Category Archives: Paul McCartney

New Paul McCartney Single – (I Want To) Come Home

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Yesterday (9 March) Paul McCartney sent out an email via The Beatles mailing list officially announcing the worldwide download release of a new song called “(I Want To) Come Home”.

As I understand it, despite earlier rumours, the song won’t be available as a CD single but only as a download from iTunes, etc.  McCartney had previously announced the UK release on his own website earlier this month.

The ballad was written last year for the film “Everybody’s Fine” , starring Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore and Kate Beckinsale. Paul wrote and recorded the track after seeing an early screening and being asked to contribute a song by director Kirk Jones.  The film, which I haven’t seen yet, apparently ends with “(I Want To) Come Home” starting before the final credits roll. The song was nominated earlier this year for a Golden Globe Award. It didn’t win (that honour went to “The Weary Kind” from the film “Crazy Heart”), but its a tune that rewards a couple of listens: in typical McCartney fashion there’s a strong melodic hook that gets inside your head.

Here’s a nice official film clip of the song which has footage of Paul in the studio inter-cut with scenes from the movie:

Talking about the writing process Paul explained, “When I saw the film originally, I was just watching and enjoying it, when at the end I found that the director had, unbeknown to me, put in the place where he wanted the new song another song of mine: ‘Let It Be’ sung by Aretha Franklin.  I kind of left the theatre thinking well, I can’t write another ‘Let It Be’ and I can’t sing like Aretha much as I want to, so I might have to pass.  But that evening, I came back from dinner and started doodling with some chords and I had an idea and it all grew from there.”

The WogBlog also has a fair bit more detail on the song and its creation if you are interested.

Klaus Voormann – A Sidesman’s Journey

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One of the great artists and session men and part of the inner-circle of the Beatles for many years is Klaus Voormann.

He’s been a long-time friend and sometime collaborator and he has an album out looking back and celebrating that association with the group. I stumbled across this video which pretty much tells the back story to the making of the record, which is called “A Sidesman’s Journey”:

As you can see “A Sideman’s Journey” features guest appearances by Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, as well as Beatle-related songs like George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” – here sung by Yusef Islam (Cat Stevens).

Voormann has known the Beatles since the Hamburg days and is an artist and bass player. For example, he drew the legendary cover for “Revolver”:

The Beatles - Revolver (1966)

Later Voormann also played bass on numerous Beatles solo projects including, amongst many others,  Lennon’s “Walls and Bridges” and “Imagine”, Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass” and “Concert for Bangladesh”, and on the Ringo solo outings “Ringo” and “Goodnight Vienna”.  He was a founding member of the Plastic Ono Band.  See his biog entry in Wikipedia here.

Voormann’s new CD is made up of newly-recorded covers of some of the songs he helped make famous with the former Beatles plus many other artists over the years.

Well worth a listen.

Composing Outside the Beatles – DVD

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Despite the somewhat literal and unimaginative title, this recent release is a really a very interesting documentary study of John Lennon and Paul McCartney’s careers immediately following the break-up of the Beatles.

I’d read about this DVD by chance and had been looking around on Ebay for a copy. I dropped in to my favourite shop – Red Eye Records – and there it was on the shelf for a reasonable price. Well, reasonable compared to the prices I’d seen for British or US copies on Ebay, plus postage, plus the uncertainty of “will it ever arrive?”….a bird in the bush as they say.

So, I got it at Red Eye, and watched it last weekend – which was a wet weekend and perfect for being a couch potato and settling in in front of the TV for a couple of hours.

Nicely put together, it traces the first few years of Lennon and McCartney trying to make their ways as solo entities outside the protective shell that used to be the Beatles. It compares them as composers and performers, examining their early singles and album releases. There is much more time and effort during the documentary placed on John Lennon’s output than that of Paul – but this is probably because the overall theory of the documentary is that Lennon was by far doing more serious and worthy work, and being more commercially successful than his former band-mate and co-writer.

There are nice shots of original album covers and single releases as the discussion panel (which includes Klaus Voorman, Paul Gambaccini, drummers Alan White and Denny Seiwell, and writers Johnny Rogan, John Blaney and Steve Turner amongst others) commenting on and appraising the relative strengths and weaknesses of each solo release between 1967 and 1972.

