By Yngve Kvisstad

Commentator

At almost 60 years old TV interview 21-year-old Paul McCartney succinctly stated that he couldn’t keep playing the same music until he was 40, because «no one wants to hear parents play. From me to you»

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Today he is 80 years old.

Now that John Lennon has been dead longer than he has lived, Sir Paul is alone in managing this part of the Beatles’ legacy.

Macca is still playing From me to youthe Beatles first peak on the UK’s official hit list, written on 28 February 1963 with John on a tour bus en route to Shrewsbury.

And he’s still on the road. Or should we say: keep moving.

Like many of his peers, he started using hearing aids, and he has stopped dyeing his hair. Almost.

On Thursday, pop music’s biggest talent wraps up its ongoing US tour filling MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

Next Saturday, a week into the ninth decade, he topped the poster Glastonbury – as the oldest artist of the oldest festival ever.

For now he too. oldest.

Not just the biggest, best, smartest, happiest, richest!

He who invented a new way to play bass guitar, and made four strings Höfner to a melodic instrument. He is with audience records, top lists, longest top records, largest collection of gold plates and diamonds.

The only one holder in the world rhodium platemoreover – the rarest metal in the world – which was awarded to Macca in early 1979 by the Guinness Book of Records for its record total sales.

And as clear evidence that Yesterday is the most popular song in the world, recorded most often and by most artists.

Pooh!

Sareptas jar

Any mention of Paul McCartney quickly becomes a turning point. Thus this enumeration can continue. Positive. Comparative. Superlative. Sales figures and listing placement are understandable parameters.

To explain why Eleanor Rigby is a genius move, it’s not that simple.

But here’s an effort.

It was borrowed loosely from monumental Lyrics, published last year as “the closest Paul McCartney has come to an autobiography”. Each chapter in the double book is a commentary on the 154 texts signed at today’s jubilee.

Paul’s Gospel is a mixture of a Sarepta jar and a map for finding the Holy Grail. It points the way, but even the author admits he can’t explain why or how it turned out the way it was.

The success of The Beatles, which laid the groundwork for a later career, he called “a mystery”.

The mystery was attempted by McCartney’s co-author, Irish poet Paul Muldooninvestigate.

He thought one of the keys might be reading Paul’s songs like screenplay, screenplay. Makes sense in a number of ways. Many of the lyrics are like snippets of a moment, mood, or event in progress.

Like the scenario

About Eleanor Rigby it is often said that Macca saw a tombstone with this name. Muldoon thinks things are more complex than that.

song title rather consisting of the first names of TV stars who were popular at the time Eleanor Bron (who also starred in the film The Beatles Help) and the shop name Rigby, which put the “action” in the north of England. The second character, Father McKenzie, implies Scotland.

The cinematic structure of the song is further expressed in how the main characters are introduced in their respective verse and brought together in the third verse. Paul Muldoon draws parallels with Alfred Hitchcock’s storytelling technique, particularly the shower scene in psycho. When you also get “practice” with dramatic film music in the song’s insistent string arrangements, both one and two songs fall into place.

This wasn’t something Macca had planned. One of his “secrets” as a songwriter – the mystery of Macca, one might say – is precisely the intuitive ability to combine art and epochs of style, genre and expression. Even without knowing how. With absolute hearing and the collection of impulses accumulated in the book, it just happens.

As far as one can speak of a common denominator, it is McCartney’s very distinctive talent for melody. The pitch jump is mostly one he dares to explore, without fear of being sentimental. It takes courage.

No bitter man

Young Paul can be overwhelmed by TV shows about Johann Sebastian Bach and hope for piccolo trumpet in the studio the next day, then ask the modernists John Cage about electronic timbre.

He himself has told how he was influenced by the depth of Henrik Ibsen’s work Hedda Gabler and joy vanguard art stage.

While the cynical John Lennon was hailed as the band’s radical force, discussing the Vietnam War “sweet beatle” with Bertrand Russell and hanged with the beat poet Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs.

That Lennon did his part to maintain the image of the intellectual gulf between the two annoyed Paul. Long.

Also in connection with Lyrics he had made sure to remind that it was hers the text that Ginsberg and Burroughs once cited as an example of modern poetry, and that is he Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix wanted to work together when The Beatles ended.

But Paul was not a bitter person. By all means not. There’s also nothing unresolved with Yoko Ono, Lennon’s widow.

After McCartney resumed his touring business in 1989, and visited Norway as his first stop, I had the immense privilege of meeting and interviewing him for VG about a dozen times. At home and abroad.

And yes, some questions have been asked about the relationship with John and Yoko, admittedly, but Sir Paul never said a word about them. On the other hand.

Define

Both of them Lyricsphenomenal ReturnPaul’s new movies and podcasts on the BBC, Inside the Songreinforce this impression.

Then add the geeky series with music producer Rick Rubin on streaming TV, where Macca sits at the mixing table and goes through Betales songs track by track, channel after channel, and she emerges with almost childish excitement at being allowed to tell the story. herself. their friends from home.

A boy band that played a decisive role in the rise of rock.

Paul McCartney was involved in creating the greatest popular culture phenomenon of the twentieth century. He has written some of the best songs in the canon of western culture.

For two generations he has reflected the spirit of the times. And printed it.

With my love for you.