Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / The Musical Maverick: Paul McCartney in the 90s [Episode 263]

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The Musical Maverick: Paul McCartney in the 90s [Episode 263] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and roll. I mean gott to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: leave you.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: You're reading little hands this, It's time to rock and roll,
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: roll out.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: I totally booked.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: Hey guys, welcome back to book don Rock the podcast
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: for those about to read and rock. I'm Ric Sena.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Find the show wherever you get your favorite podcasts, including iHeartRadio, Spotify, Spreaker, Apple,
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: YouTube Music and more. Also catch every episode on video
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: on YouTube at Booked on Rock, We're talking Paul McCartney.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: This episode specifically is music during the decade of the nineties.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Author JR. Moores has a new book out now titled
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  Speaker 3: Off the Ground Paul McCartney in the nineteen nineties. This
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  Speaker 3: was an era like no other from McCartney, perhaps even
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  Speaker 3: the most significant decade of his entire career after the
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  Speaker 3: nineteen sixties. Following Shakier in nineteen eighties, the decade would
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: see him re emerge with greater energy, momentum, and self belief. JR.
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  Speaker 3: Moore's sympathetic but not uncritical new book explores McCartney's nineties
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: with its impressive studio in live albums, colossal tours, unexpected
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  Speaker 3: side projects, and imaginative collaborations forays into classical composition, some
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  Speaker 3: new beatles' numbers, and a whole lot more. Besides, Moore's
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  Speaker 3: reveals how McCartney's reputation began to be perceived more generously
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: by the public, and he argues that his output and
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  Speaker 3: activities in the nineties would uncover more about the person
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  Speaker 3: behind them than in any other decade. A playlist of
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  Speaker 3: Paul McCartney in the nineties can be found in the
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  Speaker 3: show notes Welcome Jr.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, pleasure to be on again.
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  Speaker 3: Great to have you here, you say. The nineties a
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  Speaker 3: decade like no other for Paul. It could even be
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: argued that this may have been the most significant decade
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  Speaker 3: of his entire career after the sixties. Talk about why
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: you feel that way.
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  Speaker 2: I guess what I'm trying to get out in the
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  Speaker 2: book a little bit is the way that Paul's reputation.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: I write at the beginning about how his reputation dips
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: a little bit in the eighties. I mean, you know,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: it's relatively speaking, this is still Paul McCartney and an
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: ex Beatle they're talking about. But the book is about
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: not just Paul McCartney and what he gets up to
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: but also about what's going on in the wider world
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  Speaker 2: which affects Paul McCartney and what he's doing, and his
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: reputation and how he's perceived by both the public and
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  Speaker 2: the press.
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  Speaker 1: And I would say.
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  Speaker 2: If there was a time when Paul McCartney is at
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: least popular with the public and the press, then I
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: would say that was the nineteen eighties. And there are
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: various reasons for that. It's not just Paul McCartney's fault
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: for releasing give my regards to Broad Street or the
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Frog Chorus or whatever you want to attack him for
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: in that decade. But firstly, of course punk comes along,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and I think, particularly in England, maybe you can enlighten
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: me on how that impacts in America. I think maybe
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: people remain kinder to Paul McCartney in America in the
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: after punk, in the afternas for punk.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know. But in England certainly there are.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Lots of punk bands who are either sincerely or not
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: having a go at the older generation of rock stars,
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  Speaker 2: and particularly the Beatles. You've got the clash saying singing
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: about Beetlemane, your phony Beatlemane, you're having bit in the
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: dust the sex pistols slag off the Beatles as often
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: as they can, really, and it's you know, it's a
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: generational thing of pop culture moving forward and rejecting what
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: your parents liked and embracing the new, so that tarnishes
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: the Beatles a little bit. And Paul McCartney as a
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: surviving Beetle from the late seventies onwards. Then you have
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: John Lennon dying obviously, and he is martyred if you like,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: if you want to call it, and that means that
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: people talk about John Lennon in very respectful, revering terms
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: because of the nature of his death for quite a
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: long time afterwards, and quite often people talk about Paul
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: McCartney in the same breath in negative terms. So people
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: will talk about how great John Lennon was, and they
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: will also talk about how naf Paul McCartney, whilst slash is.
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  Speaker 2: You know, they're even like obituaries or think pieces written
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  Speaker 2: after very soon after John Lennon's death, when rock writers
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  Speaker 2: literally saying why he wasn't Paul McCartney shot instead of
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  Speaker 2: John Lennon, which is so insensitive to everybody involved. I
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: think Martin Amos wrote something for the Observer about he's
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: talking about John Lennon, how important he was, and he
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: goes off on one talking about Paul McCartney writing songs
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: that your granny likes and that kind of thing, and
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  Speaker 2: it creates this narrative of Paul McCartney being the sort
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: of safe, naf cheesy ballad writing cute beatle and John
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  Speaker 2: Lennon being the edgy, experimental, politically radical beetle. And that's
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  Speaker 2: true to a certain extent, but it's also in other
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  Speaker 2: ways a bit of a myth. And Paul McCartney, I
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: think personally, well obviously personally disagrees with that narrative that
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: is gets set in stone if you like it during
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  Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties, but he doesn't push back very much
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  Speaker 2: or very often against it, probably out of respect for
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: his dead band Mason friend. And in the nineties there
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: are various things. One thing that happens is that he
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: does start to push back against that narrative a little
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: bit by reasserting his reputation and what is rolling the
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: Beatles and the kind of radical things that he did
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  Speaker 2: with them.
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  Speaker 3: I think here in the States, the view of Paul
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: well here in general in the States and I'm assuming
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  Speaker 3: it's the same in the UK, but you can speak
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  Speaker 3: to this. But when John passed away, just like a
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: lot of these artists, when they pass away, they are
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: elevated to this status that no living person can match. Right,
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  Speaker 3: That's why we see with the numbers of sales and
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: interest in these artists after they die. So Paul was
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  Speaker 3: up against that. But in the seventies he's really trying
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  Speaker 3: to distance himself from Paul the Beatle, so he's trying
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  Speaker 3: to work on that, and then when John's assassinated, he
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  Speaker 3: spends the eighties now having to be put in that
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  Speaker 3: place where we can't take Paul as seriously as John.
