand, I think the whole treatment, Soup to Nuts, is perfect for that song and wouldn't have been improved by a different approach. Then there's some songs, like for me, my favorite song of this record is actually Friends to Go, which I think is an incredibly under-appreciated McCartney song.

Speaker 2:
[16:34] Yeah. It's a good track.

Speaker 1:
[16:36] It's a real something that, and it becomes more of a feature on the albums after this, I think. But his shift into writing more adult songs about more mature, complex, about the life he was actually living rather than trying to capture the feeling of being in his 20s. A lot of people never make that transition. But when he does it, I think it actually is really affecting.

Speaker 2:
[17:01] I think that's a good point. We may be talking about that when we get on to what he's doing at the moment and how he starts to readdress, come to terms with being Paul McCartney. In 1989, he suddenly accepts that he's Beatle Paul and he starts introducing those songs back into the set list on the live shows. You have a sense that by the time he gets to 2000, 2001, 2000, the early 2000s, he's starting to think more about what does it mean to be Beatle Paul. It's not just a matter of he dyes his hair, puts on the Shea Stadium jacket so that if you're right at the back, you can imagine you're watching Paul McCartney from 1965 or 1966. That is, I think he does have a more mature style of writing lyrically. Lyrics, people rarely focus on Paul's lyrics. They sort of say, oh, he's a great bass player or the melodies that he comes up with are amazing. But actually, lyrically, he can be very trite and he can be very superficial. But every now and again, you suddenly realize that what seems superficial is actually telling you something about him. Something that seems as if it's just one of his little made up stories or characters that John, like, who are these people? Why are you writing about them? That he's actually writing about himself, but he's more explicit here, I think. So yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1:
[18:20] Yeah. And that song, which I now sort of listen to and go like, oh, that's like, it's probably a very direct written from live song about his marriage at the time.

Speaker 2:
[18:29] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[18:30] And feeling disconnected. I always thought it was about an affair. Like it was about a guy waiting outside the house because he couldn't come in and visit this woman he was sleeping with when her friends were there because then they would know because he wasn't meant to be there. Actually don't think that's what it's about. Although I think that that interpretation of song is interesting and works with the lyrics, but I think it is actually more autobiographical than I had realized at the time.

Speaker 2:
[19:10] Speaking earlier of Micah before we started recording about him embracing or Heather pushing him into more of a rock star life. So you're interpreting this that he's kind of literally waiting outside until her friends are just so that he can be with her and not have to play that part or not have to.

Speaker 1:
[19:28] I think that is a kind of compelling interpretation of the lyrics. Or it may be not even up outside. Maybe he's like upstairs in a different part of the house, waiting for the high society people to leave. Because he doesn't feel like he belongs with them or something.

Speaker 2:
[19:43] Yeah. That makes sense to me. We'll add that to the list of questions you're going to ask Paul when he comes on the year.

Speaker 1:
[19:49] Yes. I am increasingly feeling like neither of us are ever going to actually have this opportunity to interview McCartney. But I do think he would enjoy the experience just because he's not, he will get asked a lot of questions that nobody has ever attempted to ask him before.

Speaker 2:
[20:04] Do you think he would respond to that? Do you think if we emailed him and said, it's the Steven and Jeremy show or the Jeremy and Steven show, I should say, come on and we can guarantee to ask you 20 questions you've never been asked before. I think he was just like, you mean I'm not going to get to do my, that's the best line in it, John said story or scrambled eggs or he has his greatest hits that he plays on stage and he has the greatest hits that he brings out at interview. But I would love to ask him even more. I would love to be in the room whenever you said, asked him this question. Can I ask you about your difficult second marriage?

Speaker 1:
[20:39] Well, the meta question that I want to ask him is, how many of your anecdotes do you not remember the original events behind now? Because you've been telling the story for 60 years and the thing only happened once.

Speaker 2:
[20:51] Yeah, absolutely. Someone was explaining this to me about how memory works. And that whenever you remember something you don't access, what was happening to you when you were five years old or 10 years old or whatever, you're accessing something, a retelling of it. You're accessing the most recent telling of the tale and that becomes the memory. And that memory is inherently unreliable. So yeah, I think we're not going to go to America until we have our number one. And you can show him the booking receipts that it was all booked before I Want to Hold Your Hand was even recorded. But he won't believe you because that's not what's in his head.

Speaker 1:
[21:26] Well, speaking of memory.

Speaker 2:
[21:27] I see what you did there.

Speaker 1:
[21:29] 2007, we get to Cards on the Table, my favorite McCartney record of the 21st century by a fairly wide margin, actually, which is memory almost full. Which is the first McCartney record I remember anticipating coming out and buying it the day that it came out, going to a record store and grabbing the CD off the shelf the first day it was available after having her dance tonight. And like, you know, hanging out for it. But yeah, I think this is a classic record.

Speaker 2:
[22:13] I do love this album. I would say Driving Rain is still my favorite, but this is pretty close, pretty close second. And it's sort of the opposite of Driving Rain in a way. There's a lot of thought gone into the arrangements. It's kind of the parts of a heart back to that mid-70s wings sound, but the sort of keyboard sound and some of the backing vocals are very wingsy. Yeah, it's great. It's to me, it's slightly oddly sequenced. You know, there's a couple of tracks that I think don't fit. You know, you're probably going to tell me that Mr. Bellamy is your favorite song. I have no idea what that song is about. And I think that should not be on the album. And why does it not finish with the end of the end? Do you think that's a perfect closer? And then you suddenly get Nod Your Head.

Speaker 1:
[22:59] Well, why does Avey Road not finish with the end?

Speaker 2:
[23:02] I suppose, but is Nod Your Head the same as Her Majesty? Is that, it's not, it's, I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[23:08] I mean, I agree, it would be better if it just finishes at the end of the end. But I suspect that was the thought process. Like, oh, let's throw something fun and jammy on the end as a kind of like to undermine the sort of, you know, weightiness of closing it out like that.

Speaker 2:
[23:24] Maybe so. I'll go and listen to it again in that frame of mind.

Speaker 1:
[23:27] But I do think you're right, because this is the record that he started making before Chaos and Creation. So, yes, some of this stuff dates back from like 2004, I think, roughly. And you can, I think you can feel that it's carrying the energy from that back in the US., back in the world tour and that chemistry that he built up with the band and the excitement of having like a unit of great players that he felt comfortable with, who were also really well versed in the vocabulary of all his 60s and 70s stuff that had just been out. Tourings, all of that feeds back into the making of this record.

Speaker 2:
[24:03] I think that's a good point because it does, you can just hear little bits of his 60s work, his 70s work is all just sort of bleeding through in the songwriting, the production and the playing. Yeah, it's probably in that sense in terms of the songs, in terms of the production, the musicianship, it probably is objectively the best thing he's done.

Speaker 1:
[24:24] I think this album was also to an extent, it's about that sort of flattening of time, which is now I guess the defining feature of all culture at this point in the 21st century, but was really starting to become a thing at that point. Like particularly, ever present past and vintage clothes, are both sort of about everything old is new again. We're reinterpreting the past through the present and all that stuff. And so I think he's kind of addressing all that in the lyrics as well.

