#i suggest paul mccartney’s calico skies

[saturdaynightghostclub]

I miss theo mason

The Un-Figureoutable Theodore Price

Have you ever tried to solve a Rubik’s cube under the influence of marijuana? I mean, obviously not, since you would never touch the stuff, but just between us. You know how the thing feels different in your hands, and you sink into the colors like water, and every five minutes feels like an hour of immense concentration, like everything could become nothing if you don’t just figure the damn thing out? It’s kind of the best, right?

Anyway, it’s not entirely unlike the thing you’re feeling right now. Now being the lingering moment before Theodore Price kisses you (under a flickering street lamp, naturally). You think, in the split-second before his lips crash deliciously against yours, that he’s kind of your magnum opus. The thing you’ll spend your entire life feverishly obsessing over, which always manages to elude you in some small way. Maybe he’s not meant to be figured out. It’s sort of amazing how a fully-formed thought can wedge its way into the infinitesimal moments between Point A and Point B; a thought is a thing that defies time and space. Miraculous that you can have so many of them without short-circuiting.

You may or may not have ever tried to solve a Rubik’s cube while stoned, but you have existed in Theo’s liminality long enough to know definitively what it’s like. It’s like the hungry slide of his mouth on yours, the sharp sound of his inhale as he pulls you closer, the fact that he didn’t warn you before he fell in love with you, but took it for granted that you would be able to read between his dense, empirical lines. You’re the girl for him, alright. So you’re not at all surprised when, seconds after slipping one inquisitive finger beneath the thin strap of your sundress, he pulls abruptly away and smiles down at you like a fool.

“You wanna grab a drink or something?” He asks, as if he hasn’t just turned your legs to jelly.

A year ago you might have bitten back, something to the tune of You can’t kiss a girl like that and act like nothing happened, but you’re used to his ebbs and flows by now. “Mhmm,” you murmur, winding your arms around his waist. He quirks an eyebrow like he’s actually surprised, like you’re the one being unpredictable.

“Or we could…” he tries, experimentally.

“Listening,” you say softly, smoothly, in the way you know crosses the signals in that beautiful brain of his.

Flustered, Theo clears his throat. You’re reminded of your first date. “We could head back to mine,” he says, suddenly soft and serious. Something like going home with your boyfriend after a date should be nothing after a year, but (in all things) Theo manages to make every time feel like the first time. The poor boy is all but stunned every time you wake up in his bed.

You can’t help the grin that colors your face. “Yeah?” you say, “And do what?”

“You’re teasing me,” Theo chides gently, nudging you in the ribs with a slightly self-deprecating smile. You nod. “Look, I can’t help it,” he says, “is it so wrong that I should be in complete disbelief? Look at you.”

“Theo,” you sigh, reluctant to accept the compliment at the perceived cost of his self-esteem.

“Okay, okay,” he grins, “you’re right, I’m a stud. Total catch, that’s why I need to clarify that my beautiful girlfriend actually does want to sleep with me.”

You poke him in the ribs and he laughs, sliding his fingers between yours and tugging you gently in the direction of his apartment.

Roughly an hour and a half later, with your cheek pressed against his chest, some tiny, reckless part of you sees fit to ask a question you’ve never actually wanted to know the answer to.

“Have you ever been in love?” you ask, “Before me, I mean.”

Theo exhales slowly, deliberately, and you have all the information you need. The answer is yes, and he’s weighing his options: to lie, tell you that you’re the first girl he’s ever loved, and move on from this crossroads on the basis of dishonesty, or to tell you the truth and risk your baseless, neurotic jealousy. “Yes,” he finally concedes, with the cadence of someone stepping out onto a frozen lake they’re not quite sure will hold their weight.

“What was her name?” You ask, trying hard to keep your voice level. Of course he’s been in love before, he’s a grown man.

“Her name was Ava,” he replies, still treading carefully. Smart boy that he is, he doesn’t volunteer anything but what you’ve asked.

You chance a look into his face. He’s suddenly tense. “What happened?”

“I know what you want me to say,” he sighs, “you want me to tell you that she cheated on me, or she died, or that I realized afterward that I never really loved her. Right?”

You shrug. “Just curious.”

“You’re not curious, you’re morbid,” he says, not unkindly, stroking your hair. “We were together for four years, sixteen to twenty. We were in love, and then one day we weren’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“Baby,” Theo sighs, sounding exhausted, “let’s not talk about her, okay?”