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  Speaker 3: I mean John was with John Lennon. Was John Lennon,
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  Speaker 3: I mean he was you know, nobody liked him. So
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  Speaker 3: he was kind of up against that that decade. So
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  Speaker 3: I see where you go with this book and the
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: idea that in the nineties enough time he's gone by
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: now where he's starting to he's starting to speak his
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  Speaker 3: mind a little bit more and he's starting to really
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  Speaker 3: be more of just Paul McCartney the individual person and
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  Speaker 3: artists maybe more than any other decade. And that is
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  Speaker 3: interesting to look at it.
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  Speaker 1: That way exactly.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good way of putting it, as you say,
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  Speaker 2: you know, John Lennon has that elevated status almost all
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: the way through the eighties, really, and there's literature that
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: fads into that as well. Philip Norman's Shout, which is
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: about the Beatles, is you know, openly pro Lenin and
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Nanty McCartney. And it's only towards the end of the
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: eighties I think when people start to get a bit
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  Speaker 2: more cynical towards that narrative or start to discuss some
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  Speaker 2: of the more negative personality traits that John Lennon had
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  Speaker 2: more widely.
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  Speaker 1: That kind of balances things back again.
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  Speaker 2: It makes Lenin more of a human being, I suppose,
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  Speaker 2: and not a sanely figure, which he would have objected
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  Speaker 2: to most of the time anyway. And in terms of Paul,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: as you say, he does start to reassert himself, he's
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: not biting his tongue so much.
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  Speaker 1: There's in one of.
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  Speaker 2: The tour programs because if that's a tour again as well.
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  Speaker 2: That's another thing. You know, he's not playing live during
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  Speaker 2: the eighties, so he's back on the road playing some
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Beatles songs live that have never been performed live by
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  Speaker 2: him before, which is a big boost obviously. In one
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  Speaker 2: of tour programs, there's a little article about where he
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  Speaker 2: discusses his experimental tendencies and the Beatles, the experimental artists
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: and writers he was hanging out with the in the
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: sixties with Inam Burroughs, et cetera, Ginsburg, people like that.
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  Speaker 2: And that's then elaborated on in much greater detail in
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  Speaker 2: the Barry Miles Many Years from Now biography, which McCartney's
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  Speaker 2: very heavily involved with. A lot of that is about
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  Speaker 2: how Paul came up with the idea of tape loops
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Tomorrow never knows was pushing the orchestra in the day
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: of the Life, and it's and he does finally kind
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  Speaker 2: of go, look, I was the experimental one, or I
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  Speaker 2: was at least one of the experimental ones in the Beatles.
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  Speaker 1: I wasn't just doing the balance.
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  Speaker 3: Interesting though, like biographers like chet Football ready to write
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: him off by the end of the decade, and you
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: talk about that in the book, but he did end
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: the eighties pretty well. I mean he had Flowers in
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: the Dirt, which I think the album itself hit number one,
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  Speaker 3: and then My Brave Face was a top twenty single.
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  Speaker 3: That's the one Elvis Castello wrote or co wrote with Paul.
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  Speaker 3: So he's doing well with that, but still people are
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  Speaker 3: ready to write him off. But in nineteen ninety three
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  Speaker 3: he comes in with the next studio album, which is
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: Off the Ground. The feet that we see hanging at
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  Speaker 3: the top of the album cover, those are of his
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: new touring band he had. As you say, he returned
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: to touring by the end of the eighties. Talk about
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  Speaker 3: how important that was for him as far as what
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  Speaker 3: we're going to hear from him in the nineties. And
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: by the way, which pair are Paul's feet.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Because the picture of that cover in the book, Yeah,
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: and in the little beneath it's kind of matched the.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I think maybe one of the reasons he doesn't tour
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  Speaker 2: in the eighties, apart from you know, raising his kids, etc.
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  Speaker 2: Is that maybe he's brightened of a fan murdering him
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  Speaker 2: like Lemon was murdered, and maybe.
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  Speaker 1: Doesn't want to risk being in front of that many people.
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  Speaker 2: But gets over that starts touring again in sort of
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: eighty nine to ninety and yeah, as I say, as
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: well as playing solo material, he's playing beatles songs that
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: were never performed by.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: The Beatles because they obviously stopped.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Touring themselves after a while because they couldn't hear themselves
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: over the screens of their fans and concentrated on studio work.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: So that's very exciting for Beatles fans and that boosts
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  Speaker 2: his profile if you like it. It's a very successful
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: tour in terms of that impacting on the Off the
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Ground album. The previous two albums, as you say, they're
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: a successful in a certain degree.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: But the reviews are pretty mixed.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: And you get the feeling now that Paul McCartney felt
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: that he was kind of working with too many producers
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: and too many computers.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: And overthinking everything in a case.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Of kind of too many cooks spoiling the broth musically,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: and he decided to just do the next album Off
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: the Ground with the band that he's been playing with
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: live and enjoying playing with live, and it's much more
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: organic and earthy and not very precious. They do as
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: a few takes as possible, and it's a way of
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: working that reminds him of the early Beatles days where
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: they were going to the studio of George Martin and
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: maybe do like three Amazing Beatles songs in one day
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: and lay them down and those are the official releases.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: So he's a bit more relaxed, I think, and less
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: worried about having a hit possibly and maybe having more
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: fun in the studio that he's had previously, and that
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: you can feel that in the album that it's you know,
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I won't say it's his best solo album or anything
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  Speaker 2: like that, but there's an atmosphere to it where you
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: can tell he's letting his hair down and he's having
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: fun and he's rocking out with other musicians.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: Again, Biker Like an Eye On is a key track
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: to that point, because you say that was first take recording.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he doesn't mind a big mistakes in it.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: It's you know, it's got that sort of spon spontaneity
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  Speaker 2: to it. If you like that obviously inspires him or
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: stimulates his mind somehow.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: Podcast we'll be back after this.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: We will not identification this is.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Maybe this is the hot take because I said this
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: before we started recording. I like this album more than
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Flaming Pie. There you have it. I love the title track.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: In the minority there. I do prefer Flaming Pie.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not. It did very well with critics and fans.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: I just you know, I seem to like the I
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: seem well, it's the title track in particular. I really
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: like but Hope and Deliverance. Good song, Come on, people,
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: I like.
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  Speaker 1: Well.