Speaker 2:
[24:50] I think from a lyrical point of view, this is definitely one of his strongest albums as a consistency across the album. I think Fleming Pie for me was a bit similar, that there was a theme and there was that he sort of then pulled a few extra tracks and that disrupted the concept slightly. Here I think it's very consistent and it works very well. And I think his lyrics are excellent. I say lyrics are not something that people focus on with McCartney, but here I think he addresses, as you say, that flattening of time that suddenly everything comes around.

Speaker 1:
[25:27] My only real critique of this record is that it landed right in the middle of that period of incredibly aggressive mastering, where everything is brick wall to buggery. And I really wish they would do a nice remaster package of this one.

Speaker 2:
[25:41] I'm told that the vinyl pressing is spectacular. But they go for a ridiculous amount of money, more money than I have. So I've never heard it, but I'm told that that kind of brick wall approach doesn't do it any favors. The other thing I would say, there's a great bonus track if you get. This album came in a couple of different versions, but there's a really good track called Why So Blue. I don't know if you know it, it's an acoustic track that really should be on the album. So if you can find the particular version, I have a version here that has a DVD of a live show from 2007. You get three bonus tracks, but Why So Blue is worth seeking out. I don't know why it's not on the album, it fits thematically as well.

Speaker 1:
[26:27] Well, maybe we'll get, I mean, I don't have my hopes up because the McCartney reissue thing seems to be pretty all over the place, but I would love to think we'll get a nice deluxe edition 20th anniversary thing for this album next year.

Speaker 2:
[26:41] Would that be before or after London Town and Back to the Egg archive sets?

Speaker 1:
[26:46] You know what? I would rather have this. Those are great records, but this is honestly above a lot of people's classic McCartney and Wings stuff for me, this album.

Speaker 2:
[26:56] You're of that generation, but there are a lot of old men out there, Jeremy, that want London Town and Back to the Egg. But I agree. I think if we could get a remastered package here, I think it could be spectacular, not least because my understanding is there were about 25 songs recorded for this. So there is more material and some of the sessions go back to 2004, maybe even into 2003. So I think I would like to hear, and yeah, 2027, why not 20th anniversary? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[27:26] Maybe Dave Kahn is working on it. A quick Dave Kahn story that I meant to mention when we're talking about Driving Rain. He was working on producing some stuff for my friend Thelma Plumb a while back, about 10 years ago now. They were working on these tracks in New York, and then they had a day off so that Dave Kahn could comp some vocals and some stuff. Thelma comes in the next day and he's like, Paul McCartney dropped by yesterday to catch up, and he's like, what are you working on? So I played in one of your songs and he went, I've got an idea and so he played guitar on one of her songs.

Speaker 2:
[28:02] Wow, that's pretty cool.

Speaker 1:
[28:04] Yeah. You mentioned before that he's had a lot of fallings out, I guess would be the way to say it, with some collaborators over the years. I always like stories of people, they might not be working together anymore, but they're still mates and he'll pop by to say hi, or catch up, or whatever.

Speaker 2:
[28:21] That's good. It's like, Danny Seywell is the guy from Wings, that although he left the band, short notice left him in the lurch, he and Danny seem to have reconnected some years ago, and on the best of terms. So yeah, I think that's a cool story.

Speaker 1:
[28:37] Wasn't there that story about they got back in touch, because Danny had given them some home movies to use in that Wings band box set, and while they had gotten reconnected, Danny was like, hey man, I feel like it was a bit unfair that I didn't get a profit share and all that stuff. And McCartney called him back, was like, yeah, and then cut him some massive check for some crazy amount of money.

Speaker 2:
[29:01] I've heard that story. I've heard that story. He also, he had, Danny had, you know, there was different running orders for Red Row Speedway. And he had some of the acetates with a particular running order and mock up labels and things like that, that he was able to give them for the archive set. Yeah, he must, I think there must be at the core, a really good personal relationship there because I can't imagine that Paul writes the kind of make up check that often.

Speaker 1:
[29:27] Because you hear a lot of stories and some of them I think are hilarious, but also totally justified like that story of he was trying to buy like a mid-60s Hoffner violin bass from someone and they wanted like 750 grand for or something. And his argument was, it's only worth that much money because it's the kind of bass that I played in the 60s, so I shouldn't have to pay that much for it. Which I think, yeah, fair point.

Speaker 2:
[29:54] Fair point, fair point. I saw him in Liverpool in 2018 and he had put, in spite of all the danger in the set, and it stayed in the set for quite a while. He played it at Glastonbury. But he said, there's only one original of this. We recorded here in Liverpool and the guy that had it is here in the audience and he had it for 50 years. And then I got it off him and he got a check for over 100,000 pounds from me, which I don't think is fair. And I thought, that's such a terrible thing to do to this poor guy. But yeah, if I had that acetate, would I give it to Paul?

Speaker 1:
[30:35] Or maybe he meant that Yoko and Olivia and Ringo should have chipped in as well.

Speaker 2:
[30:41] Yeah, maybe.

Speaker 1:
[30:56] Okay, so now we move on to an interesting sort of side excursion of a sense, which is the Electric Arguments record that came out a year after Memory, almost, for Build As The Fireman, which was sort of a project that he'd done in quasi-anonymity, but this was the first time he'd sort of owned up to it being Kim.

Speaker 2:
[31:17] Yeah. So this is the third album, the first two sort of trance-y instrumental tracks. And I think it was a sort of fairly open secret by the time the second album came out that Paul McCartney was behind it with Youth. But yeah, he's up front and center here. It's got his name, Youth's name on it, and there are vocals. So it's the first album that it's a bit of a departure. I really like this album, and I probably like it for the same reason that I like Driving Rain. It's Paul Howling Fun. He's just kind of cutting loose in his studio. I think when we talked about Press to Play on the Nothing is Real podcast, which is another album that I really liked despite the 80s production, I think it's Paul going into slightly strange places. And the lyrics are very odd, the production is very odd, and the public absolutely hated it. They wanted big ballad Paul, and that's what he gave them. After that, he went back to just being Paul McCartney, and all of the really odd, interesting stuff that he does became side projects, and this is one of them. And I think in a way, it's a shame that he can't bring this into the mainstream, into his mainstream career. He's got this parallel career of all these slightly odd things, Liverpool Sign Collage that he worked on with Super Furry Animals or the Twin Freaks album. But this is what I like. I like there's a spontaneity about it. Yeah, I have no idea what half these songs are about, but I don't think he does either. I think he's literally, they just make it up. One song a day is the way they record it, as I understand it.

Speaker 1:
[32:49] Yeah, and there's a lot of, I think they did that sort of William Burroughs, Bowie, cut up lyrics thing for some of these songs. And as you say, it's back to that thing of like, I don't know what these words mean together, but they sound great together. So let's go with it.

Speaker 2:
[33:04] I think when that works, it works brilliantly. When it doesn't work, it can sound appalling. But I think it works here. And I read an interview where he said, you know, they recorded the basic track, and then he would step up to a microphone, not really sure what the lyrics were going to be, not really sure where the melody was going to go. Just improvise something around it, do a couple of takes, splice them together, and there you go. That's it. And it's a real departure from Memory Almost Full.

