PAUL McCARTNEY
All music and lyrics by Paul McCartney except
"Fuh You," music and lyrics by Paul McCartney and Ryan Tedder
Produced by Greg Kurstin with Paul McCartney except
"Fuh You" Produced by Paul McCartney and Ryan Tedder
Released September 7, 2018
"...I found my way upstairs and had a smoke/somebody spoke and I went into a dream..."
"A Day In The Life"
music and lyrics by John Lennon and Paul McCartney
I am amazed, and there is absolutely, positively, undeniably no amount of "maybe" about it.
As of this time of writing in the year 2018, Paul McCartney is 76 years old. Of course, this would be the typical point where articles and postings of this sort would speak to the man's level of energy, which still feels to be unstoppable, the adage of the man "not showing any signs of slowing down" being bandied about over and again. Yes indeed, his ability to continuously perform three hour plus concerts over worldwide tours year after year, essentially making him the world's greatest and most beloved Pied Piper, cannot be disputed. But, I would like to delve a tad deeper as I regard this man, this peerless artist, one of the figures that forever sits within the center of my musical heart of hearts as I wonder not about his energy and stamina but his steadfast adherence to his creative spirit.
Of the musical figures who truly has NOTHING left to prove to anyone, I cannot help but to wonder just what is it inside of Paul McCartney that gives him the impetus to get out of bed and try writing even one more song. This is not to suggest that he cease songwriting and recording by any means. I just wonder what drives him, what speaks to him, what calls to him to get pen to paper again, to return to that studio, to keep picking up those instruments to do it all over again and share it with the world when he does not have to do so whatsoever.
As I continue to ruminate, please allow me to excitedly point you towards McCartney's latest studio effort, "Egypt Station," his 17th solo release and his first in five years since the technicolor wonderland that was the stunning album entitled "New" (released October 14, 2013).
With "Egypt Station," it feels as if McCartney has returned to the concept album format in as grandly high style and expertise as he has ever approached the genre. While the album contains no plot or storyline, it is indeed evocative of a journey, physical, psychological and emotional, as we are passengers together as listeners and as characters while we hear the inner thoughts of perhaps one or several protagonists all on their respective ways to who knows where, all arriving at the titular Egypt Station to begin their voyages.
In fact, after several listens, the album made me think that it is perhaps a full extension of one of the songs from "New," entitled "On My Way To Work," itself the inner monologue of a gentlemen performing precisely what the song's title describes. And in doing so, "Egypt Station" is a full album of morning commute daydreams, memories, regrets, sorrows, lusty imaginings, words of affirmation and stimulation, and at its most striking, a political allegory designed to mirror our fractured political landscape both in Britain and the U.S. Once the journey has been completed by album's end, Paul McCartney has delivered a pristine and beautifully realized kaleidoscope of impressions, melodies and moods, completely showcasing once again exactly why he remains a world treasure.
After a few opening moments of sounds and music, perfectly evoking the populated locale of the album's title, McCartney, ever the eternal optimist uncharacteristically begins the album with "I Don't Know," a song of rare melancholy, existential confusion, and even painful defeat, leaving our narrator asking and answering the following question of himself over and again:
."What am I doing wrong? I don't know. What is the matter with me?"
McCartney's piano is mournful, his drums soulfully drag their collective feet while his peerless bass playing slowly glides with palpable misery. It is the sound of early morning soul sickness, the kind that refuses to subside, even when the task of going to work and facing a new day is unavoidable. "I Don't Know" may feel like an unorthodox way to start a new album and to a degree, and perhaps it is. Yet, it is an impeccable song, one that illustrates Paul McCartney's superior gift of being able to match lyrics to music to mood, capturing that inexplicable element that makes the song easily identifiable to absolutely anyone who chooses to listen.
From here, "Egypt Station" provides aural windows into the worlds of our fellow travelers. Carnal desires and fantasies (the robust stomper "Come On To Me," the surprisingly randy "Fuh You," the garage basher "Caesar Rock"--pronounced "She's a rock!"), tales of romantic salvation, endurance and dissolution (the pensive "Happy With You," the steamy short story "Back In Brazil," the gently elegiac "Confidante"), activist anthems (the percussive "People Want Peace") and songs of solidarity ("Hand In Hand," "Who Cares").
On occasion, it feels as if McCartney himself is riding the train right alongside us as he seems to step into the album's narrative to offer counsel and guidance on two especially lovely songs in particular.
For me, the meditative "Do It Now" was particularly stirring. With the blissful doubling of piano and harpsichord, the song, via McCartney's voice, feels almost as if it is not solely him singing to the characters on the album and to us listening at home, or in our cars or in headphones. It feels like the voice of inspiration speaking gently to every single one of us.
"Do it now, do it now
While the vision is clear
Do it now
While the feeling is here
If you leave it too late
It could all disappear
Do it now
While your vision is clear"
"Dominoes," takes the concept of the titular objects falling over and apart and extends and even flips them into a folkish utopian ballad, complete with elegant call and response vocals plus some truly endearing McCartney mouth percussion presented as if he is digging his own campfire vibe.
"In time we'll know, it's all a show
It's been a blast
As time goes by, we'll laugh and cry
It's in the past...
...From day to day, we'll fight and play
For what we need
We'll soon forget we ever met
And disagreed
We can start to begin (to begin)
Living in the world we're in (world we're in)
This is it (this is it), here and now (here and now)
We can find our way somehow
And lines of dominoes are falling
Into place, ignoring everything in their way
And all the telephones are calling
Constantly, imploring us to come out and play"
Deceptively simple as the poignancy, philosophy and profundity of the fleeting nature of time itself when related to all of our grievances, either personal, social or inter-political. In his completely personable way, never preachy or through any sense of proselytizing, and just as we evidenced with The Beatles' "We Can Work It Out," McCartney implores us once again to take those mere moments and think about how we can really leap over our intractable challenges and differences to not just create a better world, but a higher plane of existence.
