Featuring...
Paul McCartney THE LYRICS
1956 to the Present (copyright 2021)
Paul McCartney has never had an inclination to write a memoir or autobiography, though asked to do so on many occasions. Nor has he ever kept a journal. He feels that his oeuvre serves that purpose. In this case, as told through the lyrics— along with accompanying commentary— of 154 songs (of the estimated over 500 he has written), spanning 64 years of his career. Only ten of those, as a Beatle. Followed by another ten, with Wings. Doing the math, he has "gone solo" for roughly 44 years; over twice as long. He is a phenomenal musical entity unto himself. The likes of which we’ve never seen, when considering the whole package— quantity, quality, versatility, cultural impact as both singer/songwriter.
This book makes good on his contention about his songs. Collectively, in effect, they create a memoir. A remembrance of things past. Unveiled in an engaging way, of presenting songs in alphabetical order in lieu of adhering to chronology. It creates a more dynamic sense of the various aspects of the man, his life, his work, as it shuttles back and forth among Beatles, Wings and solo. And it's a good read, moving along briskly as it does. Despite having the heft (it's over nine pounds), of two coffee-table books piggy-backed.
A “Coffee-table book” is often pejoratively defined as, short on text… long on pictures. A superficial approach to the subject matter. Not the case here. Yes, there are over 600 images from McCartney’s personal archives, including handwritten lyrics, letters, memorabilia, ephemera, and hundreds of previously unseen photographs. But it’s the text (edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, who also wrote an introduction), that drives these two volumes. Revealing much along the way that was previously unknown. A renaissance man, McCartney is also an accomplished artist, composer, producer, poet and even a shearer of sheep, of all things.
Within this tome, we learn about the genesis of a McCartney song. The sources of inspiration that run the gamut from the literal and prosaic, to the surreal and sublime. Some of depth; others less so. In the course of which, not every line of a song will be readily explainable. Even to him. One of my favorites comes from “The World Tonight” on the Flaming Pie album: I go back so far, I’m in front of me. Which I learned is also his... “favourites of all the lines I’ve ever written. “ He goes on... “It’s one of those lines where you don’t know what it means but you do know what it means. I have no idea where it came from, though!” Which is in keeping with his approach to song writing, in that, “You must trust your initial feelings, because at the beginning you don’t really know where you’re going.” Often he starts by simply tying a couple of guitar chords together. Such as in the case of "Get Back." And not incidently, he does not know how to read music. None of The Beatles did.
His ability to trust his instinct in creating music, virtually on the spot, is extraordinary. It’s something he had in common with John Lennon. He tells of the two of them, upon deciding to write a song, might go off into a room... spend two or three hours in there... emerge with a completed composition. Always! And usually, a song that would become a hit! By intention. Even McCartney is amazed by this.
Or, as a nature lover who often wanted to be close to the land and get away from it all for a while, McCartney might look out a window of his remote farmhouse in Scotland, and see...
...“The Long and Winding Road.” Which would become The Beatles’
20th and last number-one hit.
Yes, the breakup of The Beatles is addressed. How could it not be? Almost methodically, McCartney lays out the circumstances that led up to it. But having this subject discussed yet again, even from the horse’s mouth, is something that I found of least interest in the book. I’m more interested in how things get made, than how they get broken. Though admittedly, it was interesting to see signs of it unfolding, "live," in that Peter Jackson documentary of less than a week ago.
As time passes, it almost all seems mythological— a word McCartney has used when musing upon various points in his life journey. In a recent piece in The New Yorker, following an interview that Editor David Remnick conducted with McCartney, Remnick puts his finger on it. “The melancholy of age and the power of memory have always been central themes for McCartney.”
Beyond the songs themselves, we get a sense of a boy coming of age in post war England,
surrounded by a loving, working class family. With a father, though his primary job being that of a cotton salesman, was forever banging out the old tunes on the piano in the McCartney house. Which accounts in part for Paul being so well versed in a musical world that existed before he was born. Especially, that of American legends. References and homages to Cole Porter, Fred Astaire, Fats Waller, Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, are interjected throughout the book. Though interestingly, his foremost British influence comes from a non-musician. Starting from back in his school days, Lewis Carroll has always been his idol.
