Paul McCartney - McCartney (1970) - Part Five

ALBUM 1 - Paul McCartney - McCartney (1970)

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MP3 / CD / SPECIAL EDITION  
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1. The Lovely Linda
2. That Would Be Something
3. Valentine Day
4. Every Night
5. Hot As Sun / Glasses
6. Junk
7. Man We Was Lonely
8. Oo You
9. Momma Miss America
10. Teddy Boy
11. Singalong Junk
12. Maybe I'm Amazed
13. Kreen-Akrore

The next song on the album is the country tinged Man We Was Lonely, another song which speaks of the troubles that Paul McCartney was going through at the time.  Actually in truth it’s about the McCartney’s a family.

Paul in particular was used to the bubble that surrounded The Beatles, as were the other members.  Now though the bubble had burst.  They were all affected by it to some point, but Paul even more so.  He had recorded as a sessionist and producer for other artists (Steve Miller, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Donovan, etc), but he was for all intents and purpose, not sure what to do because he only knew The Beatles and had taken charge almost.  Lennon had even given him the snide nickname of “Beatle Head” as evidenced in the Imagine film when John & George are chatting at John’s dinner table.

All three of the others had also already released their own solo material, which Paul hadn’t.  The other three were still very much in touch, and even worked on Lennon’s material.  Paul and Linda were very much left to themselves by everyone, including Apple Records (The Beatles’ own record company).

As per usual, he has come up with a veiled lyric which speaks of someone who lived on the “fast city line”, which he did, and of singing songs he thought were his alone.  Perhaps I’m going somewhere unintended, but maybe that is to do with the fact that almost all of Lennon and McCartney’s songs were now the property of somebody else after the publishing company who owned them was sold to Lew Grade of ATV, and then, in a cruel twist, were bought by Michael Jackson in 1984.  I do actually feel for them with because I would hate it if I were in their shoes.  It’s rather like you making a child and then someone coming to say “thank you, but we’ll take that now.”  I know, but it’s the only example I could think

The chorus is not veiled though, because it admits that they were “hard pressed to find a smile”.  It wasn’t a downbeat chorus though, because the upshot was that now they were “fine all the while.”  They had got through it all and, Macca admitted, that it was the last song recorded for the album.  Perhaps working on the album was like catharsis and sorted him out?

The lyrics are perhaps a little lazy considering that he has effective written a single verse, but all in all the song does work and I enjoyed recording my own version of it.

It is in the key of A major technically, although again the chords he uses are very clever with their out of key notes.  By now that has become de rigueur.

The opening of the song is basically only there, with a variation of the same for the ending.  Otherwise this part is nowhere else in the song – we can call that the “Special Introduction”.  Again as mentioned before, it is a trick that he uses time and again.  Rather than just starting the song immediately, he is giving the listener an experience.  Here it is an opening phrase of A13, D/A, Dmadd9/A, and A, then repeated except for the fourth chord being the A6 for the song’s chorus.  The intro alone features a Dm9 which has an F (flattened 6th in A major).

The chorus then is straight A major fare with A6 and E, plus the note run of E, F# and G#, with the surprises being in the verse music.  That starts with Am7, which is obviously A minor and not major, then B which features a D# note (sharpened 4th in A major scale), then E, then Am7, D, Em (which features a G note that is the flattened 7th in A major scale), and finally Am7, D, Em, Am7, B7, and a version of E played at the ninth fret (bar strings 2, 3 and 4 at 9th, string one at the 12th fret, and just play those four strings), and then the run.

To end the song he does a variation of the opening, but this time with A13, D/A, Dmadd9, A7 (the seventh being a G – flattened seventh note), and then A13, D/A, Dmadd9, and A.  To get the right feel for intro and ending you could use two guitars – one plays the chord letting it ring out while the other plays an arpeggio of the chords basically.

As I said I enjoyed performing this song and it has a nice feel good factor to it.  Maybe it could have done with a proper second verse, but that’s being picky.  It is a decent album track.

The next song on the album is the bluesy number Oo You. 