“Why not?” You ask, drumming your fingers absently across his chest. He stills your hand with his.

“Because,” he says, bringing your knuckles to his lips, “she doesn’t matter. She’s a lovely person, I wish her the best, but she does not matter. We grew up, we became different people. And eventually I met this pretty undergrad in a class I TA’ed, and my entire world turned upside down. I could never be right for Ava again, even if I wanted to.”

“Okay,” you smile. You believe him.

There’s silence for a moment, and then: “Wait, you’re not going to tell me about all the men you’ve loved, are you?”

You burst into laughter. “All the men I’ve loved?”

“All the men who’ve loved you?”

“Still a short list,” you say, settling back into his side, “but no, I won’t. Not if you don’t want to hear it.”

Theo seems to ponder that for a moment, fingers trailing absently across your skin as he thinks. “Maybe I’m morbid too,” he decides, “lay it on me.”

“The full postmortem?” you ask. You murmur the question into his neck, letting your lips brush his throat. He swallows, then nods, his arm tightening almost imperceptibly around you. “You asked for it.”

“Wait, do I want to hear this?”

“It’s not so bad,” you relent with a kiss on his cheek, “Just the one guy in college, Bradley.”

“Bradley,” Theo murmurs, suddenly deep in thought. You decide you don’t like the sound of your ex-boyfriend’s name on your current boyfriend’s lips, and immediately wish you hadn’t said anything. “I think I remember him. He was older than you, yeah?”

You grin. “Well yeah, but so are you.”

You can feel Theo’s skin flush beneath your fingertips. “Sure,” he says, “but not like–I mean, not in a weird way?” The reality is that he and Bradley are both two years older than you; the difference is that Bradley repeated his sophomore year of college twice, while Theo was a senior the year you first met him.

“Not in a weird way,” you assure him, pulling him down to kiss you.

“Oh god, I’m getting a headache,” he groans, half-smiling against your lips, “You know you’re it for me, baby, so just tell me I’ll be the last person you’ll ever love.”

“Theo Price,” you grin, “you are the last person I will ever love.”

“Thank fucking god,” he replies in an uncharacteristically passionate sigh, dissolving into you once again with kind hands and practiced, liquid motion and eyes you could practically drown in. You’re no closer to figuring him out, only just past wading into the depths of his world. But then, you’re a mystery to him too. He wants a lifetime of searching your mind, wants it more than he can communicate, and the ache in your chest when he looks at you That Way means that you’ll give it to him, no questions asked. Theodore Price is the owner of your vast universe, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

[throwthewine]

You know what? I don’t even think this is tinhatting. These are not necessarily ~confessions of romantic love~ (some could be but that’s a much bigger speculative leap, and it’s really not one we have to make). Because we know Paul uses romance and stories as metaphors.* (John voice: “It’s like you and me are lovers!”) He’s feeling sad and lonely and bitter about his band breaking up? He channels all that feeling into a song from the POV of someone who’s been hurt by a lover.

I really do think that most of these are at least in part about, inspired by, or for John Lennon, and/or George and Ringo too. And I don’t think that’s a wild read. If fucking Arrow Through Me was inspired by the Beatles’ split—and Paul has indicated that it was—then anything on the list above is fair game for similar interpretations!

The Beatles was such a huge, defining part of all their lives and identities, and the relationship between the four of them was so special and formative and central to them for so long—of course the trauma of its loss would find its way into Paul’s songs over and over. You see the same thing in John’s, George’s, and Ringo’s lyrics, really (and maybe I should make a post about that too), but Paul was the most prolific, so we get a collection like this.

*(Of course, using romantic language and romantic tropes to express non-romantic feelings, if that’s what’s going on, could inevitably introduce a kind of romantic tension and confusion to any relationship, or at the very least a unique emotional intimacy, I’d imagine, but that’s a whole other conversation.)

Some quotes to contemplate:

Interviewer: I noticed that “Here Today”, when listening to it, that track could either be about someone in particular or it coud be about a situation that could happen to anyone. Is it about anyone in particular?

Paul: Yeah, I wrote that particular song about John, but I quite like the way that it sort of translated to anyone, it could be about someone else, but in my case it was about John, yeah.

