Paul McCartney - McCartney (1970) Part Ten

Album 1 - Paul McCartney - McCartney (1970)

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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

Now we come to the last song on Paul's début album, and what a distinctive finish it is.  In some ways it highlights the whole approach of the album perfectly.  The whole set is topped and tailed by experimentation essentially.

The album starts with a test of the equipment apparently with The Lovely Linda, and here it is finished by one of the most experimental pieces in his entire solo catalogue.  I put it that way because things such as The Fireman and Twin Freaks are pseudonyms that he hid behind to a point.  Even the Electric Arguments under the pseudonym of The Fireman was pretty much straight McCartney considering that he even went out promoting it as if it were a fully fledged solo album, and in fact it could very easily be seen as McCartney 3 in my book, even featuring the brilliance of Sing The Changes, which is classic McCartney.  But again I digress as per my usual self.

He said that the idea behind this last song (Kreen Akrore) on his debut album came from him watching a programme on television about a Brazilian tribe, where at one point they were doing their native music with the traditional drums, chanting and such.  He took inspiration from this and decided to come up with something in a similar vein.  He even named the piece after the tribe from the television programme that he had watched.

In essence he is experimenting to try and work out where to go now that The Beatles had finished.  The album in a way is just that.  There are obvious left-overs from that time, but for the most part it is made up of tracks like this where he is trying out something to see where it would take him.

To start things off he was recording at Morgan Studios and began this song by just coming up with drum patterns, possibly with ideas in his head as to what he would add.  To this he added piano, guitar and organ to the first part.  A later section of the piece that was similar had the same added, but with two guitars rather than one.  Elsewhere there is multi-tracked vocalised animal noises, chanting and the like from Paul and Linda.  Finally there is an actual bow and arrow sound (the bow broke in the process), a stampeding animals sound that is basically Paul (and maybe Linda) patting a guitar case.  There was a recording made apparently of a fire that was started in the studio, but not used.  Nowadays I think that health and safety would have something to say about that!

Oh, I almost forgot.  The drums on the piece are actually two takes at the same time by the way, which would explain a lot.  This isn't something new, but it does give it a very interesting sound considering the use of stereo on show.

It is an interesting piece, especially if you take it in context as an experimental piece.  McCartney said that the piece is supposed to signify "the sound of a hunt", which I think it does very well.  It isn't supposed to be Yesterday, Eleanor Rigby, She's Leaving Home, or of that sort of ilk.  To compare it to such would be understandable, but not getting the point.  It would be like people sitting down and comparing Lennon's Revolution 9 to In My Life, Norwegian Wood (itself featuring a some lines written by McCartney as Lennon helped McCartney on Eleanor Rigby), and Julia (an underrated gem of a song).


Links -
1. Me performing a section of Kreen Akrore
2. Zongadude performing Kreen Akrore live.
3. Paul McCartney Chord songbook at Amazon UK