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  Speaker 3: I did find a photo, so I think Paul's feed
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: are a third from the left. I don't know if
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: we could see. Okay, it's kind of bright, but you
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: can look on you can google online. This is really terrible.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: It's not Oh, there we go. I think you can
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: see that. Yeah, brilliant, there's Paul. It's blurry, but you
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: get the picture. Yeah, that's Linda. So Linda's second from
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: the left, Paul's third from the left. That's the answer
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: the question we've allad.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: The other thing I.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Should say about Off the Ground is that, like I
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: have this thing going through the book where in the
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: nineties I feel like, in some ways Paul is caring
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: less than ever before, but that's also sort of balanced
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: with in other ways he's caring more, And that sort
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: of dichotomy is important in the nineties, I think. So
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: Off the Ground, as I say, it's very relaxed, carefree,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: first take kind of attitude at the same time, he
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: wants his lyrics to be sort of very good, so
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: he gets the Adrian Mitchell to kind of vet his
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: lyrics like an English teacher would in class, to make
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: sure that, as he calls them, poet proof, because I
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: guess he's some critics have mocked his lyrics in the
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: past as being kind of banal or nonsensical or whatever,
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: so I think that's interesting as well. It's kind of
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: caring less in one sense and caring more in another sense.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: But then that kind of comes together to kind of
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: make it quite an interesting decade for him, and that
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: continues into Flaming Pie as well, as.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I say, I do prefer Flaming Pie unlike you.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: But I think Off the Ground makes a better book
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: title because it feeds into this kind of story of
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: the eighties being a bit of a dip and then
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: then the nineties being a rise again.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: So yeah, it is a perfect album title to use
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: for the book. And as you know, nineteen eighty three
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: that's worth at the height of the Grandera Nirvana, Alison
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: Chains and Pearl Jam and all these bands. It's an angrier,
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: darker time in rock history that's reflected in the lyrics
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: on off the Ground. It's in there yet. Paul's on
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: stage persona is still the same sunny, happy Paul of
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: old and that could have been considered uncool, and it was,
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: I guess at one point, but he seemed to be
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: winning people over with that persona. Do you think maybe
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: fans needed that bit of sunshine amidst the darkness of
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: the early nineties.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: That's a good question, isn't it. Yeah.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: I suppose if something becomes quite so dominant in the culture,
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: then people are going to want a sort of antidote
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: or break from that.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Off the ground kind of because it is sort of.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Organic and raw and live in the studio in that sense,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: that is kind of in tune with grunge, if you
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: like I was, but far from a grunge album, as
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: she would as you would agree, but.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: Is heavier though it's got a heavy The drums are
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: really heavy. Yeah, almost almost like a guy that he
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: would work with many years later, Dave Rawl.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: You know, sure, yeah, And there are some dark lyrics
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: in there. There's a you know, one or two ones,
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: a bit got a sort of stalk and narrative going on.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: It seems that's.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: A misunderesting with pop because he does have a little
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: bit of a darker side to him. True, he does have,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: and Linda McCartney once said he's got he's got a
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: bit of a temper. Yeah, but I think everybody always
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: looked at him, especially when you put him against John
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Then maybe he was always always sunning up, eating happy.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: But people always mean about Maxwell's silver hammer. But you know,
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: it's about a hammer wielding serial killer, so.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: It's right in that respect.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: And ask Paul to talk about Michael Jackson. He's I
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: wasn't happy about that, but he always but he still
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: handled that so well whenever he talks about it in Poka.
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean he's he's he's real, you know,
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: he's kind of emotions.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: And I think it's quite interesting that you've got grunge
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: up and I think it is interesting, you know it
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Later he plays with Dave Growl as he's saying that
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: kind of thing.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: Another thing happens in.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: The nineties is we have the britpop explosion here in
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: the UK. So bands like Oasis who are massive from
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: about nineteen ninety four to nineteen ninety five and get
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: compared to the Beatles, and they go on about the
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Beatles on and on, and that helps to make the
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Beatles cool again. But Paul McCartney kind of keeps his
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: distance from it, which is interesting, perhaps I think because
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: he knows it's going to be a sort of flash
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: in the pan, kind of momentary explosion before fading again,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: which is what happens.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely I think that was smart on his part.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, and especially because it is also associated
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: with sort of flag waving nationalism and Laddie kind of
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: there's a sort of mis misogynist element to it as well.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: So and there's a there's an interview on a British
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: television program called TFI Friday.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know you do, you know you're familiar with
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: that program.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: So it's a sort of chat show, pop culture kind
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: of television show's let's say, a bit like David Letterman
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: kind of thing, but a bit bit more scrappier, maybe
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: a bit less slick, presented by this guy called Chris Evans.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: And Paul McCartney appears on that when he's promoting Flaming Pie.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: So that's nineteen ninety and the host, Chris Evans asks
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Paul McCartney, which which you know, sort of modern new
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: bands he's been listening to recently, And Paul McCartney says Nirvana, right,
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: So this is three years after Kirk Crabaine has died
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: and he's still saying Nirvana is as a kind of
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: new band that he's listening to. Now, you could say
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: that shows that he's out of touch already by that time.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: But I also wonder whether he feels a greater affinity
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to the kind of grunge movement than he does sort
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: of brick pop movement, which is kind of, certainly in Britain,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: kind of displaced the grunge popularity.