Speaker 1:
[33:29] Yeah, it is, and kind of not a reaction against it, but as I think, as you say, it's like the off-ramp that filters out all the stuff that he wouldn't let himself do or the processes that he wouldn't let himself use while making Memory Almost Full, got diverted on to this project. And I think that kind of compartmentalization might be why he wanted it more out there as like a record with, even though it technically didn't have his name on it, like everyone knew it was his record, it was on the website, he would do, Sing the Changes was in the setlist for a while, live, which was always a nice moment.

Speaker 2:
[34:21] I think that's right. I think he is running two parallel careers, I think, at this point. And he does, you know, we know that he wants it to be known that in the 60s, he was listening to Stockhuysen, and he was the guy that did the table loops, and that he was the more sort of, he was avant-garde before Lennon became avant-garde. And I think that's all legitimate. And I think it's a shame that he can't combine the two. I think there's two reasons for that. I think the public don't want him to. They just want cheeky chappy Paul to produce the hits. But the point that I made earlier, I think Paul is to a degree constrained by his need to deliver what the public want. You know, he's very conscious of being Paul McCartney. And he is constrained. He will not produce that. Paul McCartney goes too far out. And that was talked about in 65. And has never quite materialized. And he gives interviews saying, you know, I'm not as concerned as people think I am. I take risks. But he doesn't do it in his mainstream career. He does it off to the side. And as you said, that maybe that compact mentalization, that's just the way he has to reconcile the two things.

Speaker 1:
[35:26] I think still John Lennon has been dead for 46 years. And the 60s were 60 years ago now. It's still so formative for him that so much of his perceptions of how he himself are perceived is still formed by stuff that happened many, many, many decades ago now. And I don't necessarily think inaccurately. I think what he probably thinks is that he's not thought of the way that people think of Bruce Springsteen or the way they thought of Lennon or the way they thought of certain people where if he does something like weird and out there and a bit bat shit, that doesn't burnish his reputation, that doesn't get embraced because he's not afforded the kind of credibility to read. The way that like now when Bob Dylan does anything, it's just like, another act of genius from the master, whatever it is, even if it's like, he's posting a clip of Machine Gun Kelly on his Instagram and everyone wants to read all this profound shit into it. And there's probably a much more banal explanation for all this Bob Dylan stuff. But because he's Bob Dylan, everything is profound and everything just confers more credibility onto him. Whereas because people think of, so many people think of McCartney is fundamentally naff and shallow, very unfairly, I think, from both of our points of view, that people will filter that stuff through that lens.

Speaker 2:
[36:53] I think that's a good point. The Dylan comparison is a good one. I think the other comparison I would draw is between McCartney and Mick Jagger. So in The Stones, Keith is the cool one. Keith is the authentic, the blues man. Jagger is the businessman. Jagger is superficial. Jagger is shallow, but it's Jagger that has kept that band going. And it's Jagger that goes out and works with the Dust Brothers, or he brings in Andrew Watt most recently. He's the one that keeps doing that. But no matter what Jagger does, Keith is always going to be in The Stone. And I think that's McCartney. Yeah, I think he's just constantly battling that. I mean, it sounds ridiculous for me to say it, but I kind of feel sorry that he can't actually appreciate how much he is appreciated. He is a national treasure, and that can be quite a superficial thing. You're up there with Queen Mom and that kind of thing. But I think he is hugely well regarded by musicians, younger generation of musicians that are kind of clued in to what he did. He's the standard bearer for the Beatles. Ringo was kind of opted out of that. And it's a double edged sword. You get the credit, but at the same time, you get slightly locked into that Shea Stadium jacket and Auburn hair. You know, it's a very difficult thing to navigate. And I think when he steps out of that and does something like Electric Arguments, you just have a sense that he's enjoying this. He enjoys this, I think, more than the pressure of going in to produce Paul McCartney album.

Speaker 1:
[38:22] Yeah, he doesn't, he's not carrying 60 years of history on his back.

Speaker 2:
[38:27] No, he can check that at the door. And a couple of the songs here, there's a song called Dance Till We're High, which is just Be My Baby. He would never do that, something so obvious on one of his mainstream albums, because everybody would go, oh, you're just ripping off. But nobody would say it here, because it's all part of the playfulness of. So yeah, where are we? Top three now, we've got Driving Rain, Memory Almost Full, and would you put Electric Arguments up there too or not quite?

Speaker 1:
[38:54] Not for me, because I don't find myself going back and listening to this record as much. As everything you've said, I agree with, but I feel like it's an album to an extent that I'm more appreciated and love the fact that it exists more than it's a record that I put on all the time the way I do with Memory Almost Full.

Speaker 2:
[39:12] I get that. What if it rained, we didn't care.

Speaker 1:
[39:25] The next one, which is in a very different way, another one of him taking a break from being Beatlepool, Kisses on the Bottom.

Speaker 2:
[39:33] What can I say about this record? I don't understand what he's doing here. I didn't understand her at the time. He was on a roll. He'd had Memory Almost Full, he'd had Chaos and Creation, he'd had Driving Rain, he had Electric Arguments which got the best reviews. Then suddenly he just pivots into, I'll do a record, The Great American Soulbook. I think, why and why then? Because it was pretty old hat. This was a little corner that Rod Stewart had marked out for himself, where he said, The Great American Soulbook, Volume 28. He was just, when his Rod's muse deserted him in terms of writing songs, he just pivoted into this. At that stage, Rod's voice, pretty good. Brian Ferry has always done this kind of thing, and he brings a very mannered, very stylized vocal approach to it. I don't get anything out of this record. I don't think Paul's voice is particularly suited to the material. You put it on at a sophisticated dinner party, if I was the kind of guy that gave sophisticated dinner parties maybe, but the up tempo stuff, it works better than the slow burn. You're going to tell me it's your favorite album.

Speaker 1:
[40:46] This is his best since Man on the Run.

Speaker 2:
[40:49] This is it.

Speaker 1:
[40:50] I feel like it is actually what he said it was at the time, which was just like something he made for Nancy. I can't say they were married at that point yet, but either his new wife or new partner at the time, who I guess really digs this era of music. Because he doesn't do it in the way he would do it if he was trying to sell the maximum. Rod Stewart doesn't in the most commercial possible way. It's very glossy. It's very, you can sell this in a department store. It's like that kind of thing. Whereas McCartney just goes in with Diana Crawl in a little combo and does these pretty low-key. I would rather listen to the Ella Fitzgerald versions of most of these songs, but I think it's a cool thing that he did. Also, I think has led to my favorite and one of the most telling anecdotes McCartney's told about himself in recent years, which was when he turned the record in to Capitol and said, Yeah, we're going to call it Kisses on the Bottom. Which is a lyric from I'm going to sit right down and write myself a letter. He got a lot of pushback and they were like, You can't call a fucking album Kisses on the Bottom. And he said, You know what else we got told was a NAF title? Sergeant Pepper's Only Hearts Club Band. And it's like, you can't argue with that because he's right. He did get told all that shit was insane and you can't do that and you can't make a drum kit like that and you can't sing about this. And when people say stuff like, Why did this really famous, super established, successful artist do this thing that I don't like? It's because no one around them will tell them no. No, it's because they don't have to listen to anyone who says no to them because they did whatever the thing was that changed music forever.