The front cover of "Composing Outside the Beatles"

The packaging of the DVD is impressive. It’s in the digi-pack style with opening “pages” revealing the DVD disc inside. It is glossy and has good production values with great photos and printed information.

The DVD cover open to the first of the tri-folds

Its a tri-fold digi-pack that finally opens out like this:

The tri-fold inner fully open

As you can see they have really taken some care with the presentation, including printing the DVD disc itself so that it matches the printing of the inner cover exactly. Here’s the rear cover:

The rear cover of "Composing Outside the Beatles"

So, “Composing Outside the Beatles” really has a strong slant towards John – both in the comments by the interviewees and the ratio of time spent on each. But maybe this is just a reflection on the times where Paul was struggling to be a musician outside the Beatles while John appeared to leap into it with a bit more style (as well as critical and commercial success). If you are interested there’s a further review here.

Goodbye, Abbey Road

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I just got home and opened my emails to find this post by Brandonblog, a guy who writes with great wit and authority on music matters. Couldn’t really say it better myself, so here are Brandon’s words as-is:

Just heard news of the ultimate bit of Beatles memorabilia, although, you can bet it isn’t about to be offered on ebay.

If Michael Jackson were still around, he’d probably be vying for it but, most likely, it will go to some cashed-up entrepreneur who will want to open it up for tours. Let’s hope it isn’t turned into a restaurant: “Would sir like the Savoy Truffle? Or, the Yellow Matter Custard, perhaps?”

Anyhoo, for better or worse – and I fear it may be the latter – EMI is about to sell the historic Abbey Road Studios where the Fabs recorded the greater bulk of their astonishing legacy.

But it wasn’t just The Beatles who recorded there. Abbey Road also played host to the likes of Pink Floyd who delivered their landmark opus, ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’ in those hallowed studios.

How cool would it be if the British Government chipped-in for it and registered Abbey Road with The National Trust? Former Kinks frontman, Ray Davies recently lamented the gradual disappearance of his city’s iconic landmarks in the song he recorded with Chrissie Hynde, “Postcard From London”.  Imagine what he must think of this.

In it’s current financial predicament, I can’t blame EMI one bit but if Abbey Road is allowed to disappear, or to be so transformed as to become virtually unrecognizable, then England will lose something of significant cultural value.

Let’s hope not. 

Brandon accompanied his post with this groovy photograph – an angle of the boys in concert that I’d certainly never seen before…

Paul McCartney Now & Then – Part Two

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OK. This is where I have to admit that my Beatles collection might be getting a little out of hand….

One of the most visited pages in this Beatles Blog so far has been one I wrote in October last year when I picked up a paperback version of a book called “Paul McCartney – Now and Then”.  You can view this entry here if you missed it. For some reason a lot of people have visited that particular blog page.

I was sitting at the computer the other day and just glanced up at a bookshelf nearby. The shelf I was looking at contains a lot of the Beatles or Beatles-related books I’ve acquired over the years. I suddenly found myself staring at the cover of a book called, wait for it, “Paul McCartney – Now and Then”…….not the paperback one I’d posted about earlier, but the original hardback edition. I’d forgotten I had it!

Its in a larger format and has a different cover to the paperback:

Now and Then (Hardback Edition, 2004)

Here are the two books side-by-side:

Now and Then (2004 Hardback, with 2006 Softback edition on right)

If you’d like a peek inside the hardback version, Amazon UK has one of those “click to look inside” features for the book.

The fact that I only just realised I had two different copies of this book is making me worried….

SEE ALSO: Paul McCartney – Now and Then – Part One

Good Evening New York City (Deluxe Ed) – Unboxing Pics

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OK. I know this Paul McCartney release has been out a while now….but there’s a story behind why I am so late in showing you some un-boxing pics of my copy of the Deluxe Edition.

I ordered this online via Paul McCartney’s very own website pretty much the day it came out. It was released in the US on November 17 and in the UK on November 23. However, my copy didn’t make it into my mailbox until mid-January. I had a lot of correspondence with the McCartney organisation, plus the company they hired to carry out online distribution of the disc, trying to find out what the delay was and where my order had got to. It really was a lot of hassle over what I thought should have been a quick and easy transaction – especially since I’d ordered it directly from the official site….

