McCartney’s Recovered His Beatles Heart

Review of Paul McCartney’s Egypt Station
CD Album
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As a child of the sixties, I’m going to say that McCartney’s new album Egypt Station continues a renaissance for the aging Beatle that began with the album New.

It may have begun before but I don’t have, like, the whole collection, man….

I do have one of the little known (to most) Fireman albums, so I’m that much of a nerd.

What I hear in this set of 18 new songs is McCartney once more finding that sweet honesty combined with rocking musical intelligence that helped power the Beatles’ creative force, sweeping them to greatness so long ago.

(Of course back then if you add the “can’t give a shit what you think — aren’t you amazed anyway?” creativity of John Lennon, then things cascade upwards, if such a phenomenon exists.)

McCartney, Lennon, and really Harrison and Starr too had uncanny antennae tuned to the world.  They shared that in different ways, as did many who listened to them and who struggled, too, to find the right frequencies.  As their musical journey began to lift into the stratosphere, the four of them seemed to feel the mood behind the moods of the time. It sifted into their music.

Of course, like all of us, they bore, for one reason or another, screwed-up parts of their lives.  Yet they still pursued their dreams, and made art when they could of the old painful places.

Opening Station

The album begins serene and moody, prefaced by a few moments of muted Beatles-style street noise segueing into angels.  It starts the Section called “Opening Station.”

Then the voice comes in on the second track, I Don’t Know.  I’m struck by how much Paul’s life must be sheltered and private to evade spotlights. Yet the old Beatle returns to something of his original heart for songs formed now with maturity sampling the entire life of Paul McCartney.

The next song, Come On to Me, begins the rock out portion of our show.  McCartney is a master of rhythm, and I want to get up and start moving around.  Imagine the horror when Grandpa starts to dance!

The next one, I’m Happy With You, shows McCartney plumbing the ordinary, including our ordinary happiness now and again.  It is as good as that is….

With the introductions made, he starts the creative experimentalism in a rock wrapping with Who Cares.

Fuh You is about what you think, and yet or because, it is stirring.  “I just want to know how you feel.”

The following song Confidante could easily be called Long Lost Anthems, one of its lines.

People Want Peace is straightforward.  And rocks.

Hand in Hand is moving as we recognize those whom we are lucky enough to hold.

Dominos pulses with creative prompting:

“And all the telephones keep calling
Constantly imploring us to come out and play”

The song Back in Brazil combines latin rhythms, “ichiban, ichiban, ichiban,” and something faintly reminiscent of Ob La Dee Ob La Da.

Do It Now reminds me of The Long and Winding Road channeling Henry David Thoreau.

In Caesar Rock, you don’t recognize the voice for a moment before you do, it sounds like Roger Daltry, and the song heats up:

“She got loyalty
Like the royalty

She got symmetry
Anonymity.”

She shoot Coca-Cola….

Despite Repeated Warnings strikes a more ominous tone about human wilfulness and dire stupidity, with urgent political references to You Know Who, given such items as global warming.

In there he’s got a wonderful lilting thing right out of Band on the Run. The song is an extended piece much like on Ram or Abbey Road.

Station II

The section “Station II” starts off with the driving and then moody Hunt You Down/Naked/C-Link:

“I’ve been broken in so many places
Put together by a sea of faces
What to make of them
I don’t hardly know
I’ve been naked for so long, so long”

Get Started is a love song that for me hearkens back to the early Beatles with a voice leavened by experience yet still happy and enthusiastic.  And then it rocks out at the very end.

Nothing For Free is a whole different rhythm. It’s coming to be the high point of the album for me, the stern infectious nature of it, the refrain that goes

“I know you need something
You’re talking to me
But you don’t get nothing for free.”

As you can probably tell, I like this album.

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Note: There seem to be two versions of this CD available, one with 16 tracks and one with 18.  I ended up with the 18 one, for which I am grateful…. That’s the one to get.

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Tags: Beatles, CD, creativity, Egypt Station, music, Paul McCartney, rock, society

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