—

Paul: I think, you know, with my songs, I have my own approach. I’ll tell you the way I see it: the thing I like about my stuff, when I like it, is that the listener can take it the wrong way, it may apply to them, you know.

—

John: Paul, you could say, his lyrics are very sort of non-specific. If one knows the person, one knows what is coming down. You know, you can read what’s being said. Between the lines. Because people’s expressions and feelings come out in their work whether they want it to or not.

—

Paul: But my interior world, I think it’s not a bad idea to try and tap it. My view is that these things are there whether you want them or not, in your interior. You don’t call up dreams, they happen, often the exact opposite of what you want. You can be heterosexual and be having a homosexual dream and wake up, and think, “Shit, am I gay?”

—

Paul: If I’m going to see a face in a painting, it’s highly likely to be his.

Interviewer: Do you think of him during the day? Or did this come, this is an unusual thing?

Paul: I think of John a lot, yeah. Because we were such good friends for so long.

—

Paul: I mean, I remember John most days anyway, because he he was such a big part of my life and it was something I’ll never forget, you know.

—

Paul: I dream about him.

—

Paul, writing about “Arrow Through Me”: The Beatles were so wonderful and all-encompassing, so successful. […] The character in the song has been wounded. He’s been cheated on. And it could’ve been a great relationship, could’ve been fantastic. As things stand, you couldn’t “have found a more down hero”, because there was nobody more down than me at that moment.

—

McCartney has written some of the world’s most famous love songs, but has he ever worried about revealing too much of himself? “Yes, but you’ve got to get over that feeling quickly, because that’s the game.” Some songs turned out to be more personal than he realised when he was writing them. [summarized interview by Mark Blake]

—

Paul: Isn’t that what a lot of stuff, this “so called art” is about, isn’t it? You know that someone in a picture will be able to do something, express something you can’t do. […] I mean, the same way a lot of people have stutters but don’t stutter when they sing a song. That always amazed me, that, and I think it is the same way that you can have things said in a song. I mean, I would never have looked at John Lennon and kinda said, “I love you”, because it wasn’t about that, you know, it was nothing about that. But in a song, in the particular way they’re written today, I kinda easily say, “I love you”, almost as a throw-away, because it doesn’t seem embarrassing in that context. I can always deny that it was ever written about him. Burn the tapes, and delete the…

Interviewer: I can’t ever write lyrics, I think, because of the same reason; I could only express things through playing, but I have never been able to get that extra thing or putting it into words as well, which I think is probably true of Mozart or someone who does the same thing — like he couldn’t possibly express any other way.

Paul: Oh yeah, you all have your particular little talents you know; some people would be able to draw it rather than talk it. I always think I am not that good with words.

—

Paul: In the middle section it explains itself a bit, less surrealist: ‘Something special between us… Words wouldn’t get my feelings through… However absurd it may seem.’ That’s taking off into ‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran – there’s a line of his that always used to attract me and John, which was ‘Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you’. So it’s that kind of meaning to ‘However Absurd’.”

—

Paul, about “Friends To Go”: You know I was just sat down to write and the feeling of George came over me and I just kept writing it thinking ‘George could have written this.’ It was nice. It was like a sort of friendly song to write. And I just kept imagining I was just over by some sort of housing estate, where these people lived, in a sort of block of flats and I was like over the other side over here just watching them and waiting for them to go so I could go in. I don’t know why, a psychiatrist could probably again have a whale of a time with that one.

—

Paul, about “Somedays”: For me, it’s very meaningful. […] You can experiment as you go along, so there’s a crack between the headlong and the halting where, if you’re lucky, a few things might slip out: ‘I look at you with eyes that shine / Somedays I don’t’. That’s like a thought that could come out in a session with a psychiatrist.

—

Paul: Music is like a psychiatrist. You can tell your guitar things that you can't tell people. And it will answer you with things people can't tell you.

—

Paul: I think it's good when you're in a dark period, the good is [the song's] your psychiatrist, it's your therapy, and you know we have many tales - anyone who writes has. Going away when you're really upset about something and putting it in your song - you come out of that cupboard, toilet or basement and go, 'I really feel better'. You've actually exorcised the demon. So it's one of the great joys of song writing. It's like writing your dream out or something, and it's a physical effect where you come back out and you've created magic again, pulling the rabbit out of the hat: ‘Where did that come from? Wahey!’ It's a great feeling.