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: He always kept an eye on the charge, at least
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: I know in the eighties, seventies and eighties he's always
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: keeping a keen eye on the charts. Not so much
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: just to say, let me have bigger hits than them,
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: but he was just kind of looking to see what
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: kind of what kind of instruments are being us, how
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: they're produced, anything that's different in there that maybe he
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: can or the beats, you know.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and he still does that today. You know, he's
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: on the.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: That's my point, and he's on the pulse of what
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: is definitely so I don't think he was behind the
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: times in ninety seven. That's just my opinion, you know,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: I just think that's just what he's I mean, I probably.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: To do with not wanting to be too closely associated
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: with grit pop. And I think maybe he saw something
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: similar in Kurt Cobain to John Lennon, as well as
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: similar persona's, similar backgrounds, if he liked a certain extent
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: similar sounding voice in the to a degree as well.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: So I think maybe that's involved perhaps as well. And
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: his son James McCartney was a Nirvana fan as well, so.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: I think that.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I remember David Frick from Rolling Stone when Kur
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Cobain died, he said, I don't think people understand how
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: many similarity's heard had to John Lennon, which he did. Yeah,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: then the Beatles. So while Paul's continuing with his solo career,
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: it's important to talk about his place in Beatles history
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: during this decade. This is a quote from your book.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: At this point, he was quote feeling less like he
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: was stepping on other people's toes or causing unnecessary upset
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: to John Lennon fanatics by taking spiritual ownership of old
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: Beatles' hits encountering what he considered to be misleading portrayals
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: of the past. So if you could talk about that
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: and how he viewed the Beatles at this point, his
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: place in Beatles history, his place in Beatles history in
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: comparison to John with now a decade over a decade
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: has passed since John's death.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he's he feels that there is enough
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: time past now that he can stop biting his tongue
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: and can be a bit more forthright in challenging this
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: narrative that has been built up that John is edgy
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: and experimental and radical and et cetera, et cetera, and
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Paul mccarton is safe and soccering and writes ballads and
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: granny music and that kind of thing, which he does do,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: but he also was very heavily involved in pushing the
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Beatles to the limits of where they where they got to.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: And it's it becomes.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Very clear in Barry Miles's many years from now that
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: that is what he wants to project. And you could,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: you know, if you want to be cynical about it,
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: you could say it's just Paul McCartney, you know, being
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: self serving all that kind of thing. But I do
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: think it stands up. You know, he was hanging around
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: with experimental writers and artists point in the sixties where
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: John Lennon was living in the suburbs with Cynthia and
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: watching too much television.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: And not having a very nice time.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying John Lennon wasn't experimental at all, but
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Paul McCartney was messing.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Around with tape loops.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: He was, you know, coming up with a concept album
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: for Sergeant Pepper's. He was working with George Martin to
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: experiment sonically. Yeah, and in the nineties he's happier than
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: he was before.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: To make that clear from.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: Reading the book the Gallagher Brothers, going back to the
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: Oasis Gallagher Brothers were it seems like they were less
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: fans of the Beatles' work and more fans of their popularity.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: But then that they changed that opinion because I think
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: maybe because they were taking so much criticism or heat
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: for saying they were better than the Beatles.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's another thing that Paul sort of observes as well.
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: You know that he says at one point, you know,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: by all means be bigger than the Beatles, or aim
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: to be bigger than the Beatles, but don't say it,
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: you know, don't say it out loud, because as soon
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: as you've said it, that the cats out of the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: bag and it's just going to not work out well.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't work out particularly well for Oasis. There's
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: a famous article I forget the writer, what was.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: The oracle regarding It's.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: A headline for an article and it calls the Oasis
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: the sex Beatles, right, So it's like this combination the
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: sex Pistols and the Beatles making Oases. And I suppose
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: the sex Pistols element is Liam Gallagher's quite sort of
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: sneary vocal style, and the Beatles element is more to
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: do with the sort of melody and the things that
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: Noel Gallagher is writing. And it's the more that journalists
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: mention the Beatles, the more Oasis meant mentioned the Beatles
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: as well, and this kind of perpetuates. So eventually Liam
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Gallagher is calling his firstborm Son Lenon Gallagher and that
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: kind of thing, and he starts dressing more like John
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Lennon as well, and it becomes this kind of obsession.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: But I do question in the book whether that obsession
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: was there in the Gallagher's early lives, and there were
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: various bits of evidence you could kind of pick that go. Actually,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: you know, they weren't these massive Beatles nuts until the
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: ball was rolling and everyone was comparing them the Beatles,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: and they kept mentioning the Beatles, And as you say,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: they had this ambition and this arrogance if you like
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Oasis to be the biggest band since the Beatles, the
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: biggest British band since the Beatles, and for a.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: While that they do very well over here particularly.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: But then it kind of after about nineteen ninety seven,
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: it falls off, doesn't it, And they failed to break America,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: it seems, and they're certainly not don't have the global
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: impact anywhere near the Beatles, and they don't have the
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: musical ambition either, because they don't push themselves in the
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: way the Beatles push themselves.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not even close. I'm fear of those Oasis albums.
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: But yeah, is it Cliff Jones? Yeah, the face, the
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: face was the magazine.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I think Cliff Jones in the face. That's right.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: Never mind the ballots, here's the sex Beatles, that's the mine.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: So what about George Martin's son, Giles, So he was
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: quoted in the book, saying the success of Oasis relegitimized
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: Beatles fandom and introduced them to a new generation. He
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: says that upset people.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course it helps that there's like Oasis are
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: really popular for a while and the coolest band in
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: the in the country, if you like. And so they're
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: going on about the Beatles. Journalists are comparing them to
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: the Beatles. So the young kids reading about them, watching
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: them interviews, et cetera, go and they think, well, let's
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: check out the Beatles then, if they weren't familiar with
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: them before, or check them out again, if they thought, oh,
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: that's my parents' music and I'm not interested. So that
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: they go and they check out the Beatles and they
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: think they realized, oh, the Beatles are lots better than Oasis,
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: so maybe we don't need Oasis anymore. I don't want
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: to be slagging off Oasis all the time, but I do.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I do like the first Oasis album and I'm a fan.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: You sure, sure, But it's interesting I.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Think in their defense too, you know, the media once
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: they started saying those things, and then the media would take
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: off with it, it became it took on a huge
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: It just became this monster that was created based on
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: combination of what they were saying and then the media
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: really blowing it up. So it is what it is.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: But they've scuppered me slightly by announcing these reunion shows
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: for this year finally after catching things up, because I
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: do say that in the book that the Beatles cross
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: cross the generations very easily, whereas Oasis are very much
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: of their moments. But now eighteen year olds are buying
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: tickets to see Osis this year, so I don't know
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: whether that stands.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Up, but nothing wrong with those eighteen year.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Olds might realize how boring Oasis were and are live.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but look I always say now though these days,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: if somebody if an eighteen year old's going to a
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: rock and roll show, great, that's good. I'll take it, because, yeah,
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: I don't know what's going on with the rock and rolls.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: There's still so many great bands out there, you know,
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: It's just they're just not as known as some of
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: the other artists that are.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: Right now, country and and rap are the big forms, I.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Mean, got really big over here, which certainly wasn't the
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: case in the olden days, so that we have massive
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: festivals in huge stadiums where all the country stars come
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: over and play their tunes and sell their wares and everything,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: and it's.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: The moneymaker, big money maker. Beyonce even put out a
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: country album and Post Malone put out a country album.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: So Ringo stars like.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Podcasts. We'll be back after this.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: I've seen the fud. You know what it is.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: It's a forty seven year old vergiin sitting run of
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: his base but jamas breaking a banana broccoli shakes thing
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: and I'm an Oscar Mayo.