I have to say though that it was worth the wait. For US$23.99 it is a fair bit of product for your money. Now that I actually have Good Evening New York City I’m very impressed with the packaging, plus you get 2 CDs and 2 DVDs of content. It comes in a thick hardback book-style that is taller than a standard CD:

Carefully cutting open the plastic cover

I always like to cut around and keep any stickers on the outside packaging:

GENYC Sticker

As you can see in the photo below the Deluxe version is in a hardback format and the spine is quite thick:

The "spine" of the CD/DVD package

Inside the plastic on the rear is a cardboard insert listing all the songs featured in the two concert CDs and DVD. A lot of people would just throw this insert away but I’ll be hanging onto it (for more reasons than that I just like to keep this sort of stuff – see below). I’ll just slip it in amongst the pages inside:

The loose rear card

If you look really closely you’ll see a little surprise I got when opening this one up. Despite this package taking ages to get to me, and after many complaint letters, they’ve actually sent me  (I guess accidentally) a PROMO copy of the disc! Go figure. Check out the close-up of the sticker on the rear card:

The sticker saying "Promo Only - Not For Sale"

Inside the hardback Deluxe version is a 40-page book with lots of great photos and an essay by Michael Azerrad:

Book open to pages 12 and 13

There is a re-worked shorter version of this essay in the Standard edition. The Deluxe version also has some amazing fold-out double pages with photo montages and historic shots of the Beatles at the old Shea Stadium, and McCartney playing the brand new Citi Field stadium – which is practically on the same site:

The Deluxe version gets some double fold-out pages in the book

Each CD gets a baseball image and signature in different colours:

Sticking with the Citi Field theme - baseball CD's

The DVD’s also get the baseball look (these all slip into the cardboard pockets you can see inside the front and rear covers):

The two DVDs

One DVD is the entire concert filmed live over two nights. The other is a bonus DVD featuring Paul McCartney and band’s appearance live on the Late Show with David Letterman where they played out in the open before a huge crowd, perched on an awning above the street outside the Ed Sullivan Theatre TV studios. The performance is an echo of the famous Beatles final roof-top concert of 1969…. If you’d like a peak at some of the Letterman material have look here.

Finally, a comparison photo of the Deluxe Edition (2 CDs and 2 DVDs) alongside the Standard Edition (2 CDs and 1 DVD):

Deluxe alongside Standard

How the Beatles Recorded Their Music

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Have you ever wondered how the Beatles actually pieced together the masterpieces, instrument-by-instrument, track-by-track?

Well, here’s a fantastic insight thanks to blogger Andy Baio who has posted some all-too brief extracts from what looks to be a fascinating BBC 6 radio documentary called “The Record Producers: Extended Cut”.

The BBC was given free access to the original multi-track recordings of some of the Beatles most famous music, and the radio show begins to pick apart how the songs we know so well now were made in the studio way back when.

Andy has three short extracts from the show on his blog: “She’s Leaving Home”, “A Day In The Life”, and “Come Together”. Each of them is just amazing in the insights they give. Really worth a listen.

As Andy says, unfortunately the original BBC broadcasts are no longer available on their site.

Anyone who has access to where we can find the whole program please let us all know!

More on the Beatles 2009 “Christmas Pack” – Another Variation Exists

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Before Christmas I wrote about Apple/EMI putting together a small box set containing four of the most popular of the new stereo remasters.

I decided as it was a variation in an officially produced box that it’d be worth having in the collection. I found a place in the UK on Ebay that was selling them for a reasonable price (quite a bit cheaper than my local record shops) and so I got one. Who knows, maybe one day it might become a collectable because these were only produced in limited numbers as I understand it.

It arrived the other day – here’s the front view of the box:

Beatles "Christmas Pack" Box Front

And here is the rear:

Beatles "Christmas Pack" Box Rear

I can’t show you the CD’s inside because I’m going to keep this one sealed.

Well, the other day I was in the city and called in to one of the best independent record shops going around – Red Eye Records. They’re great and stock a wide variety of hard-to-get music from around the world. If they haven’t got it they’ll search for you and order it in too. Anyway, while there I saw that they had quite a few copies of what at first appeared to be this same box set up on the shelves behind the counter.