—————

So. In conclusion. It seems clear that many of Paul’s songs are actually deeply personal—but they’re written in a style that obfuscates the personal meaning, by both generalizing the subject for universally applicable interpretations, and by accessing the personal aspects on an apparently subconscious level much of the time, where he winds up surprising himself with what he’s written. It’s also clear that among personal subjects for Paul, the Beatles (and particularly John) is an important one, frequently on his mind, particularly in conjunction with music and art and the creative process. And thus, it’s entirely plausible that (while many of his songs are about Linda or various other things) John and/or the Beatles turns out to be the secret muse behind many Paul songs.

Lesser-known and/or infrequently-discussed songs from Paul’s solo career I put on my tinhat for:

Beware, My Love

Love In Song

Treat Her Gently / Lonely Old People

Getting Closer - To You - Again and Again and Again - Winter Rose / Love Awake - So Glad to See You Here

On The Way - Nobody Knows - Darkroom - Secret Friend - Coming Up - One of These Days

— post-1980 from here-on —

Stranglehold - Only Love Remains

The Song We Were Singing - The World Tonight - Young Boy - Flaming Pie - Souvenir

Fine Line - Friends to Go - Too Much Rain - A Certain Softness - Riding to Vanity Fair - Anyway

You Tell Me

My Soul

On My Way To Work - Early Days - Road - New

Get Enough

Fuh You

That’s mostly chronological, and I lumped together some which are on the same album, because I think the thematic links make them even stronger.

And some classics I’ve seen discussed or mentioned before, but which bear repeating (in no particular order, with the most (IMO) indisputably for-John songs in bold):

Little Lamb Dragonfly, Some People Never Know, Tragedy, Cafe on the Left Bank, Backwards Traveler, No More Lonely Nights, Wanderlust, Silly Love Songs, Something That Didn’t Happen, The Lovers That Never Were, Don’t Be Careless Love, The Pound is Sinking, No Values, Yvonne’s The One, Lonely Road, Sally G, Arrow Through Me, Deep Deep Feeling, The End of the End, Tug of War, Let Me Roll It, Call Me Back Again, This One, However Absurd, Somedays, Best Friend, Dear Friend, Here Today

(I happen to think this list has a lot of Paul’s best songs too because the emotion and introspection in them feels very sincere and moving.)

[thecoleopterawithana]

Songwriting is like psychiatry

[Dear @eppysboys, your wish is my command.]

-

There are bound to be thickheads who will wonder why some of it doesn't make sense, and others who will search for hidden meanings.

'What's a Brummer?'

‘There's more to "dubb owld boot" than meets the eye.'

None of it has to make sense and if it seems funny then that's enough.

— Paul McCartney, in the Introduction to John Lennon's In His Own Write (1964).

-

When we had a party in the States to celebrate having finished the album, someone came up to us and said 'Hello, Venus. Hello, Mars.' I thought, 'Oh. no.'' When I write songs, I'm not necessarily talking about me, although psychoanalysts would say "Yes, you are, mate." But as far as I'm concerned, I'm not.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed for the promotion of Venus and Mars (1975). In Paul Gambaccini's Paul McCartney: In His Own Words (1976).

-

I don’t examine myself that way. I just am. I just go through it. I just wake in the morning and go to bed at night and whatever happens during the day just happens. I don’t really know how I am.

— Paul McCartney, in Music Express: ‘Paul McCartney Wings It Alone’ (April/May 1982).

-

I’m not a great reader into moods: I don’t naturally say that if I wrote a sad song then I was sad that day, or if I wrote a happy song I was happy. I compose songs like playwrights write a play. They don’t have to know everyone in the play, they don’t have to know anyone in the play, it’s just a product of their imagination.

— Paul McCartney, speaking of ‘Somedays’, interviewed for Club Sandwich n°82 (Summer of 1997).