Speaker 2:
[42:31] Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, I think if anybody has earned the right to produce whatever he wants to produce, it's Paul McCartney. But I agree with you. I think you would listen to Ella Fitzgerald. I'm sure Nancy thinks it's lovely. If I'm being really brutally honest, I think you know I have a real soft spot for Sentimental Journey by Ringo. I just think that is such a great album on every level. His performance, the very fact that he was leaving The Beatles and he was going to do an album of American Standards because he's not competing with The Beatles. And that's what I like about that. But it only took Paul, what, how many years, how many decades to catch up with Ringo. So, you know, My Valentine, one of the two originals, it's still in the setlist as far as I know. So I've seen him four or five times since this album came out and it's always in the setlist. So, financing.

Speaker 1:
[43:22] Yeah. I mean, it's rough. Like, if you're with someone and the song they wrote for their first wife is Maybe I'm Amazed. That's tough to compete with.

Speaker 2:
[43:32] This is true. I saw Paul, I'm trying to think what year it was. It was in the London Arena. My sister and I went and we had fantastic seats. We were like in the sixth row. We were close enough to be able to hear Paul talking to the band off mic. He played My Love and he said this for my lovely wife, Linda. She just this huge round of applause. Then he played and I can't remember what song and he said, this is a song I wrote for my beautiful wife, Heather. Heather is standing in the wings and she comes up, I say, absolute silence. Absolute silence and I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah. So suddenly Linda, after having put up with all that abuse for years and years and years, is raised to the santo. But yeah, it must be tough. Perhaps Nancy doesn't like The Beatles and she only likes Sinatra.

Speaker 1:
[44:18] Maybe, maybe that's the secret of their, I could imagine that being a really helpful part of their dynamic. I mean, I don't know anything about their life together, but I imagine you don't really want to marry a fan, do you? That's a weird dynamic.

Speaker 2:
[44:33] That would be, was it Agnetha from ABBA that married not only a fan, but actually a stalker?

Speaker 1:
[44:39] I didn't know that.

Speaker 2:
[44:40] That's a good anecdote. It's an anecdote I could not tell on a family podcast, but everyone should go and Google her stalker. But what I would say is I really like the version of Baby's Request on this, which is a Wings track. I really think that's a song that comes off really well. But I hadn't listened to it. I probably listened to it twice when I got it, and then I listened to it again, because I knew it was coming on here. I'll put it back on the shelf for another five or six years until we do a follow up.

Speaker 1:
[45:08] Well, moving on from this one then to, and this is when you were saying like, why did he do this then when he was on such a role? I think it's telling that he follows up with a new album of original songs just the following year with you.

Speaker 2:
[45:37] So New, I loved New when it came out. I thought this was just brilliant. I thought the songs were good. I thought the production was good. It was really kind of snappy. It was crisp and I realized now that apart from Queenie I, I can't remember what any of those songs sound like.

Speaker 1:
[45:53] Really? Even New?

Speaker 2:
[45:54] Yeah. I can't. I could not call it to mind. The only other song that I could call to mind is On My Way to Work, which I think is hilariously funny. Paul is not known for his sense of humor, I don't think. But I think that song is just, it makes me laugh out loud every time I hear it. But apart from that and Queenie I, which is okay, it's an okay song. No, none of them stock.

Speaker 1:
[46:18] That is interesting. I do agree with you, it has such incredible, superficial pleasures about it that there was a candy rush aspect of listening to it the first time, that has worn off a bit. But I actually found myself, I think it was a record that I wore out when it was new. Then came back to it, I was trying to reference one of the tracks, I think it was Savis, I was trying to reference when I was in the studio on another project. So I went back and listened to the record again, and I was actually like, yeah, this is really, this has got some great stuff on it, and it sounds great. I just think him and Mark Ronson was such a obvious and productive pairing. It's a shame they didn't end up doing more stuff together, although that could happen again at some point, I guess. But I think that the title track is just euphoric and sounds. It's probably the most successful version, I think, of him trying to do something like back in the day more recently, in a way that actually sounds more like it could have been on a Beatles record, even though it has a lyric that's obviously quite autobiographical about him falling in love again later in life, which I think is quite touching. But to me, the most interesting song is Early Days, which again has had a life beyond the time of this record, because I feel like it's the first time he really goes, okay, I'm going to sound old. I'm not going to try and cover up the imperfections of my voice with a bunch of harmonies and try and make myself sound like I did back in the day or anything. But part of the juice of that song is him sounding like a much older man singing about that time.

Speaker 2:
[47:56] Yeah, I agree. I think it works very well on that song. I think one of the things about Kisses on the Bottom, his voice was a little exposed on those tracks. But here, as you say, he's almost making a virtue of the fact that I am the age that I am. I've lived this life. Yeah. Is that one of the Ethan Johns productions, I think?

Speaker 1:
[48:18] I think so. Maybe not.

Speaker 2:
[48:19] But I do think it works very well. It's like On My Way to Work. It's the start of these very explicitly autobiographical songs, talking about the pre-Beatles days. If you break it down, On My Way to Work, for example, I did this and I clocked up. He had one job before he was in the, this isn't that he was working from he was 14 until he was 20. This is, I think it was like one summer or something he worked this job. Ringo has been doing this on his albums in a jokey, superficial way where he writes about Liverpool later at the other side of Liverpool, or Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. But Paul is actually turning it into really quite an affecting take on that. He's obviously also just calling out all those people that write all those books. You don't know what it was like. You weren't there.

Speaker 1:
[49:06] The working title of this song was Fuck You Philip Norman.

Speaker 2:
[49:09] Well, yeah. You talked about this. What is the memory that you are actually recalling? Is it the thing that happened or is it your last retelling of that story? So he's got to face up to the fact that there are people out there that know his life better than he does, because they've been in the archive and they've been in the library. But it's understandable. In one sense, it must just be awful to be Paul McCartney. Lots of good things, but everything poured over and analyzed. But I suspect Paul wouldn't have it any other way.

Speaker 1:
[49:41] I also think there is an aspect of this song and some of this singing about the early 60s and particularly the early Beatle days and pre-Beatle days, more than the peak fame era, I think. Whereas, he's the survivor and not just the survivor that Lennon and Harrison are gone. But at this point, Ivan Vaughan, his mate who introduced him and John in the first place, who I think he actually kept up a long friendship with.

Speaker 2:
[50:09] He did.

Speaker 1:
[50:10] Had passed away and you get to that point. He's in his early 70s making this record. He's in his mid-80s now where aside from all the, fuck you, you weren't there aspects of it, like you are the only person who went through that, who's left almost and that's a real thing to confront.

Speaker 2:
[50:29] Yeah. It is rare to get Paul writing so explicitly about himself. John Lennon, that's just what he did. Post 1970, every song that John wrote was about John Lennon. Paul, if you get information or you get insight into what Paul is feeling, it tends to be slightly oblique. He's writing maybe not consciously writing about himself, and then when you do get something like this, it's really striking. I think those two songs, Early Days and On My Way to Work, are the perfect example of that. There's a line in On My Way to Work where he's talking about the magazine, and this girl, she came from Chichester, she likes to water ski. I think that is such a specific, she came from Chichester. I have absolutely no doubt that he had that magazine, and it said that that girl came from Chichester. That's too specific not to be actual memory, and I think that's very funny. Then you get Queenie I, which is a kid's playground chant, and then you get Early Day, and I think there's a little sequence there of pre-Beatle's childhood memory. I would love him to do an entire album like that. If he could pull it off, I mean, I don't know whether he could or not, but this is an album that I listened to for this podcast, and I thought, I'm going to have to go back and listen to this again, because it just didn't stick. I loved it at the time. I'm sure I played it to death at the time, but it just didn't.

