Paul McCartney

There’s something about Paul McCartney that winds me up. It isn’t his songs. Yes, he wrote The Frog Chorus. But great musicians are allowed some lapses in taste and judgement. And having written songs like Live and Let Die, Hey Jude, The Long and Winding Road and Maybe I’m Amazed more than makes up for a dodgy moment in the 1980’s – which, less face it, is when most artists chose to leave taste to one side. Paul McCartney is a great song writer – you won’t find me arguing that.

What does bother me slightly is the way he constantly tries to make himself into a more revolutionary figure than he actually is. This article is a great example of this tendency. Paul McCartney – the author of Eleanor Rigby, Lady Madonna and Yesterday, is claiming that he was the one who made the Beatles political. This may be true – it would certainly be difficult to disprove. But everyone knows that, regardless of who made the Beatles political, it was John Lennon who was the true counter-culture icon in the Beatles.

And it doesn’t stop there. I read an article recently in The Guardian’s Guide that was basically about how avant-garde Sir Paul is. Except, the article showed Paul McCartney was not avant-garde, but was close to those who are. Like John Lennon. And the DJ who turned one of tracks into a dance anthem. And his wife when she was taking random photos. Paul McCartney comes across as someone who is desperate to be cool, and in doing so just shows how desperate he is to be seen in the same light as John Lennon.

Ultimately, Paul should let his back catalogue shut up and do the talking. He is a great song writer – better, I’d argue, than Lennon. But his puerile attempts to position himself as some sort of avant-garde icon and political revolutionary is just not going to work.