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: Week that Beatles Anthology series, I figured that, especially as
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: I started reading the book, I thought, well, I know
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: where this is going, that they capitalize on the timing
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: of the success of of britpop in the nineties. But
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: that wasn't the case, because that this was this was
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: planned prior to all of this. According to the because
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: you write quote, this was not some cynical attempt to
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: capitalize on the country's moment of renewed coolness. It was
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: more a happy coincidence for the Beatles brand. How did
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: that project come about.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: As brick pop is booming? You also get the Beatles Anthology,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: which is documentary series as well as a set of
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: three compilation albums double CD sets if you like, And yeah,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: it wasn't it wasn't cynical timing. They didn't go Oasis
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: going on about the Beatles. That's quickly cobbled together this anthology.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: It's kind of in a way in the works, like
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: from the final days of the Beatles and when they're splitting,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: because Neil aspinall wants who's part of Apple, wants to
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: make a documentary about their career and does kind of
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: put something together, but it doesn't get released, and there's
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: various things that prevent that, which includes the Beatles having
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: all fallen out with each other and their management, different
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: management having fallen out of each other, wrestling over.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: STNG rights and royalties, et cetera, et cetera.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: But by the nineties they've kind of come to an
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: agreement and sorted those problems out. George Harrison, who resists,
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: who is resistant at first to the idea of a
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: Beatles anthology. He comes around because his handmade films company
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: goes bankrupt. I think he loses a lot of money,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: so he's kind of keen to be involved again for
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: material reasons, anti material George, But yes, and so it
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: all comes together and then they work on this documentary
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: series and they George Martin puts a lot of work
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: into the compilation albums and that happens to coincide with
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: the rise of britpop in nineteen ninety five. So again, firstly,
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: it helps older fans sort of rediscover the Beatles, if
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: you like, because there are these the anthology albums have
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: outtakes and stuff and Beatles material hasn't.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: Been heard before. That's quite exciting.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: And again, you know, young people go out and buy
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: them as well and discover what was so great about
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: the Beatles and realize that some of the current bands
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: that are influenced by the Beatles are not quite as
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: adept as the Beatles were at art and the documentary
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: series as well, you know, it's it's a sort of
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: it's an official, official version of the story and it's
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: sugarcoated in a certain sense, but he also has sort
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: of revealing things about the different members and the Beatles' career,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: and it all helps to boost the Beatles brand, if
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: you like, in the nineties, and it proves a great
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: success as well.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: You know, the two songs Free as a Bird in
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: Real Love, so those were from tapes that John had.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: Free as a Bird I think was from did back
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: to the seventies and Real Love would have been around
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: seventy nine or eighty. How did those go about? Because
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: Paul gets together with George and Ringo to put these
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: together and put them out of Yes.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: So yeah, so they're sort of working more easily with
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Yoko Ono as well and the John Lennon estate, And
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: there are these demo tapes that Yoko has in her
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: possession of just sort of songs that John had been
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: working on privately at home, not you know, not great
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: recordings or anything, demos basically, and during the anthology the process,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: they kind of they think what would it be like
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: to make music together again? And Yoko offers these demos
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: to them, and they sort of right through them and
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: pick out a couple of numbers that they think they
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: could turn into full, more fully formed tracks, and they
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: try to imagine John being with them there, or John
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Lennon's giving them this song and then gone on holiday
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: or popped the shops, and they'll finish it off for
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: him in his absence, and Free as a Bird goes
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: to number one.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Oh is it number two? It's number two. Is it
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: number two?
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: Check? Oh look do Love might have been? I think
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: wasn't Real Love the first release?
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: I think As a Bird was first? Okay, one of
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: them was kept off the top spot by Michael Jackson's
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: Earth Song, which must have really annoyed Paul McCartney.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember right to the Beatles songs for a
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: little while.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Let's see Free as a Bird. I like both the songs.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: I know they're more they do sound a little traveling Willbury, yes,
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: because Jeff Lynn produced them.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Song peaked at number two in the UK, number six
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: in the US. Free as a Bird. So let's see
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: how Real Love did, and that was ninety five ninety six.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: Real Love came out number four in the UK, eleven
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: in the US. Right, So I guess was that a disappointment?
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: Were they expecting two number one singles or do they
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: not really concern themselves.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: I think they probably are expecting to number one shingles.
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: I think George Martin, when at the press conference when
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: they announced that the working on news stuff, says, you
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: know that it's going to be number one and everywhere
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: around the world. I don't know, would you expect them
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: to go to number one? Around the world in nineteen
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: ninety five.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: I would have. I know classic rock radio was huge
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: in the mid eighties. Yeah, I think they're great songs.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: Are they on the level of the brilliant genius songs
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: that they wrote while all four were alive? No, I
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: don't think anybody, not even themselves, could could recreate that,
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: even if John was alive, because there's just that certain
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: period of time that every artist has that they just
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: are firing on all cylinders, and the songs that they
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: wrote right up through the end before they broke up,
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: we're just brilliant. Having said that, Freezer burd in Real Love,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: I loved it. I'm a traveling Wilburries fan. I'm a
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: Jefflin fan, so that contributes to why I love them
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: as well. What did you think of the songs when
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: you first heard them? What do you think of them now?
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I prefer Three as a Bird to Real Love. I
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: do think they are a little bit too jeff Lynn.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: That's the criticism.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: I think maybe if George Martin had done those ones,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: it might they might have sounded a little bit different.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: I think George Martin's hearing starting to go a little
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: bit by then although he's involved in putting the compilation together,
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: there is something in that. But also I think George
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Harrison might have insisted on Jefflin producing because he's got
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: good relationship with Jefflyn traveling Wilbury's as you say, etc. Yeah,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: as you say, it's the competing with their sixty selves
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: is an impossible thing to top, really, isn't it?
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: But I prefer them to now and then which came out?
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Was it? When was that?
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: I was going to ask you about that?
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: That was last year, last year, which which is a
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: similar process, but this time AI was in old I
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: believe in kind of cleaning up the the John Lemmon demo,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: which I think it does have a lovely melody to it,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: the little John Lemon main melody, But then again they've
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: sort of dressed it up into this kind of electric
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: light orchestra, kind of George Martin esque, but it's Giles
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: Martin doing the orchestration this time.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: And I know I think that did go to number one,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: didn't it?
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: But for me it's just felt a little bit synthetic
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: or a little bit Abbey Road by Numbers kind of
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: feel to the song.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: And I think it's it's a nice song, but yeah,
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: it's not like you're gonna I won't skip over it
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: if it comes up on Spotify for him again. It's
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: not like I'm going to go to that over again.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't go that with that over Free as a Birder,
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: real love, no no chart performance. Now and Then debuted
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: on the UK Singles Charter three Oh No I November
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: third and number forty two based on ten hours of sales.