Speaker 1:
[51:55] Yeah. Well, it's funny you say that, because I feel like maybe that's what we're about to get.

Speaker 2:
[51:59] Maybe.

Speaker 1:
[52:00] The concept album about the early years.

Speaker 2:
[52:03] And that both excites me and makes me very nervous as well, because I think it's either going to be really good or it's going to be really terrible. And we just have to wait and see.

Speaker 1:
[52:15] You know what? But my position at this point is like, if it is really terrible, we've got enough good stuff.

Speaker 2:
[52:21] We have. I'll tell you the one song that really surprised me when I went back to listen to this week is Hosanna. And that's, I think, Ethan Johns. And it's some program on an iPad or something, and it's just these loops and stuff. And I thought, that's an interesting, that's a little example of him pulling something slightly left field into a mainstream album. Having listened to it, I think Mark Ronson does a really good job on those kind of really crisp, sharp stuff that you expect from Mark Ronson. But I think Ethan Johns got something else out of him, and I think they work very well together. But it's an album I've got to go back and listen to again.

Speaker 1:
[53:00] And it is, like as we've alluded to, there's a bunch of different producers involved here, and it is an album. And I would love to hear a Deluxe. I'm sure there are a bunch of other tracks from this period sitting around, because he went and played around with working with all these different producers, with Paul Webworth, with Mark Ronson, with Giles Martin, and with Ethan Johns, and then figured out a way to match them all together in what felt like they belonged together on a record. But I'm sure there's lots of left turns and interesting diversions and stuff that were really cool to hear.

Speaker 2:
[53:34] There must be pretty solid demos for all these tracks, because there's so much work is building them up in the studio, that there must be early versions and stripped down versions that we can get. Obviously, we need another edition of Band on the Run to come out first. But once we get that, then we can get new.

Speaker 1:
[53:53] Yeah. Now we got to get the underdubbed versions of Ram and McCartney I first.

Speaker 2:
[53:58] Yeah. Honestly, anybody would think he'd only released three albums in his entire solo career, because they just keep getting released and re-released. Anyway.

Speaker 1:
[54:09] To me, the miracle is we got the Flowers in the Dirt expanded edition.

Speaker 2:
[54:13] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[54:14] The second disc, if anyone hasn't listened to that, listen to the second disc of Flowers in the Dirt, which is arguably Paul McCartney's, the second disc, I mean, not the main album, is arguably Paul McCartney's best record of the last 40 years.

Speaker 2:
[54:27] Yes. I agree with you. Absolutely. Again, at the time that record came out, I loved that record. But looking at it now, you can see it's designed by committee almost. Do we have a Beatle track? My brave face, yes. Do we have a big ballad? Yes. Do we have a little acoustic number? Put it there. Yes. It was like he was trying to tick all of those boxes. The Stones, you did that around the same time where you got the song that was just built up with the grand piano and acoustic guitar that sounded a little bit like Simpathy for the Devil, or you had a disco track, you had a Hot Stuff style funk thing going on. But yeah, if you look at what could have been, it's the album that never was. If he had a loud Costello, a freer hand, yeah, but he won't do it.

Speaker 1:
[55:16] Or even just if they, not even then, if they had released, this goes back to that thing around narratives, around releases, if that second disc, which is largely the acoustic guitar and piano demos that McCartney and Elvis Costello did when they were writing all those songs, if that had been put out as a standalone Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello record, it would probably be one of the most acclaimed records in either of their catalogs, because it is just incredible array of songs and the performances that they give when they don't know that anyone's ever going to hear this shit, like the demo of The Lovers That Never Were, is one of the greatest things either of them ever recorded.

Speaker 2:
[55:55] I think the frustrating thing is that Costello knew that. I don't know if you've read his autobiography, but he talks about that. You do get a sense that he realized how great these were and that something could be done with them. Yeah, it's incredibly frustrating. But again, it's this need to please the public. He's always got an eye on the charts. And I think a lot of that comes from, particularly Flowers in the Dirt, we're way off track here, but I think a lot of that comes from the whole, give my regards to Broad Street debacle and the public-hating press to play. Then he sort of, there's a reset, what should be on a Paul McCartney album, and you get one of each, you get a little sample. And again, I prefer off the ground because he's working with a band, he's working with this touring band, it's looser, it's freer, there's just, you know, the songs may not be as good, they're not bad, but I just like, again, he's having fun. I just wish Paul could have a bit more fun when he's in the studio and making a record for public consumption. That's my pontification.

Speaker 1:
[57:02] I feel like we're about to talk, these last two records that we're going to talk about, I feel like speak to both sides of that in a sense. Next one, so it's five years later, we talked about like he did the full court press for Chaos and Creation. So nothing compared to the rollout for Egypt Station.

Speaker 2:
[57:38] No, this is where the whole, get your Suit Kiss edition, get your Traveler Pack edition, get your bonus edition, get your bonus edition on, I think I have two copies of it on CD, one with a red elastic band and one with a green elastic band. It's so hype around this was, but it had been five years since we had a McCartney album. That's a long time Paul McCartney not to have put.

Speaker 1:
[58:02] Well, it is because he didn't do any filler projects, not filler projects, but side quests in the middle.

Speaker 2:
[58:09] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[58:09] Because that's 07 to 2013 between memory almost full and new, similar timeframe, but because there wasn't a electric arguments and kisses on the bottom in the meantime, it didn't feel like the same thing. It felt like he'd gone away.

Speaker 2:
[58:25] This was kind of heralded as some kind of a return, that this was a big deal or the record company made it a big deal, that it was coming out. I think it got to number 1 in America. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[58:37] First number 1 since Tug of War.

Speaker 2:
[58:39] Since Tug of War? That's nuts. That's nuts that Paul McCartney hadn't had a number 1 record since Tug of War in America.

Speaker 1:
[58:46] Yeah. It is funny that if you didn't know better and you just listen to all these records, trying to pick which had been either the most successful sales wise or had permeated the popular consciousness the most, I don't think you would necessarily pick that correctly. I certainly don't think you would necessarily think this was the one. But it got the big wind up. It got the full court press the label, throwing everything behind it, him doing every talk show, doing the concert in the subway station in New York and doing carpool karaoke and everything and all that jazz because see, I'm going to get number one record and it would.

Speaker 2:
[59:27] It works. Clearly, it's something he wants. He absolutely wants that number one record. I mean, that's admirable in the sense that he still has that drive, he still has that ambition. He could just settle back into a life of just touring, not put out any new product, but he still has that ambition. I think that's good. But I think the multicolored versions and the different editions and the hype, I suppose it's what you do these days maybe. But I think there's something slightly, I don't want to say undignified, but I'm going to say undignified. If you're Paul McCartney, why are you doing that? Why are you going on talking to Jimmy Fallon? I mean, come on. He's my least favorite American talk show host.

