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The 80/20 McCartney Split
The records Paul McCartney made in the first ten years after leaving The Beatles are eight parts ego-tripping superstar schlock to two parts outsider art. They have all the slickness of Seventies AOR, but at second glance they’re as disassociated as Wesley Willis. No other major rock star would make an album quite like Ram, so cosy and so conflicted. No other major rock star would think to write a song about his Land Rover, or Fungus The Bogeyman. While his peers were mining Robert Johnson’s ‘Crossroads’, McCartney was covering the theme from Crossroads. The man was in a world of his own.
Paul McCartney Defends Experimentation
A short response article to a recent Guardian critique of McCartney. In the first piece, the author wondered why McCartney had a need to prove to the audience that he was experimental by releasing an electronic album and a sideways sounding Beatles jam. McCartney replies:
The thing about experimenting is that it’s good fun. It’s interesting to do something you don’t do normally. It takes you into places you didn’t plan to go to. That’s quite an interesting aspect. Linda always liked to go for a drive and try and get lost. Most drivers don’t want to get lost - but she’d like it. And that idea of losing your bearings, as long as it’s not in deepest Africa, is something I like. I’ve always liked it. Because when you don’t always know what’s going on, that’s when you can really surprise yourself.