The essence of Sir Paul McCartney becomes encapsulated toward the end of the book, through a 2,000 word piece on “Yesterday.” Far and away, the longest in the book. And it merits that sort of exposition as it has been hailed by many, as one of the greatest songs ever written. Or at the very least, the best song of the 20th century as per Rolling Stone. Guinness Book World Records, claims it to be the most covered pop song of all time, with 3,000 versions of it. And to think its birth took place here.
“The Ashers’ House on Wimpole Street. A very small attic room with one window. A garret. Perfect for an artist. There wasn’t any room to keep my records."
This being 1965, at the height of Beatlemania, when McCartney was already a megastar (though he never refers to himself that way). And he was living in an attic? An improbable story that takes us through "Yesterday," from the moment of inspiration through the long haul to a final production. It alone, is worth the price of the book. Well, maybe not quite, as we’re talking a C-note.
On a hokey note, might I suggest that this very special publication would make a great holiday gift for a very special someone? Or at the very least, as George Harrison might have suggested, “I, Me, Mine.” You would not be alone. It has been on the The New York Times Best Seller List for Non-Fiction Print/Hardcover books, since its release on November 2nd, selling over 36,000 copies in those first four days alone. Though current sales figures are unavailable as of this writing. And it might be interesting at some point, to see if Peter Jackson's documentary will have had any impact on sales. Assuming that such a thing might be measurable and made public.
Quote of the Month
Back to the Church of Reality
I had been attending mass each Sunday here in New York in the Flatiron District, at the 138-year old St. Francis Xavier church. Which inside and out, is done up in grand baroque style. Which is exactly the way, architecturally and aesthetically, I like my church to be done up. Which is a sentiment I seem to share with Paul McCartney. In his recently published tome, THE LYRICS (reviewed above), he notes at one point... “I always like the architecture of big cathedrals, churches, sacred spaces of any kind, so I go to them. A couple of churches in New York like St. Patrick’s or St. Thomas, that I don’t pass without going in.”
Xavier’s is not quite on that scale, but if Paul were in the neighborhood, he might be chuffed to bits to have come upon it.
And as for the mass being celebrated within? All five senses get employed. It’s all there. The music, the Renaissance-influenced art, the symbolism, the statuary, the colorful vestments. There's the spoken word, the poetic incantations, the chance to indulge in song. There's the rituals, the intoxicating scent of incense, the ingesting of the Holy Communion wafer, the dramatic pause here and there for quiet thought. It’s grand theater. It's audacious. It's over the top. It's Catholicism unabashedly on display. And I love it! And that's just on a typical Sunday. A high mass? Midnight Mass on Christmas? Fuggedaboutit!
Add to it, a mission statement written by the Jesuits who run this place, parts of which could have come directly from the Sermon on the Mount.
A respectful community where seekers and their questions are welcomed, where injustice is challenged, where the poor, the alienated and the marginalized find a home, and where people are refreshed, reconciled and renewed.
With a promise to part a Red Sea of COVID, and lead me back to the promised land of Sunday mass. And I thought, while it isn’t baroque, this still might fix it. It beats the alternative. Mass… no mas? And in truth and in deference to Genesis, “In the beginning… and it was good.”
I went about doing my best to summon a sense of sanctity within my own apartment, given the noticeable absence of stained glass windows, 47 murals, 35 plaster statues, a ceiling reaching to heaven and a marble floor unto my feet. With due diligence each Sunday morning, I would arrive on time and take a seat before my PC screen. Then attempting to virtually participate, I’d stand, sit, stand again, sit again, even kneel (a Catholic thing), in all the appropriate places. A series of un-cued movements that I’m sure an outside observer would find befuddling. Especially, when being done alone in one’s apartment.
