Paul wrote some meaningful lyrics- sometimes deceptively so, like ' Silly Love Songs' -and stripped back demo-like work like 'Ram On' and 'Dear Friend.' He seems most profound when talking about very personal relationships, like with John, like with Linda. I love the vulnerablity of "Maybe I'm Amazed" but lyrically, it's just a bit deeper than a nice Hallmark card. It's the music that takes it above and beyond- I can feel what his lyrics suggest, all over.
I don't find his pop 70s offerings, particularly philosophical or cerebrally-challenging. In December, 2020, however, I preferred his music to attempting a deep dive into Christmas spirit. I didn't feel hostile towards Christmas- I didn't want to reject it, anymore than I would a dear friend. But I did trade in that seasonal festivity and its stories to be cocooned in McCartney's catchy tunes of another time. I liked the rock sounds of "Junior's Farm" instead. His work is geared more towards relaxing, unwinding and having a good time. His live releases are slick!
The last week of December, I really loaded up on cuts from John's stark solo premier. John, to me, is often at his best using Art to unsettle you- or conversely, you could say he's providing kinshp for people whose minds rebel against more typical bourgeousie strictures. He can put into music things you're not allowed to express in most general company here in the deepest Red State district of Georgia. You can believe in whatever traditions and structures make your personal meanings in life, bold. However, it's good to have those beliefs, not out of a dedication to close-mindedness, but having the growth as a person to listen to an appeal to open your mind, about how you come to that relation.
Conversely, John could be professional and craftsman-like: 'Whatever Gets You Through the Night,' I also like him when he merges catchy pop-rock sounds and fun with his wry word play and counter-cultural point of view, like the song "Nobody Told Me"- an unfinished song that Yoko completed and released to become John's last new Top 10 hit, in 1984. I feel like, in his paens to his marriage and his adoration of his son Sean (he did reunite with Julian during his 'Lost Weekend' phase), he may not be stodgy, but he does capture the maturity to appreciate the benefits of domestic bliss. Better than angst-ridden, brain-pickling penders, anyway.
But generally, "Jet" and "God" embody the way I think of their decade of solo work.
"Jet" had a title inspired, depending on when you ask, by either Paul's Labrador, or his pony. He puts together sounds, with little regard for coherent logic. There's some kind of love-longing and admiration for some breath-taking woman who embodies the inspiration of Passion- a song about The Muse. But what is this nonsense about your father, the Sargeant Major? Even 'suffragette' is only there as a play on 'Jet.' He's on record saying, with this and other songs, don't bother looking for a complex allegory and deeper meaning. This is why I continue to be comfortable singing the bridge with "Darth Vader" and "light saber," or as my wife put it, "Ralph Nader." They mean just as much as the use of 'mater,' Latin for 'mother.'
When John uses "Mother" it's often about his profound alienation as a child. The one time he has fun with it, he doesn't mean mother in the sense of 'mater' at all- it's "most peculiar, mama"- when he's having so much fun, also (like Paul in Jet, playing with sounds of words) playing word games, in "Nobody Told Me," like a take-off on "Mama told me there'd be days like this." He challenges the way we define God in "God." He rejects the mass movements and most idoltarized figures of the 60s, only to land squarely in the humility of his true identity, beneath all the mythologizing that went with being a Beatle.
His choice of "God" as title and subject is as deliberate as Paul's choice of the word "Jet" as title and subject are haphazard. "Jet" is all about the euphoric emotions whipped up by the music. "God" is as introverted, wistful and personal as "Jet" is extroverted, jubilant and made for the purpose of a commercially-viable single. Not that Paul set out to write a single, there- I don't wish to slight his creative process. He was just following his stoned Muse. "God" is, however dour and stark, not without joy, either, because in the end, John finds warmth in his existential crisis- even if he is ever-so melancholy for those who needed and used "The Dream" in establishing meanings. After all, were we not all simply searching, now as in the 60s?
However shallow and adolescent one might judge the modern era, there is also very nearly an even stronger surge in cultural revolution. Social consciousness may've seemed secondary if you look at 70s pop culture, but mourning for its demise was premature.
There may be no end of absurdity and dance challenges on Tik Tok, but the conversations that were part of the counter-cultural zeitgeist have a much-wider audience among the young people of today. It's McCartney, but it's Lennon, too. Welcome to the new decade- 'May it begin strongly with efforts of Hope and Light!'- The Marc Kane
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