-

“There are a lot of mindsets when you’re writing a song – and one of them is commercial,” he admits. “It’s like any job, where if you do a certain thing you’ll progress in that job. In songwriting it’s an unspoken thing, but I recognise it. I remember hearing somewhere that people like sad songs, so I thought, ‘OK, I’ll write a sad song.’ I knew what I was getting into…” So, in a way, you were acting when you wrote [Yesterday]? “Yes. I wrote from the point of view of someone who was sad. But when you’re taking on a part, it’s usually you you’re writing about. Your psychiatrist would say it’s you.” Later, someone suggested that lyrics such as, “Why she had to go, I don’t know” were about McCartney’s mother who’d died when he was 14. “I certainly felt that way when she died. So when I sing Yesterday now, it does make me think about my mum. It’s more personal than I realised it was.” You sense that the older he gets, perhaps the more McCartney is prone to analysing his gift.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed by Mark Blake for Q: Songs in the key of Paul (May 2015).

-

This series – I just woke up one morning and I had a germ of an idea, which is all I want really. I don’t want too formed an idea, it’s just not who I am. [...] I woke up with this thing and I thought it would be just a black canvas and these three-fingered scratches, like someone in prison and they’re either trying to get out or they’re trying to mark the dates. [...] But then a shape emerged with this blue, and I still don’t know what it is. It looks vaguely phallic, or somebody’s ass bending away from you. But that’s what started to fascinate me. It’s probably an accident, but also what I like about that is the inner content, that I have no idea what my dreams are about. I’ve no idea, yet they’re every bit as real as sitting here with you. But my interior world, I think it’s not a bad idea to try and tap it.

My view is that these things are there whether you want them or not, in your interior. You don’t call up dreams, they happen, often the exact opposite of what you want. You can be heterosexual and be having a homosexual dream and wake up, and think, “Shit, am I gay?” I like that you don’t have control over it. But there is some control – it is you dreaming, it is your mind it’s all happening in. In a way my equation would be that my computer is fully loaded by now. Maybe in younger people there’s a little bit of loading to go, but mine’s loaded pretty much, so what I try and do is allow it to print out unbeknown to me. And I’m interested to hear what it’s got in there.

I think we must be interested as musicians as often our music arrives that way. I dreamed the song Yesterday. It was just in a dream, I woke up one morning and had a melody in my head. So I have to believe in that.

— Paul McCartney, in “Luigi’s Alcove” by Karen Wright, for Modern Painters (August 2000).

-

I think a lot of these songs like 'Tell Me Why’ may have been based in real experiences or affairs John was having or arguments with Cynthia or whatever, but it never occurred to us until later to put that slant on it all.

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Mile’s Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now (1997).

-

I was standing at the door and he was in bed, and we were talking about the lyrics of 'I Am the Walrus’, and I remember feeling he was a little frail at that time, maybe not going through one of the best periods in life, probably breaking up with his wife. He was going through a very fragile period. You’ve only got to look at his lyrics - 'sitting on a cornflake waiting for the van to come’. They were very disturbed lyrics. 

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

-

I remember giggling with John as we wrote the lines ‘What do you see when you turn out the light? I can’t tell you but I know it’s mine.’ It could have been him playing with his willie under the covers, or it could have been taken on a deeper level; this was what it meant but it was a nice way to say it, a very non-specific way to say it. I always liked that. 

— Paul McCartney, in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now (1997).

-

"Sex is something I prefer to do, rather than sing about. Hi Hi Hi was from a period when everybody was getting stoned and having sex… I suppose singing about sex is not really in my genre. [...] It’s the same with trying to write angry songs,” he continues. “I can’t do it.” Really? “Yes. I wrote a song called Angry. Recorded it here with Phil Collins and Pete Townshend. At the time I thought, ‘Wow, we’ve really slammed this…’ I can be angry but I can’t find a natural way to put it into a song. It’s the same with sex."

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Mark Blake for Q: Songs in the key of Paul. (May, 2015)

-

McCartney has written some of the world’s most famous love songs, but has he ever worried about revealing too much of himself? “Yes, but you’ve got to get over that feeling quickly, because that’s the game.”

— Paul McCartney, interviewed by Mark Blake for Q: Songs in the key of Paul (May 2015).

-

It’s funny because just in real life, I find that a challenge. I like to sort of, not give too much away. Like you said, I’m quite private. Why should people, know my innermost thoughts? That’s for me, their innermost. But in a song, that’s where you can do it. That’s the place to put them. You can start to reveal truths and feelings. You know, like in ‘Here Today’ where I’m saying to John “I love you”. I couldn’t have said that, really, to him. But you find, I think, that you can put these emotions and these deeper truths – and sometimes awkward truths; I was scared to say “I love you”. So that’s one of the things that I like about songs.