I’d sing or speak aloud in a muscle memory response to a prayer. And it went on this way for… a few months? Time was swallowed up by the pandemic. So who knows.
At some point, I started to realize I didn’t have to start the mass at the same exact time as the priest. Afterall, he was greeting rows of empty pews before him. And even the lectors and the choir were on prerecorded video. It was a bit weird. So certainly, I could arrive ten minutes late. How about twenty minutes? What’s the difference. How about time shifting the whole thing to Sunday night, at those times when it might be more convenient for me to do so? No sin in that.
While this “Zooming thing” might be great for interacting with friends or organizations, over time, I began to find it wanting as a means to truly be “in the moment,” in the mass.
It started with fast-forwarding a hymn I wasn’t too crazy about. I’d click “pause” in the middle of a homily, while I’d to go off to the bathroom. Or to check a phone message. And hey, by the way, I could compare homilies. See what the priest at my old parish in Santa Monica might have to say on the George Floyd protests, now going on in California too. And I wonder, if Presbyterians have a different take on the Parable of the Mustard Seed? I’d review some homilies as a theater critic might a play. Oh, yeah. Back to the mass.
Do I really need to get fully dressed for this? And who is going to see if I sit here disheveled and in need of a shave? And if I have a glass of wine during one of those time-shifted evening masses, is that so bad? Along with a few bread sticks?
But it was that one Sunday morning, when during the most profound and sacred part of the liturgy, a foundational theological tenet of Catholicism, Transubstantiation, or the changing of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ…I caught myself munching on a slice of toast while checking in, as if to catch up on the local weather forecast. And it hit me. This isn’t working. This is too far removed for me from the church of reality. I guess an analogy would be, watching a telecast of a play, as compared to actually being in the theater with a large audience, taking in the full scope of the production. But, mea culpa. Perhaps the fault lies in me Horatio, and not in the Zoom. All the same, that was the end of “going” to virtual mass.
Oh, the power of place. Or as William Carlos Williams once put it: Spirit of place rise from these ashes. And I had a reprise of a thought, hardly original, that in this ever evolving realm of technology, what is being lost is that need for proximity. Human and spiritual contact. There are exceptions, I know. But let’s not get into Henry David Thoreau.
Epilogue
With all that said, when the doors of the church were finally reopened, I didn’t go back at first. I’m a creature of habit, and one of them had been broken. I kept putting it off. It’s too hot. It’s raining. I gotta’ go to Jersey. After the booster shot. I’ll go next week. Until finally, after almost 20 months since that fateful “last Sunday” in March of 2020, I was once again, beneath that 75-foot frescoed-medallioned-barrel-vault ceiling, of St. Francis Xavier Church. Fully vaccinated and masked, a prodigal son had returned home.
It all works to create an inner sense of peace. At least for the seventy-five minutes I’m there. It's my form of meditation. My chance to get reacquanted with humility. Often punctuated by the lighting of one of those espresso-cup sized candles. (Which go for two bucks per flame these days, if anyone is curious). And I'm able to separate it from the controversial issues that have come to the forefront about the very institution of the Catholic church as a whole. (Some will see this as inconsistent. A discussion, for another time).
Suddenly, it was all taken away. Faster than you can say pandemic. As the full force of COVID-19 was being realized, and all New York churches and houses of worship, were to close their doors.
Enter the god of technology. This time taking the form of...
Everyone who has seen the movie, Casablanca remembers Bogey’s smoky voice saying to Bergman, “We’ll always have Paris.” Paris is the city of romance and beauty, a perfect setting for love, passion and elegant cuisine.
In my life, it was Pacoima, the scene of unexpected love, passion, and homemade tortillas. Pacoima is a district in the San Fernando Valley north of Los Angeles, with a predominantly Hispanic population. Many of the little houses have elaborate iron work fencing in the front yard and dogs which haven’t been neutered.
At the corner of Osborn and Laurel you will find Target, Food for Less, and Big Lots where English is occasionally spoken. Power poles dot the horizon, and graffiti art decorates the walls. And yet I found more romance there than on the left bank of Paris, when traveling with my husband and two young children.
