Album review: McCartney III, by Paul McCartney

A slightly different blogpost today: an album review, made at the request of my cousin Mike.

Mike challenged me to listen and critique after I confidently asserted that, like everything else involving the Beetles frontman, it would be painful to listen to and spectacularly overrated. McCartney’s croaky rendition of ‘Hey Jude’ closing the 2012 London Olympics ceremony was, for me, the final proof that he has joined that rank of old male performers who, having lost the vocals years ago, ought to be mercifully put out to grass.

Nonetheless I like a challenge, so for Mike and anyone else concerned to know my recommendations, I decided to comment on each track, nervously uncertain as to whether I’d emerge still simply having a wonderful Christmastime, or so traumatised that I’ll still be recovering when I’m sixty-four.

Ah the things we do for family!

 

Long Tailed Winter Bird

 

The opening number is without doubt the most soul-destroying start to an album I’ve ever heard. A nice, simple guitar solo at the beginning, seems to go on and on, creating the anticipation of leading into a rich rock number.

The only expectation the subsequent offering actually fulfils is the growing realisation that the piece is to be nothing more than a mindless repetition of a tune so simple I recommend it if your 5-year-old is starting her first music lessons.

There is some reprieve: a weird falsetto singing of the song’s only lyrics: “Do you, do-do, do you miss me? Do you, do-do, do you feel me?”

Just once in this sequence are “feel/miss” replaced with “trust” which is perhaps the full extent of variety within the song.

What does any of that have to do with winter, or birds? That’s a good question, although a brief series of howling sounds following the singing is perhaps meant to give the song its seasonal, avian flavour. If it were intended to sound like a turkey realising it’s about to end up becoming someone’s Christmas dinner, it’s vaguely convincing.

 

Find My Way

 

A slight improvement on the opener, this song features more vocals from McCartney, who flips seamlessly from sounding like the pub drunk to a shrieking man who has been hit by something hard and painful in the sensitive area.

The lyrics are marked by the same trite banality, clearly written to fit the tune, rather than for their own depth.

“I know my way around, I walk towards the light,” he sings.

“I'm open 'round the clock, I don't get lost at night.”

As for the tune, it does have a very contemporary rock feel. It’s simple, but as McCartney reaches the culmination of his chorus, an orchestral element is added in at low volume, creating a slight element of surprise and intrigue.

This song feels like a lost opportunity: with better lyrics, a better singer, and some more surprises in the arrangement, it might have been half decent. There are just hints of possibility, as it is.

 

Pretty Boys

 

The theme of strange lyrics continues in this track, which has a soft ballad feel. IT focuses on the idea that pretty boys are like “objects of desire” which are nice but ultimately shallow.

It is, to be fair, a more meaningful tune than those proceeding it, and it’s melody is somewhat melancholy. A guitar playing over light drumming gives it a pleasant feel and creates a sentimental warmth.

McCartney’s vocals remain scratchy and out of tune – even some autotuning effect at the end doesn’t rescue them. It’s the sort of song the last man stood at the karaoke machine might be singing when everyone else has gone home and staff are tactfully hinting that it’s time to lock up.

 

Women And Wives

 

This song sees the early focus on the guitar swapped for piano, as a steady accompaniment keeps the tune going. The melody has an unexpected switch from F to G-major, which as a technical feature of the composition, I appreciated.

Any technical wins on the composition front are, once more, negated by the most dreadful lyrics. The opening line reads:

“Hear me, women and wives; hear me, husband and lovers.”

Nothing that follows explains the switch to the singular for the husband. It makes it go from sounding like a rubbish song, to sounding like a rubbish song with a grammar mistake.

The real problem with this song is that there is nothing memorable about it, in its tune or bland words.

 

Lavatory Lil

 

What the hell? I’m no clearer at the end why this song is thus-named, other than because the alliteration sounds good.

Nonetheless, absurd though the words are, I do think this is one of the better tracks on the album for the musicality.

Whilst the drumming starts out with a thumping beat, it subtly switches to create a less hard sound in the middle.

The guitar once more takes centre-stage, to good effect.

This is likewise true for the bass, which marks each beat with a chromatic downwards scale, so that as the song moves from its A-minor base key to E, it has a dramatic feel.