Speaker 1:
[60:10] The thing that I wasn't necessarily the biggest fan of, well, I was actually really surprised at how affecting I found the carpool karaoke thing that he did around this. Like, I really, I cried watching that. Obviously, like, it's just a promo piece for the new record, but you really understand, like, his understanding of the responsibility of being Paul McCartney in that thing and how seriously he takes all that. There was a story, Dave Grohl told a story once on some podcast about hanging out with Paul McCartney and they were driving somewhere so to stop and grab a takeaway coffee, and there were two cafes next to each other, and he could realize that McCartney was trying to decide which one to go into because he was about to change somebody's life by going and buying coffee from them because they'll be telling that story for the rest of their lives about the time. Paul McCartney came into their cafe and bought a cappuccino or something.

Speaker 2:
[61:07] I think Nick Lowe tells a story about touring with wings on a bus in Europe, and they stopped at a garage or something, and Nick Lowe, there's a bathroom, and Nick Lowe is going to go into the bathroom. And he says to Paul, there isn't another bathroom for, and Paul says, no, I can't use public bathrooms because you're kind of standing there. And somebody goes in and goes, you're Paul McCartney. And then he sees it too. I think it's the same thing. Yeah, yeah, you are going to. I put off listening or watching Carpool Karaoke for years because I cannot abide James Corden. But you're right, when I actually sat down to watch it, it was very affecting. The story that I've heard is that when they got to Forthland Road, he didn't want to go in. And there was quite a kind of period where they were saying, well, we're all here and it's all set up. And, you know, this is the big payoff we've got. And that he was really very reluctant. I had second thoughts at the last minute about actually going into the house. And I can kind of see that. Mike goes back a few times and is involved. Sort of the layout and refurbishing and sort of looking after it. But I think Paul had never been by. So yeah, I mean, I guess it is a heavy burden, you know?

Speaker 1:
[62:19] Yeah. And it was also something that was the first time I really felt his mortality. And I'm not sure why exactly. It wasn't like he seemed like frail or anything in it compared to anything else. But it's just something I think they, you know, they talk about. There's some mentions of death and stuff in there or whatever. But it just really made me feel like, oh shit, this guy's going to be dead in the next, if we're lucky, in the next 15 years.

Speaker 2:
[62:43] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[62:43] Although actually we're coming on 10 years from that now, which is crazy.

Speaker 2:
[62:48] Well, that's true. I mean, somebody said this on Blue Sky, you know, what's going to be terrible when Paul passes, when Ringo passes, you know, that there's not going to be a big, I said, but that's not going to happen. Ringo's not going to die. You know, I don't think, I don't think Ringo, I think Ringo will be still going in 10 years. He'll still be at the Grand Ole Opry or recording another album with T-Bone Burnett or what have you.

Speaker 1:
[63:10] Yeah. I saw a video of him running on the stage in Vegas the other day and I was like, this guy's in better shape than I am.

Speaker 2:
[63:16] Yeah. Very kindly organized for me to go and see him at the Grand Ole Opry and he sang act naturally in the middle of the song, he dropped down to one knee and then got up again. I thought, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1:
[63:26] I definitely couldn't do that.

Speaker 2:
[63:28] Without somebody helping me up or a chair to lean on. But yeah, it's all that broccoli.

Speaker 1:
[63:34] Perhaps tellingly, we have not talked at all about music on Egypt Station. I really like Who Cares.

Speaker 2:
[63:40] Yeah. Highs and lows is what I've written down. There are some really high highs and there are some really low lows. Who Cares for me, yeah, it's in the top section. You can, that opening track, I don't know. Once you get past it, it's a little station, you can see it's a very Beatle-y, it's a very let it be, it's a very 1969 kind of sounding Beatles track and he's consciously tapping into that. I think the low, people want peace. Gather around people, I've got something important to say, people want peace. You say, well, that's very kind. Next, move on. Can we talk about You?

Speaker 1:
[64:17] Listen, it's good to know exactly when I can go and get a drink at the shows.

Speaker 2:
[64:23] That's true. The really annoying thing is, it is such a catchy song. If they just change the hook line, it works perfectly well. It could fit on you. It has that kind of crisp, shiny, poppy sound to it. But I think it's just such a crass. You think, Paul McCartney, you don't need to do this. It's a kind of funny in the studio moment, but why would you?

Speaker 1:
[64:46] It just is very incongruous with the melodic content of the song, because it's not like that's the kind of gag you'd put into like a little like Her Majesty kind of jokey acoustic thing, not in this big romantic shiny pop song.

Speaker 2:
[65:02] No, or it's an album title for ACDC. I don't know what he was thinking or how he, and I think he has been quite defensive about it in interviews. I think maybe he regrets, but then he put it in the setlist and he plays it, and he thinks it's funny live.

Speaker 1:
[65:20] Well, I think at this point, the setlist, and you and I have talked about this offline, but I think the setlist is just, it was only meant to be that tour. It's the Egypt Station tour setlist, still essentially at this point. But I think he's perhaps at this point just going like, okay, I don't want to take any risk necessarily not remembering lyrics or whatever, the stuff about being at a certain age, and it's just like, we've got this show down. Let's throw a new song in here and there. But if we can still do this and still play well together with these songs, let's not fuck with it too much. Well, because I think this got into the setlist because he thought it was going to be a big hit. I imagine that's a lot of the motivation behind working with someone like Brian Tedder. I actually like the idea of him working with current pop writers who do now what he did in 1965, I think is a cool idea. But I don't feel like he starts the run of shows like last year and decides to put for you in the setlist, it's there through inertia at this point.

Speaker 2:
[66:25] Yeah, I think so. I mean, do you think he should be working with other people? I do think he should be collaborating. He's a good collaborator. You know, he always says, oh, you know, nobody ever replaces John and blah, blah, blah. But he has got good collaborative working relationships with a limited number of people. Yeah, but the song is just beneath him. That's the thing. I think it's a good song. Takes every box until you get to that title or that whatever it is. It's not even a pun, you know? It's, yeah, I find it hard to get past. I like the Despite Repeated Warnings, which everybody thought was about Trump and climate change, but he assures us is not. But it absolutely bears that interpretation because I think this whole stitching together of little bits and pieces and to create a narrative, that's kind of what he does best. I probably like this album more when I first heard it than I do now. But when it's good, it's really good, and when it's not, it's really terrible. It's either trite like People Want Peace. And he kind of pulls a song like that. Every third or fourth album, we have, you know, Come On People, People Want Peace, you know? But yeah, I think it kind of balances out. Again, it's not an album that I've gone back to very much. Played it a lot at the time and then put it back in the show.

Speaker 1:
[67:41] What it feels to me like is, it's the first album he's made this century that felt like, oh, it's about time to do a new record.

Speaker 2:
[67:50] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[67:51] And that's the underlying motivation. Like there's no thematic drive behind it, the way there is with something like Memory Almost Full. I mean, it kind of feels like of a piece, but it doesn't have that same thing of like, of Driving Rain, like we captured this energy in a space and time, and it doesn't have what the next record has to itself either. It just feels like, well, fuck, how much time do I have left? I better get another record in the can, and I want it to be a big album. And it does feel a bit like, and when the press release came out for this record, there was a lot of, it's Paul doing the Paul things, a song like this and a song like this and a song like this and a song like this. And it feels a bit reverse-engineered from a template rather than put together from his best songs, the way like New was or something.