My first year in Pacoima as an English teacher was especially memorable. That was the year I ended my marriage of 17 years and met Ricardo Caraballo on a tennis court in Encino.
After having been married to a red haired beauty queen and a blond Olympic diving champion, he was charmed by the innocence of a Jewish long term substitute teacher with no seniority who was desperate to learn Spanish so she wouldn’t be transferred to a school in South Central L.A.
I drove him crazy, not with sex, but with “com se dice this and como se dice” that. The poor man couldn’t eat a meal without my asking how do you say artichoke dip or gefilte fish en Espanol. When we were making love which was a lot of our time together, I had to como se dice every part of my body and his, and still had a problem using the familiar tu form of the verb to describe our very intimate relationship.
We talked every school night on the phone. He said I was beginning to sound less Chinese when I spoke Spanish and more like Yolanda, one of the little girls in my class. I would probably have never been noticed at the school if it hadn’t been for Ricardo riding into the school parking lot on his Yamaha motorcycle to pick me up for a quick lonche on Lankerchim. The curtains would part on the teachers’ lunchroom windows as my envious and catty colleagues gossiped about my brief escape from the campus. My teaching assistant and the parents in the neighborhood viewed me much more sympathetically, thrilled that I was assimilating into their culture.
I was watching the Mexican novellas on Canal 34 and doing my “dejame en pax” imitation whenever a student got too troublesome. Mi amor was giving me wonderful mini lessons in colloquial Spanish and how to drink tequila.
When I told him I was in charge of staging the Posadas for the school program, he offered to pay for material for the costumes and even to go downtown to see the parade on Olvera Street.
He had grown up on a horse ranch in Brentwood and when people asked what he was he always said, Basque, but he was really Mexican, and I wanted to instill that same sense of pride in his heritage as I did with my students. We went downtown to the Million Dollar Theatre for two movies, a stage show and ceviche at the Grand Central Market down the calle Broadway.
I shared with him my little classroom dramas. After the first week of intensive English, Gerardo came into the class saying “chut up chut up” I never taught him that. I had a problem with his name. I said “Gerrardo.” He said, no, “Gerardo“ Finally we gave up. “Yust call me Yerry,” he said
I did Chanukah with my class and with Ricardo, who at this point said, “Yust call me Richard” The potato latkes tasted like hash browns, and he had as much of a problem with la chaim as I had with Gerrardo.
I remembered the imperative form of the verb because he always said, “Chispa, da me un beso” He’d fix things around my house and always begin with a da me this tool or that.
I told him I wanted to make chile rellenos for the Christmas breakfast at school. He offered to help. They were way too spicy and a little runny, but the auditorium was so dark, I didn’t think anyone would notice.
Everyone dressed up for the event held at seven in the morning. I got there early and greeted the parents with a smiley “orale” that made Ana Maria, my teaching assistant wince and later tell me it was Pachuco and not appropriate for teachers. That should have stopped me, but didn’t. I went over eagerly to greet Senora Garcia, the PTA president. She was a petite woman with very large brown eyes. She was wearing a velvet jacket with an adorable seasonal ornament on the lapel.
“What a cute little chingaderra,” I said pointing to it.
Senora Garcia gasped in shock. Her creamy complexion turned roja. I remember her enormous eyes widening in disbelief. “Doesn’t it mean thing-amajig?” I stammered apologetically?
That evening I let Ricardo know how embarrassed I was to have greeted the PTA members like gang bangers and then to have called Senora Garcia’s Santa Claus pin a cute little FUCKER .
That may have been the beginning of the ending of my relationship with Richard Caraballo. What started out sweet as flan was souring fast. He began to criticize the Ingmar Bergman movies he liked at first. He began to go back to greasy steak instead of poached salmon.