This is not a song I’d rush to put on any playlist, but it deserves praise for a good beat and memorable tune.

 

Deep Deep Feeling

 

Guitar and piano feature prominently in this rather long song which, despite its oddities, works surprisingly well.

Beginning with McCartney singing about a “deep, deep feeling,” the music has a constancy that bores into one, perhaps like the nagging, aching pain of breaking up. Background singers nicely support McCartney with “oh” and “hey” to add an interesting effect.

As these sentimental musings conclude, the instrumentals take on a trembling, shaking sound, which is clever.

IT then changes key, moving to a much richer sound, as McCartney sings of how he wants the emotion to sometimes stay and sometimes go away.

Finally returning to the original theme, all the elements are blended together with echo added, perhaps to symbolise the mash of feelings coming in and fading out. As this slows down and the time signature changes, it feels like the song will come to a grinding end.

Just when you think it’s all over, the key parts are sung again, this time over a simple acoustic guitar solo. It seems like an afterthought, but sometimes it is the weirdness, rather than the logic, that makes music work.

This is a strange song, but words and music come together really well and, I must admit, I like it.

 

Slidin’

 

The words of this song are, as with many others, a bit off the wall. It’s a dragonfly, describing the knowledge that it can fly but acknowledging the perils of so doing.

“I'm slidin', glidin' through the air; I can see my body through windows in my hair.”

Yet this tune is all about the sound: McCartney’s vocals are loud, shouty, yet echoing and overwhelmed by the music.

The vocal production is a masterclass in what you do with a good artist but a dodgy singing voice. David Bowie was especially good at the artful use of out-of-tune vocals. I can imagine him singing this.

The vocals work well with a wall of sound. For anyone who appreciates a booming electric guitar, this is the song for you!

This song is really good.

 

The Kiss Of Venus

 

But for a nice instrumental in the middle, much of the song is a gentle ballad sung over a floating, melodic guitar accompaniment.

It’s the sort of song that might be okay in a relaxed bar as background noise whilst people chatter away and sip their drinks, but it’s not a song you’d want to concentrate on to any great extent.

McCartney attempts to sound sweet and romantic, but his voice lacks the dexterity to pull off gliding, buttery vocals. HE just sounds pained and strained throughout, and to be honest I know the feeling!

 

Seize The Day

 

This song is largely inoffensive. It’s a soft rock number, with a predictable sound that doesn’t take much to get your head around.

It has surprisingly good vocals, at least when compared to the pitiful ones up to now.

It also has a nice key change in the middle, with very good vocal harmonies. Indeed, it finishes in A-flat, which due to the E-major base key that is largely maintained throughout, gives an abruptness to the end.

Overall, it’s a jolly little song which I’d consider an album highlight because of the vocals.

 

Deep Down

 

This song should be a good listen, attempting as it does to bring in a range of instruments from woodwind to guitar and organ.

The trouble with it is simply that the tune, which aptly starts with a horrible wailing sound, is unrelentingly boring.

Status Quo famously stuck to 4 simple chords, yet managed to produce memorable tunes to get you tapping your feet. This attempt at similarly simplistic music fails utterly to reproduce any of the Quo’s magic.

Once again, this droning, miserable howler of a tune is supplemented with lyrical tripe.

“Wanna get you up, gonna take a bite, gotta let me know, we can throw a party every night.”

McCartney is too old to be throwing parties every night, and he’s too experienced to be churning out garbage like this song.

 

Winter Bird / When Winter Comes

 

The strange title reflects the song’s commencing with the same guitar solo as the opening song, but it slides into a floating folkish song about the chores to be done on land with crops and animals, and expressing the desire to escape winter.

The song is nice. It’s not especially sophisticated so it works okay for a voice that doesn’t hit every note right.

It is a rather strange, sedate song to close an album, but perhaps not a surprising choice for an album that is disjointed and rather all over the place.

The song, like the album, would probably hint at one-hit-wonder potential if heard at an audition, but it’s probably stretching it to say anything more generous.

What I can say is that I remain of the view that Paul McCartney is one of the most overrated artists in history. He’s produced an album of modest successes mixed with some shattering failures and I don’t think I’ll be rushing to listen to most of these songs again.