Macca still amazes
IT MAY seem odd to say of a star so enduringly famous and beloved but Sir Paul McCartney is deeply underappreciated. The twin myths of him as a skilful hanger-on to the coat-tails of a more daring partner and as a squanderer of his talents have endured along with him. He drove The Beatles to much of their greatest work. His sensational abilities as a writer, singer and player are, when taken together, unrivalled. And, yes, his post-Beatles output is patchy but the best of it – and by now there’s a lot – is marvellous.
He also effectively invented what we today call bedroom pop with his self-titled and self-recorded solo debut (1970). A decade later, he called a halt to another group, Wings, with a further all-my-own-work LP, McCartney II. Forty years on comes McCartney III.
He likes playing in and with bands so these solitary albums have a peculiar character, a sense of something intimate. You can’t say they’re a glimpse into his soul – he is much too guarded for that – but they do feel personal and revealing of idiosyncrasy.
The first was flimsy. The second, an eccentric experiment, is now a cult item. The third has much more range and it really does sum up his post-Beatles career: by turns charming, exasperating, invigorating, facile, inspired and plodding. This has room for both a powerful homage to late-era Johnny Cash, Women And Wives, and a lumbering subfunk dirge, Deep Down, that feels as if it will never end.
Its particular joy, though, lies in the delicate acoustic numbers for which McCartney’s gift remains untarnished. Winter Bird/When Winter Comes is one of those sweet, sincere codas he does so well.
So it’s back to the curate’s egg – and parts of it are indeed excellent.