In Defense of Paul McCartney
By Adam D. Miller

There are few musicians that are more important to me than Paul McCartney.  From an early age, I came to respect him, not only as a member of The Beatles but also half of one of the great songwriting partnerships of all time, Lennon/McCartney.  With the death of John Lennon in 1980 and George Harrison in 2001, McCartney became the sole torchbearer of the Beatles legacy (unless of course you count Ringo), and while his solo career has never matched the quality of The Beatles, he has consistently brought joy to Beatles fans who were born too late to experience the real thing outside of Beatles recordings.  Who would have thought that decades later, we could still hear “All My Loving” and “Hey Jude” performed by the man who not only sang them, but wrote them as well.

Paul McCartney recently made a Super Bowl half-time appearance that was sure to please everyone, but didn’t.  All the ingredients were there: one of 20^th century music’s great icons, timeless songs, a solid band, and an enthusiastic crowd.  It was worlds away from last year’s Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake fiasco.  And yet, some were critical of Paul’s performance as being a large-scale commercial for his upcoming North American tour, and went on to claim that his performance was lip synched and that the audience’s reactions were staged.

Having seen Paul McCartney perform in a large venue, I know for a fact that Beatles music is the one music that can unite a large audience, regardless of age, class, race, and gender.  As an amateur musician, I can also tell you that Paul’s performance was not lip-synched.  There were too many vocal nuances for that to have been possible. 

The point is this:  The general animosity towards Paul McCartney over the past few decades is enough to make me want to write an editorial devoted to his defense.  I have collected the major cases against Paul McCartney and will address them one by one.

1. John Lennon was more talented than Paul McCartney

It’s fair to say that John Lennon was a better lyricist than Paul McCartney, but of the two, Paul had a better sense of melody and musicianship.  This is why they made such great collaborators.  But as the Beatles progressed, Lennon and McCartney, while continuing to share the credit, began to write (and even record) independently, even while still officially making records as The Beatles.  Songs like “Blackbird”, “Let It Be,” and “I Will” are essentially solo Paul McCartney songs, in some cases featuring playing and backing vocals from his fellow Beatles, but not always.  When you compare these tracks to some of the songs on McCartney’s first solo album, McCartney, there are many more similarities than differences.

After The Beatles ultimately broke up, we had to accept the fact that Lennon and McCartney would start releasing their own albums.  John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine are definitely stronger albums than McCartney and RAM, but songs like “Maybe I’m Amazed” (which features McCartney playing everything) fit in very easily with the music Paul was composing towards the end of the Beatles.

Through the 1970s, one can say Lennon and McCartney were in constant competition with one another and went on to make music that was quite different than what they had done during the Beatles era.  Whether Lennon’s Walls & Bridges is better than McCartney’s Venus & Mars is a matter of taste – both have their fans, and both are considered let-downs by others.

When Lennon was assassinated in 1980, he had recorded seven proper solo albums.  Some were better than others, but few considered any of them to be complete flops.  Even the weaker ones had their strong moments.  At this point, McCartney has recorded almost twenty.  Granted, he’s had more than two extra decades, but it is unfair to overlook McCartney’s strong albums by saying “Lennon never recorded a flop!”, because Lennon didn’t have the opportunity to do so.

2. Come on… “Ebony & Ivory”… “Say Say Say”?

Which brings me to the main difference between Lennon’s solo career and McCartney’s: The eighties.  John Lennon never faced the 1980s.  Most of the sixties icons who recorded albums in the 80s (The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, etc.) released some major flops, so Macca is hardly alone.  At the time, collaborations with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson probably would have seemed like a good idea to anybody.  In retrospect, even he would admit he made some mistakes.  But like most 60s artists who flopped throughout the 80s and survived, Paul McCartney returned to form.  With Elvis Costello he wrote some of his best songs in years and recorded 1989’s Flowers In The Dirt.  Since then, he has stayed in relatively good shape, particularly evident on 1997’s Flaming Pie.

3. What the hell was Paul thinking with Wings, and why on earth would he let Linda sing?

Soon after embarking on a solo career, Paul realized that he missed playing with a band.  Wings was his opportunity to act like he was in a band.  He surrounded himself with talented musicians.  Denny Laine had been one of the founding members of The Moody Blues, and in Jimmy McCulloch he found a guitar wizard that propelled tracks like “Junior’s Farm.”  Being the nice husband he was he let Linda help.  He was hardly the first Beatle to do this.  Lennon gave Yoko Ono the opportunity to sing about half of the songs on Double Fantasy and she played a prominent role in the few live performances Lennon did in the 1970s.  Aside from a lead vocal spot on “Cook Of the House” from Wings At The Speed Of Sound, Linda stayed pretty much a supporting player, which is precisely what she wanted to do.

4. Paul’s just become this major greedmonster who rips off his fans

Yes, Paul McCartney concert tickets are expensive, and as the richest entertainer in England he hardly needs to charge as much as he does.  But when you consider the list of artists who charge just as much, if not more (The Rolling Stones, U2, Madonna), it seems justifiable.  Not that anyone should ever have to pay this much for a ticket, but you can’t blame one musician, you have to blame the system.  It’s like blaming Steven Spielberg for rising movie ticket prices.

Concluding Remarks

You can’t be holding double standards when it comes to musicians.  Why should we forgive Elvis Costello for Goodbye Cruel World and not Paul McCartney for Press To Play?  Why can we forget David Bowie & Mick Jagger’s “Dancing In The Street” but not Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder’s “Ebony and Ivory”?  I urge people to recognize the good qualities in having Paul McCartney around, playing “Drive My Car” to a huge audience at the Super Bowl, and indeed huge audiences around the world, not to mention some of the great music he has recorded as a solo artist.  As he famously wrote in 1969: “Let It Be.”

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