Speaker 2:
[68:42] Yeah, I think that's right. That's the same way that I feel about Flowers in the Dark, you know, that it's reverse-engineered. What do we have to, what does a Paul, what should a Paul McCartney album look like and sound like? So yeah, it's kind of quite superficial. I enjoyed it at the time, but it's not, again, it's not an album I've gone back to.

Speaker 1:
[69:13] Okay, so we're going to round out this conversation and with the actual McCartney III. And I have to say, like, I'm not saying this is a perfect record, and I'm sure that part of this is colored by, like, the circumstances with when it came out, but I fucking love this record. It makes me feel great when I listen to it.

Speaker 2:
[69:29] I really loved this album, too, when it came out, and I've gone back to it time and time again, and I listen to it again today, and I still really love this album. And we kind of got, we sort of made those comments on the podcast when it came out, and we got a bit of stick about, oh, you're only saying this because it's lockdown, it's Paul and it's blah, blah, blah. It's not going to hold up. But it actually does hold up because it doesn't feel reverse engineered, to use your phrase. It genuinely feels like he's back in the studio on his own having fun. I mean, I think the opening track is a bit too long until you actually get in. Once you get in and it's gone, find my way. The first time I heard that, I just thought that's back. It sounds like back. Then of course, Vic did the remix. Did the remix. I thought, oh, I'm good. I'm good at this. I really like this album. I think it stands up really well. This is probably number four in my list, my top four McCartney albums of the 21st century.

Speaker 1:
[70:30] Yeah. I remember some people were sniffy about this record, but I remember listening to you guys talk about it and be like, oh, there we go. Because, yeah, I just feel like this is, in a way, like it's a really meaningful record, and it is to some extent about the period. It's like the funny thing is it only came out a few years after, it's two years after Egypt Station. So it feels a bit odd that that first track is like, do you miss me? But like, yeah, I did because we've been in lockdown for eight months and I'm like desperate to feel the thing that McCartney gives you at that point. And a lot of this record has that feeling of like, don't worry, Grand Dude is here, Uncle Paul's back and he's going to look after you and everything's going to be okay.

Speaker 2:
[71:19] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[71:19] And like, find my way in particularly. And I think Kiss of Venus is so beautiful and it's like, has incredible melodies in it and yeah, I don't know. I just like this whole record's got a lot of meat on the bone.

Speaker 2:
[71:34] Yeah, I absolutely agree with you. This is, this is, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, it's moving up the chart as I'm talking to you. I love the fact that he's got a song on it called Lavatree Lil because it's kind of such a Liverpool expression and you can guess who it's about and maybe it's not, but it's, it's, you know, he's not afraid to be funny. He's relaxed. It's a jokey song, but in a way that, you know, fuck you is not. This is how you do that type of song. My only criticism is that the first track was on for about nine and a half and doesn't, doesn't actually go anywhere. But Damon Albarn, I think, this is Damon Albarn does a remix of it on the reimagined version, which is quite good. But yeah, I, and I agree with you. We were kind of in lockdown. We were coming out of lockdown. It's exactly what we needed.

Speaker 1:
[72:22] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[72:22] And it transcends that. It's still, it's still, you know, still makes you feel good.

Speaker 1:
[72:28] I really wish these songs would make it into the set list because I saw him do, what's it, Women and Wives at one of the sound checks a couple of years ago on the Australian tour. And I was like, that was fucking great. Put that in the main show. I mean, Find My Way would be amazing in the main set.

Speaker 2:
[72:44] Find My Way, it's crying out for that band to, of course, they could do it. They could do any of these songs. But Find My Way, Kiss of Venus, Pretty Boys, he could do that, you know, Sliding, he could substitute for Queenie I, you know. I don't understand why these aren't in the, these don't make the set list.

Speaker 1:
[73:03] My fantasy, which will absolutely never in a million years ever happen, is McCartney does a residency or a one-off show or whatever, where he only plays songs from, like, even from the 80s onwards. Like Tug of War 4. He can still do Here Today, he does Take It Away, and he does, has never been played live either. That's insane. It was a big hit.

Speaker 2:
[73:30] Yeah. I think we've missed that boat. I think that ship has sailed. But, you know, like a Sparks style residency where he goes and he takes the 02 in London or the Albert Hall and he says, I'm going to play 30 dates. First set is going to be an album. All the way through and second half is the hits. He thinks people don't want that, but people do want that.

Speaker 1:
[73:53] Well, I think the thing is people want that, but most people don't want that. And I think he always says the thing about like, you know, with some people's, it's going to be their first time seeing me and it might be their only time seeing me. So I've got to play Hey Jude.

Speaker 2:
[74:06] Yeah. And he's not wrong. He's not wrong. I say to people, you know, I don't need to see McCartney again, if you've never seen him or if you want your kids to see him or you want your grandkids to see him, go because it will be a fantastic show. But it's a show that I've seen four or five times and it's not changing. But definitely go because in what? 20 years time, 40 years time, those kids are going to be celebrating the 100th anniversary of Sgt. Pepper. Those grandkids, they're going to be alive in 40 years time and that record will be 100 years old. So go and see him. See, that's just dawning on you.

Speaker 1:
[74:47] I mean, yeah. But I just think it would be incredibly moving to go to a McCartney show where he closed, comes out and the encore is When Winter Comes.

Speaker 2:
[74:57] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[74:57] And if he tried to do that at City Field or, you know, Wrigley Field or whatever, whichever stadium, you know, he'd have about 70,000 of the people there going, what the fuck was that? And I would just be bawling my eyes out. Because I find, sort of going back to what I was mentioning before, that song, which interestingly is revived from the, I think the Flaming Pie Sessions.

Speaker 2:
[75:23] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[75:23] When they originally cut When Winter Comes or around that period. But it fits on to this album actually really effectively and really effectively because it's such, again, it's such an adult song. It's about being a parent and having responsibilities and looking after people and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2:
[75:54] They would be perfect closer. We need to get them, I think for 20 million, he will come and play for you. He's just done an Apple gig. So if you could just scrape the money together, keep me a seat.

Speaker 1:
[76:03] But that's 20 million to play the hits. What do you have to pay him to?

Speaker 2:
[76:07] Well, that's very true. That's true.

Speaker 1:
[76:12] Let's wrap this up with our ranking, our top five Paul McCartney albums of the 21st century to date. Let's go five to one. So what's your number five, Steven?

Speaker 2:
[76:24] Number five. I'm struggling for number five. Although I haven't listened to it for a long time, I think I'm going to put new number five because I listened to it. I mean, I played it to death when it came out, and then just completely forgot about it. But having listened to it for this, I think it's pretty good. It's pretty good. So I'm going to go, I'm going to put new or new.

Speaker 1:
[76:45] My number five, I think, is Chaos and Creation in the backyard.

Speaker 2:
[76:49] Boo.

Speaker 1:
[76:51] Because I definitely like that record more than you. Actually, what I really love is the BBC TV special that he did when that record came out.

Speaker 2:
[77:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[77:00] Was that like Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road, something like that?

Speaker 2:
[77:03] Yes. That was it. Yeah. That's great.