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: But then the foul week rose forty one positions to
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: number one. Yeah, their first UK number one in fifty
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: four years since the ballot of John and Yoko in
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: nineteen sixty nine. And then in the US debuted at
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: number one on the Billboard Digital Song Sales Chart for
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: the weekend in November eleventh, twenty twenty three, seventeen thousand downloads.
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: There you Go, debuted number five on the Billboard Bubbling
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: Under Hot one hundred chart. I don't know what the
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: hell that means. But Now and Then debuted at number
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: seven on the Billboard Hot one hundred. But it did well.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: You know all that, all that goes back to the anthology. Really,
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: you know the anthology, As I say, you boost the
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: Beatles brand, and then you get all these extra things
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: that come off of that and continuing to you know,
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: there's the number one at compilation album and the Circuitu
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Salai remix thing, and then all the deluxe expanded editions
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: of everything that comes out, and it's I guess you
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: could say that would have happened anyway, but it's to me.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: It's icing on the cake. I guess I'm looking at
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: it that way to be a positive Paul McCartney like
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: person here, but yeah, it's icing on the cake. It's like,
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: if you don't want it, that's cool, but it's there.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: If you want to listen to it, it's cool. It's
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: you're still you're always going to have the original work,
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: so this is just something extra they're going to offer
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: up to you if you want it exactly that way.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a good attitude to take you, right.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: There's a there's a bit of a I go on
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: a bit of a rant about box sets at some point,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: at some point in the book, and certain critics he's saying,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: he's a you know, pointless thing is that their clear
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: takes that the artists rejected and didn't want you to
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: hear and as you say, I think that it's good
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: that they're out there. You know, why should these just
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: be in the possession of the archivists at rb road
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: or whatever. It's good that they're in public.
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: Nobody's forcing you to buy it.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: No, I suppose it's about it.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: You listen to it if you want. You can get
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: something out of that. It's good for research purposes, it's
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: good to know about musicians processes, et cetera. And if
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: you don't want to listen to it, you don't have to.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: But as you say, it's good that it's.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: There podcast, we'll be back after this. Hold on, Let's
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: go to Flaming Pie Now nineteen ninety seven. That's his
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: tenth solo studio album. It reached number two in Billboard,
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: fifteen slots higher than Off the Ground Young Boy Beautiful Night,
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: released as singles in the UK The World Tonight, released
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: as a single in the US, proved to be one
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: of his most critically acclaimed albums from any decade. And
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: then you write that it was assumed that revisiting the
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: old days when working on the anthology, had rekindled his greatness.
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: How much did the anthology and Paul revisiting his Beatles
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: roots influence this album because it definitely influenced the album title, right, Yes.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: It did. So.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: The title comes from a quick quip by John Lennon
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: about where the Beatles name came from, and he says,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: in this sort of slightly surreal way, it came to
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: me on the Flaming Pie in a dream or something.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: So the titles is hard part of the Beatles.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: A lot of the sort of promo relates to the
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: anthology as well, and Paul kind of getting his mojo
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: back having spent some time talking about the Beatles and
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: thinking about the Beatles, et cetera. But on the other hand, I,
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: you know, I sort of think that's in a way
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: of sort of press speak really because some of the
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: tracks date quite far back before the anthology project. You know,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: some of them are he was writing during Off the Ground,
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: but they didn't quite fit on that album, so he's
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: brought them in for this one. You know, Paul mcartney's
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: always making music, so it's not like he suddenly did
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: the Beatles' Anthology and then thought, oh, maybe I should
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: make an album. You know, He's making music all the time,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: and eventually there's an album and he puts it out
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: in a way, the Beatles anthology delayed, blaming Pie because
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: he was told not to release any sold albums during
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: the anthology campaign because it would interfere with that. And
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: I suppose record companies didn't want Paul McCartney competing with
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: young Paul McCartney again, you know, in a way, it
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: comes from the momentum that he discovered during Off the Ground,
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: and although he's not working with the touring band again,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: he's working quite quickly and unpreciously and fairly organically and
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: in a raw sort of way again if you like,
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: but again talking about the kind of not caring and
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: caring dichotomy.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: He wants there to be no filler on it.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: He chooses very carefully what songs should go on there,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: and he wants it to be kind of banger after banger,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: if you like. Whether he succeeds in that task is
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: up to the listener. And I would say it isn't
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: a perfect album, but it's certainly one of his most
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: warmly received solo albums since Wings, and again, people would
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: be listening to it in nineteen ninety seven and thinking, well,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: these melodies are nicer than what Noel Gallagher or Travis
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: are coming up with and so yeah, so it's a
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: really important album for him as well.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: And then the next year, sadly, Linda McCartney passes away
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: April of nineteen ninety eight. Had to have been devastating
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: for Paul. They married in nineteen sixty nine. They seemed
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: like the perfect couple. She was a big part of
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: his solo career. In fact, you're right in the book,
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: Lynda McCartney played a greater role in her husband's music
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: than has been recognized or appreciated. It may certainly have
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: been subtle, yet it was not insignificant, nor was it
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: identifiably off the ground detrimental.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: So there's a whole chapter Olinda in the book which
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: some people might find surprising.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but yeah, there are a few reasons
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: why she was so important. I mean, obviously she had
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: his back all the time. She was really supported. She
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: rescued him from despair, if you like, when the Beatles
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: had split and he was moping around unshave and not
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: getting out of bed, not knowing what to do with himself.