When we broke up for the fourth time and I was very depressed, I decided to write him a letter in Spanish. Between sobs I wrote,
Mi Querido Ricardo,
I am writing to you to expresar mis emociones. Still sobbing. If only you could have been more sensitive…Hmmm could have been. That sounds like the conditional subjunctive. If only you would have been. Should I use hubiera? If you had not been such a pendejo chingaderra…I realized that our relationship had always been a rather subjunctive one. Filled with possibility, but always uncertainty.
Now I look back to the romantic moments we shared in the Pacoima I grew to love speeding along San Fernando Road on the back of his Yamaha. I think of Ricardo flying off from the Whitman airport in Pacoima over scenic Hansen Dam and our favorite little torteria…. probably with another woman.
Not a Christmas passes when I don’t see some cute little ornament on someone’s lapel and want to say “What a cute little chinga-majig you’re wearing. Instead I secretly lift my margarita in a toast to Senora Garcia, Yerry and Ricardo Caraballo wherever you’re flying. “We’ll always have Pacoima.”
We'll Always Have Pacoima
Guest writer Lila Lee Silvern is a graduate of the UCLA Theater Arts Department, and has a Masters in Bilingual Education from California State University. She has had numerous educational materials published and has appeared in the KLCS series “The World Comes to Los Angeles.” A frequent reader at the Story Salon, the longest running storytelling venue in Los Angeles, she recently participated in reading from her work Confessions of a Geriatric Prom Queen (available at http://lilasilvern.com/) at the famed Colony Theater in Burbank. She is also a member of the Independent Writers of Southern California. This is her second MuseLetter appearance,
We’ll Always Have Pacoima
A Game of Desire
In contention
absent an end game
how to proceed?
Despite contemplation.
Intuition.
Even intervention.
False moves abound—
it takes but one
to topple
what once thought
was apart from the fray
kept at safe distance
from threat of enrapture
by hostile forces
until a point when it might
be there for the taking.
montage by Ron Vazzano.
Ron Vazzano
Paul McCartney THE LYRICS
1956 to the Present (copyright 2021)
Paul McCartney has never had an inclination to write a memoir or autobiography, though asked to do so on many occasions. Nor has he ever kept a journal. He feels that his oeuvre serves that purpose. In this case, as told through the lyrics— along with accompanying commentary— of 154 songs (of the estimated over 500 he has written), spanning 64 years of his career. Only ten of those, as a Beatle. Followed by another ten, with Wings. Doing the math, he has "gone solo" for roughly 44 years; over twice as long. He is a phenomenal musical entity unto himself. The likes of which we’ve never seen, when considering the whole package— quantity, quality, versatility, cultural impact as both singer/songwriter.
This book makes good on his contention about his songs. Collectively, in effect, they create a memoir. A remembrance of things past. Unveiled in an engaging way, of presenting songs in alphabetical order in lieu of adhering to chronology. It creates a more dynamic sense of the various aspects of the man, his life, his work, as it shuttles back and forth among Beatles, Wings and solo. And it's a good read, moving along briskly as it does. Despite having the heft (it's over nine pounds), of two coffee-table books piggy-backed.
A “Coffee-table book” is often pejoratively defined as, short on text… long on pictures. A superficial approach to the subject matter. Not the case here. Yes, there are over 600 images from McCartney’s personal archives, including handwritten lyrics, letters, memorabilia, ephemera, and hundreds of previously unseen photographs. But it’s the text (edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, who also wrote an introduction), that drives these two volumes. Revealing much along the way that was previously unknown. A renaissance man, McCartney is also an accomplished artist, composer, producer, poet and even a shearer of sheep, of all things.
pre November 2018
muse-letter \’myüz-‘le-tər noun
1: a personal message, inspired by a muse of one's own creation, addressed to a person or organization, in the course of which, the sender becomes absorbed in thought; especially turning something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively.
2: a letter from a poet, or one who envisions oneself as such, in which he or she “muses” on that which is perceived to be news, or newsworthy, usually in some ironic or absurd way.
Parts of the site under reconstruction
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Ron Vazzano
Ron Vazzano
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