— Paul McCartney, on the challenge of giving too much of himself away when writing meaningful and truthful songs. Asked by Simon Pegg and interviewed by John Wilson for BBC 4’s Mastertapes (24 May 2016).

-

Songwriting is like psychiatry; you sit down and dredge up something that’s inside, bring it out front. And I just had to be real and say, John, I love you. I think being able to say things like that in songs can keep you sane.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Robert Palmer for the New York Times (25 April 1982).

-

[McCartney (1970)] was kind of… therapy through hell.

— Paul McCartney, interviewed for the Q magazine (2007).

-

GILBERT: Do you find it easier to write good records in a darker period of your life than in happier periods? You’ve lived through more than a few bad episodes…

PAUL: That’s a good question, I’m not sure. I think the answer is neither and both. I think it’s good when you’re in a dark period, the good is [the song’s] your psychiatrist, it’s your therapy, and you know we have many tales – anyone who writes has. Going away when you’re really upset about something and putting it in your song – you come out of that cupboard, toilet or basement and go, “I really feel better.” You’ve actually exorcised the demon. So it is one of the great joys of songwriting.

GILBERT: What would be an example of a song you wrote in a very angry or dark mood?

PAUL: I think the words of ‘Yesterday’, when I see them now I think there were quite a few of my songs like that, you know, bad moods made better. More recently ‘Calico Skies’ [evoking memories of Linda]; ‘Little Willow’ [for Maureen Starkey] was one I wrote about a friend when she was dying and, in fact, she did die, so those kind of things can help. With ‘Yesterday’, singing it now, I think without realising it I was singing about my mum who died five or six years previously, or whatever the timing was. Because I think now, “Why she had to go, I don’t know, she wouldn’t say, I said something wrong…” I think the psychiatrist would have a field day with that one. (Sings) “Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away / Now it looks as though they’re here to say” – there’s a lot of those songs, that’s just three where I can remember going into a hiding place with a guitar, purposely to exorcise your demons. It’s like writing your dream out or something, and it’s a physical effect where you come back out and you’ve created that magic again, pulling the rabbit out of the hat. “Where did that come from? Wahey!” It’s a great feeling. 

— Paul McCartney, interview w/ Pat Gilbert for MOJO: Don’t look back in anger. (November, 2013)

-

Q: Do you have a song that you put on if you’re ever having a hard time or a bad day, and it instantly makes you feel better? 

PAUL: There’s a track [’I Don’t Know’] on Egypt Station that came out of a hard time I think would fit the bill now! […] it’s funny what inspires you to write songs. For instance, John started writing ‘Help!’during a crisis at that time in his life, which is often a good motivator ‘cause there’s a therapy aspect to writing songs sometimes - but not all songs! It’s almost as if you’re telling your guitar your troubles and a lot of composure can be found through that. So you sort of say what you might say to a therapist, but you put it into a song and you might feel better afterwards. You don’t have to be going through terrible times, just something that’s frustrating.

— Paul McCartney, in You Gave Me The Answer (28 March 2019)

-

Q: ‘I Don’t Know’ opens with the lyric, “Crows at my window, dogs at my door, I don’t think I can take it anymore.” This imagery does seem pretty bleak for a comeback. 

PAUL: Well, I was in a bleak mood. It’s a well-known fact, you talk to a lot of songwriters, that they write good songs from being in a bad mood. It can often be a really good motivating factor, because you don’t care. You can’t just go out to your friends or your relatives, and just start going, 'I’ve got crows on my window.’ You don’t necessarily want to just go and complain about everything, but you can complain to your piano, in this case, or your guitar… It’s a great therapy. 

Q: Doubt and regret [hardly] seem to be things that people associate with you.

PAUL: It’s funny, isn’t it? People think that about me, that well, when you reach my position… you end up with no problems at all. But that’s unrealistic, because you’re in life. And if like me you’ve got a big family, there’s gonna be some sort of problem, even if it’s just someone’s ill. So realistically speaking, you have to think that it’s very likely that most people you know can have problems. Even President Obama. Even John Lennon. Even Taylor Swift. We’ve all got problems, and that’s what makes us all so human.

— Paul McCartney, interview for BBC 6 (20 June 2018).