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: She has you know, she has a very successful nineties
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: in her own right, with a vegetarian cookbooks and campaigns
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: and food range.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: So there's that going on.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if I did ever get to speak to Paul McCartney,
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: I would love to ask him about Linda's musicianship and
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: what she was bringing to Wings and all the solo
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: albums that she appeared on. Obviously, she's a non musician
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: who gets kind of thrust into the spotlight, which is
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: not particularly comfortable with. She's a photographer by trade, so
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: she's naturally happier behind the camera than in front of it.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: I think, yeah, she had to learn on the job
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: when she joined the band.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's with Paul McCartney, there's a through
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: line where he doesn't like music that gets too complicated
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: or too flash or to show offye, which again you
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: know maybe that links to well, maybe you could make
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: links to as well in that sense. But you know,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: in the Beatles days, he'd fall out of George Harrison
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: because George Harrison was doing a solo that was too.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: Diddly widley, you know, and he'd rain him in and
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: George would get cross about that.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: There's a point where he says he doesn't want Wings
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: to turn into Pink Floyd. So again you could say
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: he wants to keep things more simple and less history onic,
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: if you like, than Pink Floyd. He never learns to
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: read music because he thinks that will ruin some of
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: the magic of music making, so he can't actually read notation.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: And I just wonder whether having Linda the non musician
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: in the band, as well as being there all the
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: time and be supportive and being together, et cetera. I
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: just wonder whether there's a sort of primitiveness or amateurishness
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: that Paul really relishes and bounces off as well. And
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: I would love to ask him about that. I was
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: watching the One Hand Clapping Wings film recently, you know,
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: it's come out after my book's published. Linda's keyboard work
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: on that is phenomenal. You know, the sounds that she's
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: getting out of her instruments and a moods or whatever
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: she's using is it really adds to the sound and
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: it's really.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Quite sort of noticeable and enjoyable. And Yeah, I loved
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: watching Mark.
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Paul's known as an upbeat, happy guy. We mentioned that,
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: but he got frustrated with the narrative that he was
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: quote the writer of insubstantial melodic pop music as opposed
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: to John Lennon, who was thought to be, among other
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: laudable things, the bold and uncompromising experimentalist. And we did
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: touch on this earlier, but there were some author record
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: comments upon made in nineteen eighty one about this and
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: you including the book.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a phone call he makes to Hunter Davis
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: which he doesn't think is being recorded or written down,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: where he has a little bit of a rant about
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: the Saint John figure and the way the Beatles story
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: is being told. And at some point Hunter Davis includes
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: that in a reprint of his Beatles biography, which is
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: a bit unfair because McCartney did think it was off
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: the record.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Off the record is off
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: the record.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: As a journalist, if somebody says this is off the
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: record and you publish it, yeah.
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: Not good.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Is it so that that kind of doesn't paint him
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: in a particularly good light?
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: I suppose, But and I don't know.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: If I'm an artist I want to talk to that journalist,
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: I might say something that would end up being published.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you've got to be careful when you sort of
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: a journalists.
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: But if you say something's off the record, you say
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: then it's a record that's sort of ethics. So you
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: can tell that that is there in Paul's mind all
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: the time. But as I say, it's it's not until
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: the late eighties and the nineties where he starts to
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: on the record pushback a little bit against how he
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: feels he's been unfairly portrayed by various journalists and writers
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: and other people.
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: Boots will be back after this, which mine I will
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: be long. How about Paul the classical composer. That's what
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: get in the nineties. That's another side of Paul that
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: we get during that decade. Talk about those projects and
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: how were they received by critics and fans. But yeah,
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: so in the re altogether he released three that decade
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: and not just one.
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's a really busy decade, and I don't even
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: cover everything that he got up.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: To in the whole of the book.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: But so he's not just doing tours and studio albums
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: in the classic McCartney's sense, but he's also dabbling in
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: classical composition, which he needs help with because as I
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: said before, he can't read music and he can't notate.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: So it's collaborative in a sense.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: It's more successful full commercially because it's got the name
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: Paul McCartney involved, Dan it is critically perhaps also because
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: it's got Paul McCartney involved, And maybe I'm not a
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: classical music person on classical music buff and I'm certainly
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: not a classical music critic. And perhaps some critics objected
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: just to the classical work because he was kind of
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: known for being part of the pop world and he
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: was sort of imposing himself into their But.
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: Classical music was infused into Beatles' music, true, think he
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: was completely foreign to it.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: That's absolutely right.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there's maybe something to be said about the class
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: system over here and the fact that classical music became
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: something that the elite would listen to, and Paul McCartney,
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: as a working class person from the lower brow pop
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: world suddenly trying chancing his arm at classical was kind
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: of smart at if you like, how dare you?
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, right, I can see how they can look
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: at it that way. Somebody like myself looks at as like,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: you know, so if I give it a shot, see
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: what happens. But that's again, that's my mindset is just
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: you know, if it's falls flat of false flat, but
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: if he wants to do it.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: One of them is titled working classical, so that is
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: a loaded term that he uses very much on purpose.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: So I find it hard to judge how successful or
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: not his classical compositions are because you know, I'm more
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: of a rotten guy if you like.
• 48:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, same here, same. I haven't even heard any of it.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't even know. I'll give it a listen, but yeah,
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: you know again, I'm all for an artist doing whatever
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: they feel they want to do. I'll tell you the
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: one one project that I really enjoy and it's one
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: that was experimental for him, is the Fireman Project. One
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: of my favorite Paul McCartney songs is Seeing the Changes.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: That's from two thousand and eight. That was their third album,
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Electric Arguments, the first who came out in the nineties.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: This is, I guess what, an edm ambient kind of
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: industrial sound. But it's so far removed from Paul's solo
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: work in the Beatles fascinating to me. It may be
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: the most experimental of all of his nineties projects. What
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: are the origins of Fireman? It's just him and one
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: other guy.
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So, as well as sort of reasserting his role
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: as experimental in the Beatles, he also starts making them
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: some of the most experimental music he ever has, which
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: is with The Fireman. So that is with the guy
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Youth from Killing Joke, who's also a producer for lots
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: of different acts and who was involved in the Auban
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: stuff in sort of dubin techno. The origins of that
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: you can date back to Off the Ground as well.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: So although Off the Ground is, as I said, a
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: very earthy, raw, live sounding album, he also gets commissions
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: Youth and other people to do remixes of the tracks
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: for like twelve inches single releases, So.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Youth starts working on those, and I think.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: The stipulation is that he's only allowed to use music
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: that Paul McCartney has made in making these remixes. They
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: can't add anything else or anything from any other artists,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: can't throw in a James Brown sample like everybody likes
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: to do. But that kind of he has so much
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: fun making that that it kind of escalates into a
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: whole album's worth of material, and Paul enjoys it as well,
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: So he starts sort of tinkering alongside Youth and they
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: come up with this with the debut fim an album
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: which originally they try to release kind of under the
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: radar without anyone knowing that it's Paul McCartney and Youth.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: It's just this new artist, the Fireman. But I guess
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: it's hard if you Paul McCartney, Yeah, good luck that Yeah,
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: under wraps so fairly quickly people do do know who's involved.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: And then with the second album that is sort of
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: the full ball collaboration between the two individuals from the
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: off and they know they're making an album together. Russia's
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: It's called and that for me is one of the
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: most interesting records that Paul McCartney releases in the nineteen
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: nineties because it is quite so ambient and abstract and
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: sort of chill out room dance.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Paul vibes.