By this point, Paul McCartney's "Egypt Station" has revealed itself to existing as being of the same high caliber as anything he has released within the past 20 years, including some of his finest material as found upon "Driving Rain" (released November 12, 2001), "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard" (released September 12, 2005), "Memory Almost Full" (released June 4, 2007) and especially, the extraordinary experimentation on "Electric Arguments" (released November 24, 2008) as credited to The Fireman, a collaborative project between McCartney and music producer Youth. That being said, there is perhaps the final third of the album remaining and it is here where McCartney tops himself spectacularly, defiantly showcasing that his wellspring of ideas and superior gifts have no signs whatsoever of drying up anytime soon.
"Despite Repeated Warnings" is a seven minute tour-de-force. Part musical suite, part rock opera and entirely a metaphorical "state of the nation" call to arms against the likes of a certain reality television show President, without ever mentioning him by name. Beginning as a mournful dirge of doom with the repeated worries of "What can we do?," McCartney gives us the image of a ship being led by a madhouse Captain towards certain and irrevocable doom regardless of any aspects of commonsense, decency, compassion, dignity or empathy.
The pace and pulse of the song quickens once we reach its second movement where we meet the ship's engineer, who misses his wife and daughter Janet and knows something is dangerously amiss with the Captain and just may end up being the spark to alight the flame of resistance and ultimate rescue, which arrives in the song's triumphant third movement and the rallying cries of "YES!! WE CAN DO IT!!! YEAH!! WE CAN DO IT NOW!!" as the Engineer and passengers rise up, confront the Captain and tie him up with ropes, thus saving themselves from destruction. And as the song's moral states:
"If life would work out the way you plan it
That'd be so fine for the wife and Janet
Sometimes you might have to battle through it
And that's the way you learn how you've got to do it...
...he should have listened to
The will of the people
The will of the people
The will of the people"
A song that certainly would and even should remind you of classics like "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" and "Live And Let Die," "Despite Repeated Warnings," is certainly no mere throwback but a striking selection of its own right. Working exclusively as a work of much needed cheerleading in our cultural time of despair and disillusionment, the song beautifully serves as a finale of superior uplift to an album which began in a state of inner turmoil. Continuing the travelogue themes contained within the title, the song serves as the arrival point, a place where we leave the station and then, we are all on our own as we decide just how to proceed next, yet hopefully with McCartney's encouraging words echoing powerfully, we can possibly unify and embark into our new landscapes together in full solidarity.
And still...there is even more!
Much like the head spinning "Cosmically Conscious" from "Off The Ground" (released February 2, 1993), the meditative avant garde dreamworld of "I've Only Got Two Hands" from "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard," the joyously dissonant "Nod Your Head" from "Memory Almost Full," McCartney once again (and in true Beatle fashion) decides to give us a false ending..therefore a coda to the album after the finale. And for "Egypt Station," he outdoes himself again with "Hunt You Down/Naked/C-Link," another nearly seven minute suite that at first gets you on your feet, slows to a bluesy slow drag and glides into its finish with an instrumental starring McCartney's glorious David Gilmour styled guitar solo merged with accompanying orchestra, channeling what sounds like the end of a long day now blissfully concluded.
I know that for some, Paul McCartney's best days are either behind him or that he will never match what he created with The Beatles ad for those people, there will be nothing I can write or say to convince them otherwise, as McCartney is not simply competing against himself but he is competing against people's memories and in that level of battle, anything new will always lose. Yet, for McCartney himself, from the conclusion of The Beatles, he continued placing one musical footstep in front of the other without being intimidated by his own legacy with The Beatles and in doing so, he has amassed a staggering body of work, most especially what he has been releasing in his later years.
Paul McCartney's "Egypt Station" is indeed a remarkable work filled with vibrancy, urgency, relevancy and just downright enjoyable energy that only serves to continue to solidify this artist as one of the finest we have ever been graced with. What a pleasure and privilege to have had McCartney alongside us for approaching 60 years and still, and as previously stated, with absolutely nothing in the world left to prove to absolutely anyone anywhere, he hunkers down and creates once more, emerging with this new album that is as full of spirit as anything you would ever expect from him.
There is not one lazy note or lyric. There is not one uninspired moment or song. And yes, while his voice has lowered its register a taste due to aging, its agility and strength remains as infectious and as expressive as ever. His instrumental prowess also remains firmly on point. While he occasionally employs the usage of his crack touring band--formulated in 2001 and includes guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, drummer Abe Laboriel Jr. and keyboardist Paul "Wix" Wickens--once again, the bulk of the album finds McCartney playing essentially all of the instruments himself, richly presenting that eternal "kid-in-a-candy-store" emotion which translates powerfully throughout the entire album.
And you know, perhaps the reason why Paul McCartney continues to create is the simplest reason of all: it is just plain fun and it is just plain magical. Every single time that I have ever listened to Paul McCartney, either with The Beatles, or with Wings or on his own, what I hear the absolute most is the sheer, exquisite, unabashed joy and love of creation as each album represents a musical painting that we are all eagerly invited to lose ourselves inside of.
Just the joy and love of creation. Yes...that has to be it. And without question, that joy and love is all you need.
No comments:
Post a Comment