Wednesday, September 16, 2015

New Wave McCartney?

On Sunday evenings Iowa Public Radio has a feature called Beatles Medley.  It's a set of songs, often suggested by listeners, that feature the Fab Four.  The rules are that the songs can either be by the Beatles or any of the members but not more than two in a row by any of them and they have to time out to as close to 27 minutes as possible.  I'm often in the car at that time and it always makes for a pleasant stretch.  As much as I think I know John, Paul, George and Ringo I'm surprised sometimes to hear a song I never heard before.  Such was the case this past Sunday.  In fact there were two of them, both from Paul McCartney's second solo album.  I guess it's not a total suprise given that the album was not  well received critically, though it did chart as high as #3 in the US and #1 in the UK.

Here's a different side of McCartney:

Here's a recent live version:

Here's the other song that was new to me.


Paul did comment on TLC's 1995 similar themed "Waterfalls":

"McCartney himself called out TLC in a 2007 interview with the A.V. Club:
AVC: Are there any songs of yours that you think deserved to be bigger than they were?
PM: There's quite a few, actually. I like…. There's one called "Daytime Nighttime Suffering," which I think's really cool. One called "Waterfalls," I think is nice. In fact, somebody had a hit, a few years ago, using the first line, "Don't go jumping waterfalls/ Please stick to the lake…." And then they go off into another song. It's like, "Excuse me?"
AVC: TLC ripped off Paul McCartney? I had no idea!
PM: I think so."

Were you familiar with either of these songs?  Like them?

8 comments:

  1. Never liked that album, even as a huge McCartney aficionado. Too experimental and too new-wave-y for me. I do, however, think Waterfalls is the best part of it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds a bit like XRT's Sunday morning Breakfast with The Beatles that Terri Hemmert runs:

    http://wxrt.cbslocal.com/show/breakfast-with-the-beatles/

    Always makes for a good drive if you are up from 8-10am. And if you like the Beatles, I highly recommend listening to Professor Moptop dissect the songs:

    https://www.facebook.com/Professor-Moptop-Beatle-University-683577078383400/timeline/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm in exile in Iowa but I'm a lifelong Chicagoan. XRT was always my #1 FM preset. Thanks for the links.

      Delete
  3. First time hearing either of these songs. I kinda like the first one. It has a catchy beat. I cut off the second one. Too slow for me at this time of the evening.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I kind of agree. Paul really likes Waterfall but it is slow and repetitive.

      Delete
  4. I know both songs; I bought McCartney II when it was new (and before it hit the cutout racks), and I really liked the album largely because for me it was the right album at the right time. I was in high school, I loved the Beatles and I appreciated anything that was weird and/or Electronic. McCartney II was a Beatle AND it was weird AND it was electronic, so what's not to like?

    Temporary Secretary has always been a favorite of mine, and I like Waterfalls, but one song I really like off of this album is "One Of These Days", which closes things out with a beautiful song that somehow sounds better with the big scratch that's in my copy of the album.

    For anyone who didn't look up the album, "Coming Up" was the only single off of it that did anything.

    ReplyDelete
  5. A few of my friends were big enough Beatles fans that they've made their own mixes of Beatles' Solo Work into Frankenstein-ed post break up Beatles Albums - taking the favorite 2-3 songs from each solo effort in a given calendar year. Even Ringo had some good solo stuff...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ringo did have some good stuff:
      http://canthavetoomanycards.blogspot.com/2015/07/ringo-is-75.html

      Delete