Links -
My version of 'Man We Was Lonely'Paul McCartney Chord songbook at Amazon UK

Paul McCartney - McCartney (1970) - Part Four

ALBUM 1 - Paul McCartney - McCartney (1970)

UK Amazon -
MP3 / CD / SPECIAL EDITION 
US Amazon -
MP3 / CD / SPECIAL EDITION 

1. The Lovely Linda
2. That Would Be Something
3. Valentine Day
4. Every Night
5. Hot As Sun / Glasses
6. Junk
7. Man We Was Lonely
8. Oo You
9. Momma Miss America
10. Teddy Boy
11. Singalong Junk
12. Maybe I'm Amazed
13. Kreen-Akrore

Now we come to a song that is an absolute quandary to me.  The question I have is how the heck was it not included on any of the last three Beatles albums?

Junk was written in 1968 while The Beatles were on a break in Rishikesh, which initially was written using an alternate tuning on the guitar.  A demo of this was recorded at George Harrison's house, along with other songs that were put forward for what became the album The Beatles ("The White Album"), and is featured on the Beatles Anthology series of CD's.

Macca changed the music drastically for the version featured on the album which uses standard tuning, but with some very inventive chord changes.  So much so that a few choice words came from my mouth while I was trying to perfect the song.

I did "hmm" and "ah" over whether to cover this version or the original demo version, but ended up picking this version because, quite frankly, I wasn't about to let it get the better of me!  There are also some bloody great chords that I could pilfer.

So much thought went into this song, with the chords working around the melody so beautifully.  It works so well in fact that he repeats the song later on the album with an instrumental version entitled Singalong Junk, which was apparently take 1 of the song.  I still don't personally understand why that was on there, but in a way you get used to it.

The album version is played in the key of A major, although there are chords thrown in such as in the verses there are a C#7/E#, which features an E# note (a sharpened fifth in the scale of A major) and also a Em7/A, which features a G note (flattened seventh in the key of A major).  In the chorus you have the D7sus4 according to the book, but the Dsus4 works.  The 7 in the D is a C note, which is a flattened third in A major scale, and then the D minor chord features an F note, which is a flattened sixth in the A major scale.

In summary then you have the verse of F#m, C#7/E#, F#m/E, Dmaj7 (which is held onto), and then the Em7/A to the A chord.  To someone who doesn't play that sounds like gibberish, but to a guitarist it is a structure which, when perfected, makes you metaphorically pat yourself on the back.

The chorus then is D7sus4 to Dm to A, which is held until the run of E, F#m7, E7/G#, A, E7/B and A/C#.  The second part of the chorus is basically the same, except that it misses the E7/B and the A/C#.  Even Harrison must have been impressed when he heard the finished piece with regard to the chord work, because I am sure that they were all keeping an eye on each other's careers.

As you can see from the chorus chords, there is a fantastic use of the bass notes in them, where it is an ascending line for the run (E F# G# A B C#).  It is a beautiful touch where essentially the guitar is playing everything for the song - melody, harmony, bass line, everything.

Musically it is far more inventive than anything that Lennon would do for the rest of his career, and lyrically it is clever in the same way as Lennon's Mr Kite, but this is completely original whereas Lennon was reading from a poster he bought in a second hand store.  I'm not putting down Mr Kite there by the way, because I really love that song.

Lyrically he is being sentimental and dreamy about the subject at hand.  He's giving a list of items on the junk yard, and then explaining that there's a sign up advertising items for sale and at what price, as well as wondering "why why" some of the items are even there at all - why would someone get rid of them?

To be honest though, you don't really need the lyrics, because the music and melody itself are timelessly so beautiful.  I will say though that it is one of a few songs on here that are great songs, whereas some could have done with more work, or even left out altogether.  But, the fact that there are all sorts on the album does show a lot of facets of Paul McCartney.  This song itself is McCartney at his best.

The next song we will be looking at it the country tinged Man We Was Lonely.

Links -
Paul performing Singalong Junk live on MTV Unplugged
Cover version of 'Junk' with vocals by Dean Leivers and guitars by myself.
Paul McCartney Chord songbook at Amazon UK