Interview for Record Mirror

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PAUL McCARTNEY: “McCARTNEY” — THE LOVELY LINDA; THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING; VALENTINE DAY; EVERY NIGHT; HOT AS SUN; GLASSES; JUNK; MAN WE WAS LONELY; OO YOU; MOMMA MISS AMERICA; TEDDY BOY; SINGALONG JUNK; MAYBE I’M AMAZED; KREEN-AKRORE (APPLE PCS 7102).

Let’s look at it, track by track. “The Lovely Linda”, gentle, la-lahed, touch of the falsettos… a haunting quality, with acoustic guitar. Too darned short, but a trailer to a song which Paul hopes to record later. Worth waiting for, I’d say — and Linda McCartney should be happy with the tribute, all lovey-dovey.

And “That Would Be Something”, with unusual use of cymbal, has Paul in a sort of ballady Elvis-type mood. A gimmicky stop-go ending and really a thoroughly insidious bit of writing. Repetitive, yes, but it reaches out.

“Valentine Day” is a slab of ad-libbing, recorded on Paul’s Studer four-track right there at home. All instrumental, based on a slender-strength riff, but Paul’s drumming businesslike if not exactly driving.

On to “Every Night”… “Everynight I just want to go out, get out of my head”… Paul sings almost country-style — it’s light, heady, on a wordless kick in parts. Nice. No, very nice. “Hot As Sun” is another pungent, very simple, instrumental phrase… says Paul: “I wrote it about 1958 when it was one of those songs that you play now and then.”

“Glasses” is also instrumental, in a sense. That is to say wine glasses played, apparently indiscriminately, over-dubbed about a thousand times and touch of vocal gibberish at the end. Decidedly experimental.

But “Junk” is nearer McCartney norm. It was written in the Maharishi’s camp in India, later built with delicate brush work as a percussion backing, nice acoustic guitar — and there’s Linda adding a bit of vocal harmony.

“Man He Was Lonely” has Linda around as well. Steel guitar sounds, two McCartney voices on the main melody line, some penetrating bass sounds. Pretty undemanding stuff, lyrically, but it does have that instant-impact magic.

Actually “OO You” started life as an instrumental — well, lyrics now give Paul a chance to (perhaps) do his Lennon imitation. Hard rock, falsetto whoops…..“OOOO You”. Seems that aerosol spray and cowbell were added last. Nice toughness for a change…….

“Momma Miss America” is another instrumental, recorded at that McCartney mansion — another ad-libbed thing with piano, drums, two guitars, good solid beat.

Then comes “Teddy Boy”. Story-line lyrics and really up to the true McCartney wordy thing. Linda again on harmony and this “is the story of a boy named Ted, if his mother said Ted be good, he would.”

And “Singalong Junk” is the instrumental version of just “Junk” and has a strong piano line, some sizzle cymbal effects behind and it’s pure gentleness. Really rather a nice melody.

“Maybe I’m Amazed”, in parts near to a rocking rave-up, and with Paul and Linda combining as a vocal backing group. Best parts come from piano and some good solo guitar.

On to the closer, an instrumental — “Kreen-Akrore”…. says Paul: “There was a TV film about the Kreen-Akrore Indians in the Brazilian jungle and how the white man is trying to change their way of life. So I went out and did some drumming…” Plus animal noises, thundering hoof-beats, bows and arrows and more drumming. This one is an unqualified success, I’d say.

PETER JONES

And Paul himself says:

“It was an easy album to do, as the things that normally hang a project up, like lack of decision, weren’t there.

“Playing with myself, as they say, was also easy because I knew what I was thinking — the only trouble was that in order to keep time I had to do drums first, on their own and that was sometimes a bit hard….. but fun.

“That front cover is a picture of a bowl of cherries we got from the barman at a hotel we stayed at in Antigua and we laid them out on the wall in front of our cottage so that the birds of the area could drink the juice and eat the cherries.”

(The article continues with a reproduction of the Q&A that was sent to the press.)