Paul McCartney: Carry That Weight
by Brian W. Fairbanks
Does anyone still think of Paul McCartney as the
"cute" Beatle? If so, they believe in yesterday.
Thirty-eight years have come and gone since the
Liverpool quartet sent Bobby Vinton packing, and
yesterdays are all that remain of John Lennon and
George Harrison. For McCartney, life goes on, but
when he turns 60 on June 18, will those who
experienced Beatlemania first hand sing a jubilant
"Ob-la-di, Ob-la-da," or turn to another page in the
Fab Four songbook, read the news that day and sigh a
weary "oh boy"?
The generation that thought it unwise to trust anyone
over 30 is now old enough to regard rock and roll as
something their teeth do when they run out of
Poligrip. Physical deterioration aside, nothing
brings the passing years into focus like an aging
icon. McCartney isn't the first major figure of
Sixties youth culture to reach the age associated with
grandmas. The candles on Bob Dylan's birthday cake
represented the same fire hazard last year. However,
the grizzled voice that warned of a hard rain to fall
never sounded youthful. Dylan also lacked the cuddly
qualities favored by readers of Tiger Beat.
The Beatles, concerned with little more than holding
hands, seemed destined to remain forever young, as
fixed in youth as cartoon characters which they were
for a time, first in a Saturday morning kids show and
again in the 1968 feature "Yellow Submarine." No
matter what the birth certificates said, McCartney was
the youngest. The "cute" one with an unrivaled
talent for writing classic love ballads, he had the
most avid following among pre-pubescent girls. The
music moved on to more mature themes, but even though
McCartney wrote "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby," those
songs of sorrow and regret didn't sound fully
convincing until filtered through the older, wiser
voice of Ray Charles.
After the Beatles disbanded, John Lennon was naive
enough to imagine a world free from greed and
oppression, but McCartney's music was so upbeat you'd
think lions and lambs were already lying down
together. Making his marginally talented wife, Linda,
a member of the band Wings, added to his image
problems. John and Yoko could be equal partners, but
the McCartneys were too "straight" in Lennon's
lexicon, too similar to the Osmond family, to win
respect from the counter-culture that controlled the
influential rock press. Rolling Stone called "Ram,"
the first of two 1971 McCartney albums, "the nadir in
the decomposition of Sixties rock thus far," and even
faithful fans gagged when he released a version of
'Mary Had a Little Lamb' the next year.
The 1973 James Bond theme "Live and Let Die" cut
through the fluff, as did the excellent "Band on the
Run" album. Selling a then astonishing six-million
copies, his finest solo effort won over some of his
harshest critics. Even John Lennon called it a 'great
album.' By 1975, however, it was back to an all sugar
diet. A sample lyric, "soldier boy kisses girl,"
brought to mind the Shirelles and other sticky sweet
pre-Beatle pop groups.
By that time, Lennon was about to begin his five year
withdrawal from the public eye. Since Lennon and
McCartney were rivals as much as partners, McCartney's
muse got even lazier, no longer feeling the pressure
to compete. Lennon's 1980 murder was a wake-up call
and "Tug of War" offered a hint of stronger McCartney
music to come, but in 1984, Maxwell's Silver Hammer
came crashing down upon his head and has been pounding
him ever since. His vanity film, "Give My Regards to
Broad Street," was a disaster that year, and his next
album, 1986's "Press to Play," was an even bigger
bomb.
Now too mature to appeal to the under 21 crowd that
buys the majority of compact discs, McCartney's new
music was facing a losing battle with his back
catalogue for the attention of older fans. "Hope of
Deliverance" from 1993 is a great song, but that's all
it is. It can't trigger the memories that "Penny
Lane" or "My Love" does for a middle-aged audience.
By the Nineties, McCartney recognized his dilemma and
surrendered to it. Following his own command to "get
back to where you once belonged," he released three
live albums that favored his Beatles and Wings hits,
and also recorded two discs of vintage Fifties rock
and roll. It was clear the music that first inspired
him still did.
But can he still inspire us?
He's no longer cute. He's no longer young. He could
always take a sad song and make it better, and did at
the Concert for New York last October, and again at
the Super Bowl pre-game show in January. But neither
performance spurred much interest in his latest album,
"Driving Rain." If his appeal is now based on his
past glories, he is, as he sang in "Yesterday," half
the man he used to be.
He always had the shadow of the Fab Four hanging over
him, but now as the most significant of the two
surviving Beatles, his signature song might as well be
"Carry That Weight," as fans look to him to provide a
comforting reminder of the long-gone days of youth,
his and theirs.
Will we still need him when he's 64? For now let's
just quote another of his famous songs: "I hear it's
your birthday. Happy birthday to you."
Brian W. Fairbanks
Entertainment Editor
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