Liverpool Daily Post
Andy Welch talks to Sir Paul McCartney after what was for him a great 08 – apart from that nasty divorce business
IT HAS been a busy old year for Sir Paul McCartney, all things considered. There were the concerts, including the celebratory homecoming show at Anfield – undoubtedly one of the highlights of Liverpool’s Capital of Culture year – and another, more controversial one, in Tel Aviv.
There was the premiere of his choral work, Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart) at Liverpool Cathedral, dedicated to his wife, Linda, not to mention him receiving his Ultimate Legend award from Bono at the MTV Awards in his home city.
Then there was his celebrated appearance with Peter Kay in the Bolton funnyman’s X Factor pastiche, which confirmed his sense of humour.
All that contributed to what was a great 08 for the former Beatle. But, of course, there was also that nasty divorce business that made it a bad year as well as a fab year. But the less said about that the better.
And then, last month, 66-year-old Sir Paul and long-time collaborator Youth – or Martin Glover, to give him his less enigmatic name – released the album Electric Arguments, under their Fireman moniker.
It’s no wonder Sir Paul is now looking forward to some time off.
“I get to a certain point, round about when the kids break up from school, and I think I should break up too.
“I don’t like the idea of keeping going while they’ve all stopped,” he jokes. “We should all stop and have a break.” Electric Arguments is the third album released by Sir Paul and Youth, although it’s the first to feature vocals from the former Beatle and Wings man.
Their previous two offerings, Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest and Rushes, were albums full of ambient instrumental music, with Sir Paul’s involvement only confirmed by then-label EMI after some time had passed.
Their latest work was written and recorded in “about 13 days,” or so, Sir Paul is told.
“We don’t count the days, we don’t bother with that,” he explains.
“We just go in the studio, my studio in Sussex, then if I’ve got a week spare I might do something, or we might leave it a week and then go in another day. It’s really when we’ve got time to work on it.”
The title of the album comes from an Allen Ginsberg poem, Kansas City To St Louis. Ginsberg and other Beat poets also provide inspiration elsewhere on the album.
It was Youth who first suggested the idea of having vocals on the album this time around, but Sir Paul, unprepared and without any lyrics written, wasn’t so sure.
“He knows me well enough now that, if he coaxes me a little bit, or just keeps quiet long enough, that I’ll say ’Go on then, I’ll try something’ once the idea is in my head,” he says of his musical partner and former Killing Joke bassist.
“So I excused myself to everyone in the studio, and explained that it could be a highly embarrassing moment for everyone, but got up and started singing some melodies.
“Then we started looking in poetry books,” he continues.
“We just wanted to find good- looking words, so that’s what I went for, inspirational words from people like Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg.”
The first song on the album to take shape was what became Travelling Light.
“I’d been listening to a CD of sea shanties, and Youth runs a folk label called Butterfly,” he begins.
“They put out these compilations called What The Folk, so he’d sent me them. As a result, Travelling Light is a folky sea shanty, and we took it from there.”
Next up was raucous opener Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight, which sounds like an updated version of Helter Skelter, from The Beatles’ White album.
“It was something an old friend of mine in the 60s, Jimmy Scott, used to say,” Sir Paul says.
“People were always saying things like ‘It’s too much, man, too much,’ and Jimmy would come back with ’Nothing too much just out of sight’. I told that to Youth, and he said ’Great, let’s have it’.”
It’s not the first song Jimmy sparked off, either.
“I’d meet Jimmy and say hi, and he’d say ’Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, man, life goes on,’ so he was the inspiration for that song too,” he says, referring to The Beatles’ 1968 track.
But why The Fireman? Why not just Sir Paul McCartney and Youth? It seems that surname can be something of mixed blessing.
“It can get in the way sometimes,” he says. “Your reputation walks ahead of you.
“Think of Sgt Pepper, that was the idea behind that album, too.”
Sir Paul has a habit of doing this. Just as you’ve gotten over the fact you’re talking to a quarter of The Beatles, and, as the Guinness Book Of Records states, the most successful musician and composer of all time, he throws in a reference to knock you off your feet. We talk about Get Back being “just a jam” and says “It’s like I used to say to John,” once or twice too. That’ll be John Lennon, then.
It also happens when the conversation might not be going as he wants, or there’s a lull in the chat. Whatever, it’s an effective tool to have in the arsenal.
“When we made that album, we became those characters,” he continues. “I mean, you’re not stupid, so you’re not really fooling yourself, but it’s enough of a trick to make you look at things differently.
“With Electric Arguments, I wasn’t stepping up to the microphone thinking ‘This is a Paul McCartney vocal, this must be a certain way’ – I was thinking ‘This can go any way, because this is The Fireman, and he can do anything he wants’.”
Despite having passed the 64 years he once mused upon in a Beatles song, Sir Paul clearly has no intention of slowing down.
Next year, he plans to start work on a feature-length animation of High In The Clouds, the children’s tale he wrote with Rupert/Frog Song collaborator Geoff Dunbar, and is currently in talks with an American studio to see that happen.
He’s also got a guitar concerto on the back burner, and of course, there’s always the issue of getting The Beatles catalogue onto iTunes.
The Fab Four’s work isn’t available online due to legal wrangling between the two companies concerned – Apple Inc, those behind iTunes and the iPod, and Apple Corps, the company Sir Paul set up with the rest of The Beatles in 1968 to look after their affairs and recordings.
“I hope it happens,” he says. “It’s out of our hands, really. It’s a business thing and there’s some gridlock somewhere.
“It’s the usual thing, when it’s a Beatles deal, it’s a big deal – it’s not like we’re just some new act.
“And when you’re talking about iTunes, obviously we’ve got to get a great deal,” he adds. “I think we’re right, because we’re The Beatles!”
“It’s being held up, but I definitely hope it comes through because a lot of people are interested and it’s about time it happened. We’ve been goofing around enough, so if you’re reading this, whoever’s holding it up, stop it!”
* ELECTRIC Arguments, by The Fireman, is out now.
Tags: paul_mccartney
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