Just out of curiosity (I guess to confirm that I’d got a good deal!) I asked what the price was. The assistant said “Those? Oh, they’re just empty boxes. The record company gave them to us to give to people who bought a few Beatles stereo remasters as something to put them in as gifts. We’ve got a lot of them left over. You can have one if you want.” I thought, well one might be handy to have in case any other remasters come my way, or it could store any Beatles CDs really.

Also, something about the box looked a bit different, though I couldn’t figure out what straight away in the shop, and so I took up the offer. It wasn’t until I got home and compared it to the box above that I realised it was quite different. Here’s the front of the free box:

Beatles "Gift Box" Front

Notice just an Apple logo instead of the four small stereo remasters cover images on the other box. And the rear is different, too:

Beatles "Gift Box" Rear

All the cover images for the entire remasters series are shown.

So, a genuine little gift box that can be used for multiples of any of the new re-issue series. And another collectors item?

Big Price set for Rare “Butcher” Cover

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Earlier this week I posted an item about a rare, first-state copy of the Beatles “Yesterday and Today” famous butcher cover which was up for auction on Ebay.

Well, it sold for a pretty impressive price.

Have a look here for the results.

McCartney Mail on Sunday Free Live CD

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Here’s a heads-up if you live in the UK.

This coming weekend (Sunday January 17, 2010) the British newspaper the Mail on Sunday will contain a free giveaway CD of Paul McCartney live tracks.

All the songs on the CD have been chosen by Paul McCartney, and he apparently designed the CD cover art himself  (which, by the way, is based largely on a previous limited edition live 12 inch record he released in 2007 called “Amoeba’s Secret” – more on this below). However, as the Mail on Sunday says, this new giveaway will be “….a CD that is unavailable anywhere else”.  The cover will look like this:

Mail on Sunday - free giveaway - front cover

Mail on Sunday - free giveway - rear cover

The free CD will feature seven Beatle songs – including “I Saw Her Standing There”, “Lady Madonna”, “Get Back”, “Blackbird” and “Hey Jude”,  as well as five of McCartney’s solo compositions. So, twelve tracks in all. That makes it quite different to any previous releases and therefore a collectable item for Beatles fans. From what I can tell from the info so far, the songs all come from a live gig recorded at the huge Amoeba record store in Los Angeles. Of the twelve tracks to be given away free this Sunday, only five have been previously released: “Only Mama Knows”, “That Was Me”, “I Saw Her Standing There” and “C Moon” on the limited edition 12 inch “Amoeba’s Secret” (2007) and CD (2009), and “Dance Tonight”, which was a bonus live song on the CD single for “Ever Present Past” (2007). Therefore all the additional tracks are bonuses.

As well, this Sunday’s “Live” magazine will feature an interview with McCartney with some previously unseen backstage pictures.

As you can see the artwork is very similar to the original used for both the vinyl and CD covers of “Amoeba’s Secret”:

"Amoeba's Secret" - limited edition - front cover

Its not the first time McCartney has teamed with the Mail on Sunday though.

On Sunday 18 May, 2008 his 13 track album “Memory Almost full” was given away free to millions of readers. It was essentially identical to the officially released version of the album of the same name, just with much simpler packaging.

Mail on Sunday - "Memory Almost Full" free giveaway - front cover

Mail on Sunday "Memory Almost Full" free giveaway - disc image

As you can see in the pics above, the cover contains the Mail On Sunday logo, which is also on the disc itself. Both contain the words “For Promotional Use Only – Not For Sale”. The “Live” magazine supplement that came with the previous week’s Mail on Sunday newspaper included a track-by-track analysis by Paul and exclusive photos of him too.

Following on from McCartney’s “Memory Almost Full” giveaway CD, the Mail On Sunday also gave away a free John Lennon CD on January 18, 2009.

Unlike McCartney’s freebie though, which was his most recent studio album, Lennon’s is a selection (12 tracks) of greatest hits and album tracks – largely taken from the official best-of CD release “Working Class Hero – The Definitive John Lennon”. Like the “Memory Almost Full” CD, the Lennon release came in a similar small cardboard sleeve:

Mail on Sunday - "John Lennon" free giveaway - front cover

Mail on Sunday - "John Lennon" free giveaway - rear cover