Speaker 1:
[77:05] It's on YouTube now and I watched that again recently and I was like, this is the magic. This is like-

Speaker 2:
[77:12] He makes the song up. Does he do the thing with the glasses?

Speaker 1:
[77:15] Yeah. With the glasses and the band on the run and he does the- and he plays the bluesy version of Lady Madonna for the first time. It's fucking ripper. Yeah. What's your number four?

Speaker 2:
[77:28] Number four, I'm wavering between two, but I'm going to put McCartney III at number four.

Speaker 1:
[77:33] Okay. My number four is new. Your number three?

Speaker 2:
[77:36] Number three is the Farman album. Am I allowed that?

Speaker 1:
[77:41] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[77:41] Not on the album, but technically.

Speaker 1:
[77:43] All the ones we talked about are on the table.

Speaker 2:
[77:45] Yeah. That's number three. What's your number three?

Speaker 1:
[77:48] I'm going to have to dig back into electric arguments. Again, you've really got me needing to spend more time with that. My number three is Driving Rain.

Speaker 2:
[77:59] Okay. It's disappointing.

Speaker 1:
[78:01] Number two for you?

Speaker 2:
[78:02] Number two is Memory Almost Full.

Speaker 1:
[78:04] Yeah. Well, that's almost right.

Speaker 2:
[78:07] Yeah. Almost right. What's your number two?

Speaker 1:
[78:10] My number two is McCartney III.

Speaker 2:
[78:13] I can see where I could add in.

Speaker 1:
[78:15] Yeah. There's some racism bias there, but there's just something very special about, I feel like my emotional relationship to his music that's captured in that record, and I think that's one of the reasons why it's loomed so large for me. What is your favorite Paul McCartney record of this century?

Speaker 2:
[78:33] My favorite Paul McCartney record of the century is Driving Rain.

Speaker 1:
[78:37] There you go.

Speaker 2:
[78:38] That's a controversial choice, but I think it holds up really well. I think his voice is great. I keep coming back and saying, I love the fact that he's just having fun and there's something, he's working through stuff, I think, on the record, and the same way that you say you have an emotional connection with McCartney III, I think because I saw that tour and it was a big thing for me, and I couldn't get anybody else to go with me to this, so I got on a plane, flew to Las Vegas, got a great seat, saw Paul McCartney, came home. It was the whole thing around that trip was great. That pulled back through to Driving Rain. Driving Rain, so your number one must by process of elimination be Kisses on the Bottom.

Speaker 1:
[79:30] You got me. Well, actually, I hope that people listening go and spend a bit more time with Driving Rain after particularly hearing you talk about it, because I feel like it's gotten a little bit lost in the story. But yeah, my favorite McCartney record of the 21st century is Memory Almost Full, which I hope gets a beautiful re-release package with a more forgiving master next year. But I just think that's like, it's wall to wall bangers, great songs. It's like, it's about something. It's thematically cohesive. It's like reaching back to the earlier stuff that he did and also like leaning into like some strokesy thing, like what was current at the time, but in a way that doesn't feel contrived. And it's just such a satisfying end to end listen that record to me.

Speaker 2:
[80:21] Very organic sound. And as you say, it doesn't sound contrived. He's touching on, as you say, things that he's done and particularly that mid-70s wings signed and those keyboards and layers that are there. Yeah, well, it's second on my list. So we're almost in sync.

Speaker 1:
[80:39] I think people, as I said in the intro, people get quite dismissive of the later catalog of people who aren't Bob Dylan, basically. Dylan gets afforded the benefit of the doubt, and people take his recent records very seriously, Paul Simon to an extent. But not a lot of other people, and there are often really incredible songs and records. Sometimes they recapture some of the magic, and sometimes there's a particular magic to them that only comes from making them in this stage of their lives. I feel like those elements are both in these McCartney records.

Speaker 2:
[81:14] I think that's true. I think that's a very good point. They don't sound- those two records, Driving Rain and Real was full, Electric Arguments, they don't sound forced in any way. They are probably records he could only admit at that point in his career. What are your hopes for The Boys of Dungeon Lane?

Speaker 1:
[81:31] It's hard to say. It was an interesting- that first single that just dropped is very much in the early days vein, that song from New We Were Talking About.

Speaker 2:
[81:42] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[81:44] With a lot of very intentional fragility to it. And you've got to imagine that the rest of the record is going to be fairly different to that, at least musically. But who knows what it's going to be? I mean, he's working with Andrew Watt, and I really liked that last Stones record that he produced.

Speaker 2:
[82:01] I loved that record. Yeah. Loved that Stones record. And I was surprised by the McCartney single because I suppose it wasn't what I was expecting with Andrew Watt behind the board. And I also thought it was a very odd choice. I know we don't have singles these days, but if that was going to be the first single off the album, it's not a banger by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, it's a very delicate thing. It's a very fragile thing. I really didn't like it the first time I heard it. I had to listen to it a few times to really kind of appreciate it. The one thing I didn't care for was, he's talking about Forthland Road, and we spoke on a secret code, and there was a promise never to be broken, and I'll never speak the secret of that. And I think, what's all that about?

Speaker 1:
[82:49] Well, he's not going to tell us. He's not going to reveal the secret code.

Speaker 2:
[82:51] Yeah. I love Paul Dearly, and I always took a lot of stick for being Team George on other podcasts. Even in the 70s, when he had a tour to promote, or when he had an album to promote, he was all like, yeah, the Beatles might get back together again. That would be quite good. Or I'd like to write a song with George Harrison, or when John and I were teenagers, or whatever. I think, is this the equivalent? You put the song out for a song and it's teasing some secrety thing that you have with John. He's a bit contrived in that regard. That was my only, I said I would really like him to produce a thematic piece of work on the early days. I hope this is it.

Speaker 1:
[83:40] Well, I've got to think that, a lot of the titles of McCartney records don't really mean anything in the broader sense. I mean, Memory Almost Full does.

Speaker 2:
[83:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[83:50] Because a lot of that, I'm assuming something is like specific as The Boys of Dungeon Lane, it tells us something about what the album is going to be about. It would be odd if that's the name of the record, and the rest of the songs are just like Peppy Love songs or something.

Speaker 2:
[84:07] Yeah. I mean, even the pre-release blurbs that you've got, this is his most revealing record, it's his most candid, he's talking about his personal life, he's talking about his early years. So they're building it up. Certainly, that is the narrative around the releases. It's not going to be an album of Poppy Love songs, it's going to be something very stark and very open and very transparent and very revealing. Those are not words that you associate with Paul McCartney. It's rare that he writes something that is very nakedly autobiographical. What he does, it really lands because it's a rarity. So we shall see.

Speaker 1:
[84:45] We shall see and we shall see in a few weeks, I guess, by the time this episode comes out. But Steven, thank you so much for- I mean, we could have had a six hour long version of this conversation and we got pretty close.

Speaker 2:
[84:59] But we could have danced all night, Jeremy. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[85:02] Ballroom dancing made a man of me. That's it for another episode of My Favorite Album. The show was produced by me, Jeremy Dylan and edited by Michael Carpenter, who also composed our fabulous theme music. Thanks for listening. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell strangers on the street, leave a review and we'll be back next week.