http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/in-defense-of-paul-mccartney/Content?oid=1667679
Live and Let Live
by Adam Gold
July 22, 2010
Money may still not be able to buy Paul McCartney love, but it's
plain to see he's found something to do with it. Ticket: $72-$276.
Seven beers: $63. Parking: $10. Is seeing Paul McCartney really
priceless? Nashville has answered with a resounding "yes." Even with
face-value prices as high as $410 per ticket (for the "Silver Hot
Seat Package") to attend Macca's show at Bridgestone Arena this week
his first ever in Nashville it still sold out quicker than you
can say "Helter Skelter." But for many music fans, the thought of
shelling out the Benjamins for a three-hour concert is simply
unfathomable. If anything, paying the equivalent of a cable bill to
watch a show from the far-flung, nacho-stained enclaves high atop
Bridgestone's bleachers is laughably unfeasible. Even for die-hard
fans, if you aren't in America's top tax bracket, you're priced out,
plain and simple.
But for artists of Macca's magnitude, such astronomical asking prices
are the norm, and with his voice sounding rich as ever, and a
back-catalog that taught the world to sing, whatever he's asking is
probably worth it: He's Paul Fucking McCartney.
No single sonic craftsman has enjoyed a more distinctive influence on
pop melody composition. Yet despite his status as rock's biggest
living star or perhaps because of it the mere mention of his name
often induces sighs, scoffs or an afflicted roll of the eyes, even
among hardcore Beatles fans. Why? Is it out of a knee-jerk hatred for
bourgeois rock royalty? Is it because he had the audacity to include
the frog chorus on "We All Stand Together"? Is it because he let
Linda sing? Is it because "Ebony and Ivory" is really that terrible?
Or is it out of a weird cosmic loyalty to the memory or the idea
of John Lennon? Despite a career littered with bad haircuts and
cringe-worthy stumbles Give My Regards to Broad Street comes to
mind just having written "Eleanor Rigby" should alone be enough to
canonize McCartney as one of mankind's musical saviors. And yet many
an overbearing rock fan takes The Beatles and all their related
faculties as seriously as Paul Revere took horseback riding, so to
this day, they still feel the weight of Lennon and McCartney's
acrimonious split like children acting out in response to the divorce
of their own parents.
Likewise, woebegone Beatle-maniacs often feel compelled to choose
sides. Together, Lennon and McCartney birthed a sound and vision that
was earth-shattering. Apart, they were simply self-proclaimed rock
gods. The jury came in early on, deeming John the relatable shamanic
poet the "cool" parent and Paul the pop hedonist, the distant
star on a pedestal, the cheeseball dad who embarrasses you in front
of your friends with his dancing. While "Imagine" seemed to anoint
John as the true voice of love and possibilities in the ears of many,
Wings' cheerful, breezy shimmer anoints Paul as the FM lightweight.
But could a lightweight really have written "Let It Be"?
Following the dissolution of The Beatles, the four mop-tops were
reduced to the sum of their parts, but it was McCartney who aimed for
the top of the pops. (He was always the band's strongest pop
melodicist to begin with.) If half the songs on Band on the Run had
been cut at Abbey Road Studios in 1968, the cynics would be singing a
very different tune. In the age of ELO, Wings were pretty fuckin'
good. Ram rivals any post-Beatles album of its time. (And Double
Fantasy probably could've only benefited had Linda taken a few cuts
off Yoko's hands.) A song like "Two of Us" might not have the lyrical
weight of "Across the Universe," but have you ever heard someone say
it sucks? Lennon might have "Instant Karma!" but hell, McCartney had
"Temporary Secretary."
The dated production and fashion trends of the '80s shunted him and
his ilk of living legends off into the creative wilderness to deal
with their myriad musical midlife crises, but McCartney even managed
to close out that decade with pretty good record, Flowers in the
Dirt. And even if he didn't, the guy wrote "Yesterday." So what if he
made America's post-9/11 nightmare all the worse with his painful
pandering on the gag-inducing anthem "Freedom"? The man's earned the
right to his ego. Nashville has ponied up the dough with a smile to
see that proven in the flesh. So baby, when Macca comes to town don't
hate him for being the rich asshole who tried to invert the
Lennon/McCartney credits to McCartney/Lennon on his Beatles
compositions, love him for being the rich man who penned the ones
like "Blackbird." Live and let live.
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