-

The idea is that what I’ll leave behind me will be music, and I may not be able to tell you everything I feel, but you’ll be able to feel it when you listen to my music. I won’t have the time or the articulation to be able to say it all, but if you enjoy composing you say it through the notes.

— Paul McCartney, regarding Ecce Cor Meum, which premiered in 2001.

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I have to leave  And when I'm gone  I'll leave my message  In my song

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Tangents

The Walrus | A case study for John’s struggles with meaning in song

The Surrealist | Meaning and Magritte

I Can’t Tell You How I Feel | Expressing emotions and feelings [statements in songs]

This One | A case study for Paul’s struggles with expressing feelings

I’m Scared To Say I Love You | Paul’s struggle with saying ‘I love you’

[askazicro]

may i suggest u...Calico Skies by Paul McCartney as an ineffable song 🌈

this suggestion has been analyzed im glad to let you know it is indeed an ineffable song thank you SO MUCH FOR SHARING !!!!!!!!!!!!

[rainydawgradioblog]

THOUGHTS: GENRE

Hello! I often spend my time in the studio musing almost mindlessly into the microphone – it’s like achieving a sort of flow, if you will (I understand if you won’t) – but it’s easy to let curation slip through the cracks when you never have to come into contact with your monologue again. Blogging, however, forces me to stare my thoughts and opinions in the eyes. A face off between my ideas and me. This quarter, we have made the full transition from radio stream to blog in response to the restrictions we’re facing during the COVID crisis, and I’m excited to continue to muse to and with you, even through a more static medium.

My focus in music has been blurred during this strange time. Days of the week have all but lost their meaning, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to question the boundaries we’ve set up for ourselves in this strange world we live in. I could type about it forever (while Nostalgia Ultra by Frank Ocean littered with YouTube ads plays in the background,) letting my fingers get buff while they dance on the keyboard for hours, but I will zone in on music. First off, I’ll offer that I do not think we have enough names for genres. We take the same fifty words and mix them together until out pops something just descriptive enough to slide. I am not proposing a solution. Maybe our Music Director has one. Second, there is a whole string of politics to those descriptions that perpetuate the marginalization of communities (think Tyler the Creator’s 2020 Grammy acceptance speech about the terms “rap” and “urban”.) Believe me, I am not proposing we eradicate the use of genre terms as a whole, they’re necessary to differentiate between artists, focuses, movements, communities, cultures and evolutions, but the progression of music today is stretching, challenging these boundaries and begging for new vocabulary. It’s beautiful to watch artists collaborate to stretch traditional limits, making and consuming exceedingly promiscuous music, and more and more of our libraries oozing into the “alternative” category. We’re entering a phase of post-genre where most music-oriented people, when asked their preferences, offer “oh, I listen to everything except country!” Sort of like folding a paper in half to establish lines in the pages, if you keep folding it, the crumples will blend together and the lines will be obsolete. Purists loyal to their genres are fighting to maintain what they see as the integrity of music – artists and listeners alike are entitled to hold their values close – but there is something to be said about how such divisions got there in the first place. 

Particular types of music come from particular communities, like rap and jazz are rooted in American black culture, ska comes from Jamaica, folk originates in the United Kingdom, and rock as we know it today evolved from the 1960s and 70s rock boom in California’s Laurel Canyon. Genres are rooted in difference between people, and that is okay. Difference, diversity and labels allow us our identities. However, tolerance and celebration have to transcend the lines we’ve drawn in the sand culturally to feel comfortable in the days behind us, and the mixing, sampling and blending of genre can be a tool to instigate greater collaboration and understanding between people and culture.

I am musing about this not because I want to point out the obvious, natural evolution of music most listeners are already aware of, but to suggest that this might be a Renaissance. There is an overwhelming number of heavy things to be concerned about today but there is a lot of hope directly ahead of us – if nowhere else, at least in our music.

Here are a few songs on my radar this week.

Strawberry Privilege - Yves Tumor

Love Crimes - Frank Ocean

Harunatsuakifuyu - Ichiko Aoba (found on Rainy Dawg Weekly!)

My Blueberry Life (Demo) - Current Joys

Trouble On the Water (Acoustic) - Palace

Somthing’s Missing - the Internet

Slug - Snail Mail

Calico Skies - Paul McCartney

Conversations (Alternate) - Far Caspian

Montego Slay - People Under the Stairs

- Jules (DJ Ass Man)