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: Well, the third one, I know from what I read
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: was Paul didn't even have any lyrics. He just said,
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: let's play something and I'll just come up with the lyrics.
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: Is that what he did on the previous two?
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Well, there isn't much singing on the first two, Okay.
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: The third one has much more vocals on it. With
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: the other ones, it's kind of like, if there are
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: vocals are kind of floating very deeply in the mix.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: So it's an added instrument more than lyrics.
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well, I know.
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: Killing Joke from Nirvana history. You know this Killing Joke
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: their song eighties. Yeah, there's a plagiarism case Come As
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: You Are from Nirvana. That riff was allegedly taken from
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: the Killing Joke song eighties. So that's when I read
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: the book and I saw Killing Joke. I knew Killing Joke.
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: I didn't know the the artist himself that that was
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: part of it and worked with Paul.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so that that ties in with grunge as well.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, interesting.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: Didn't they didn't They can't remember quite.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they settled it Come as you Are, Come as
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: you Are. Yeah, I think they may have settled, but
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: it was looking at accused of plagiarism. But I don't know.
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: I could read the article here, but I think they
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: settled avoiding legal issues. They decided against taking it any further.
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: Killing Joke. Bassis said, Yeah, Dave Groll and I had
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: a few laughs about that over the past year or so.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: He mentioned it to me when I met him backstage
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: at Pantera a couple of years back. Not filing a
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: lawsuit would be a blessing in disguise for killing joke.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: As the nicest man in rock and roll, Dave Roll
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: would go out of his way to thank them for
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: not potentially sabotaging your his career when they easily could have.
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: So I guess they did not foul lawsuit. Another another reason,
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: potential reason as to why the band of Void Illegal
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: Battle is because their song Eighties itself had That song
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: itself had a striking resemblance to the Damned song from
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: nineteen eighty two Life Goes On? Okay? So they all right?
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: All right?
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: Last question for you here, Jr. Paul finished out the
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: decade with nineteen ninety nine's Run Devil Run, mostly covers
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: of both familiar and obscure fifties rock and roll songs
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: and then three original tracks. You read about this one quote,
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: Run Devil Run saw McCartney ground himself again, not only
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: after the passing of his wife, but following the most
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: remarkable and active decade he'd had since the nineteen sixties.
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on that album finishing out the
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: decade for Paul? Is he just looking to kind of
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: go back to his roots there for it? Or was
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: that again something inspired by revisiting the Beatles roots.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: I think it's a sort of sort of cathartic album
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: for him. It's, as you say, Linda died, and in
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: a sense that fimen album rushes as attribute to Linda,
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: because it has samples from her pets, her horses, and
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: it's got various different references to her floating in that mix.
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: Although you know, it's as I say, it's abstract, so
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: it's not very kind of upfront tribute to Linda McCartney.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: But Youth has said it is a tribute to and
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: it's one of the most important records that he's worked on.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: I think you could say that Run.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: Devil Run is Paul McCartney going back to the music
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: that he found solace in as a teenager after his
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: mother died. She died very young of breast cancer, just
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: as Linda did as well. So I think there's a
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: kind of parallel thing going on there where he's cocooning
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: himself a little bit with the music that he found
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: solace in during that tragic time in his youth, and
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: then and then kind of revisiting it during the tragic
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: time he's having as an adult. And again it's a
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: sort of cathartic thing because it's again more so than Off.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: The Ground, if you like.
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: It's a very live sounding, raw rock and roll record
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: with you know, a couple of original songs in that
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: style thrown in there as well. Interestingly, Dave Gilmore from
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: Pink Floyd is involved in that one, but not sounding
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: very Pink Floydy at all.
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: He's on No More Lonely Nights, Oh yeah, one of
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: my favorite Paul songs.
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But with Rum Devil Run, they're kind of all
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: playing in this quite quite sort of ramshackle Cavin Club
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: kind of way. So again it's kind of I think
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: it's based in the past, but it's I think Paul
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: McCartney isn't one to sort of willow in the past
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: ever or for very long at least, and it's probably
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: also part of his process of moving forward, which he
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: continually does. Always focused on the future more so than
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: the past, I would argue.
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: And he does go into the two thousands continuing to
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: this day.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: Still yeah, yeah, no slowing down.
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: Off the Ground Paul McCartney in the nineteen nineties. It's
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: out now. Find out wherever books are sold and look
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: forward in your local bookstore. If you have one, and
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: if you're not sure, if you have a local bookstore,
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: you can go to bookd on rock dot com and
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: search for one there. And if they don't have this
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: book in your bookstore, make sure they have it there.
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: And where can people find you online? Jr.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: You can find me at well.
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: I don't know if you should still find me on Twitter,
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: but I am on Twitter.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: I'm also on blue Sky now if you.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: I've set up an account there, I got to do
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: more with it.
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's where it's where certain people are fleeing to
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: at spinal BAP. You can find me on those social
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: media platforms and on Instagram as well. And my writing
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: is featured regularly at the Quietest website and in Record
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: Collector magazine sometimes The Wire and Bangcamp Daily and other places.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: Not so much Paul McCartney base necessarily, but.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe more and more in the in the vein of.
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: My previous book, Electric Wizards in History of Heavy Music.
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: That was the first time you were on Yeah, we
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: had you out for that.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, which has has some Pol McCartney content
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: in there as well.
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: It does early on, Yeah, it does. That's a fascinating
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: book as well, So people can look for that.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: Those books are on Amazon, so both books, you can
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: find them there. So Jr. Thanks so much for coming
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: back on and we look forward to having you back
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: on again in the future. And thanks for roughing it out.
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: You're a little under the weather, but you get through it.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Thanks.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, edit out any coughing that was going on or
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: you know, so I apologize for that.
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: But yes, anybody who's listened to this thing, I didn't
• 57:44
  Speaker 3: hear any coughs. He sounded fine. He did a little
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: editing little. The Beatles had to edit some of their songs.
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: You know, some of it ends up on the cutting
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: room floor, which will happen here. But yeah, I appreciate it. Jared,
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: thanks so much and all the best with the book
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: and grats. It's a great book.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: Thank you. That's it. It's in the box.
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: H