Paul McCartney Archives - Page 4 of 11

September rambling: nothing to fear but Fear itself

Congrats to Dustbury on 3 million visits to his blog

Paraphrased from here: Bob Woodward’s book gets released this week. Donald Trump has nothing to fear but Fear itself

Someone inaccurately describes libel law

In a small Alabama town, an evangelical congregation reckons with God, Trump and the meaning of morality

The Weekly Sift: What should we make of “Anonymous”?

Rudy Giuliani’s theatrical, combative style of politics anticipated—and perfectly aligns with—his boss

The problem with the Left

‘Designing Women’ Creator Goes Public With Les Moonves War: Not All Harassment Is Sexual

Vlogbrothers: The Book Was Better? and the episode in which it turns out that John did not forget about Hank’s birthday

Stephen Colbert – The Rolling Stone Interview

Scientist robbed of Nobel Prize gets $3 million science award

Our local minor-league baseball team! The Tri-Cities ValleyCats lay claim to New York-Penn League’s top dogs

Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man: Mel Brooks in His 90s

You Should Always Put a Quarter on a Frozen Cup of Water Before a Power Outage

The perfect guide to the perfect gift

Comparative religion, squirrel division

Tony Isabella, “black Lightning”, and creator credit

Congrats to Dustbury on 3 million visits to his blog

Now I Know: A Really Bad Way to Become a Senator and The First Digital Camera (That Wasn’t) and Los Angeles’ One Waze Street and Who Kept the Dogs Out

Cut THIS cheese from your diet

The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut – Mark Twain, June 1876

MUSIC

Leonard Bernstein conducting Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring ballet

Elegy by Mark Camphouse, played by the United States Marine Band

Coverville 1231: Led Zeppelin Cover Story V and When the Levee Breaks – Zepparella

Coverville 1233: Cover Stories for Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse

Suppe overture. Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna

Train to Nowhere – The Champs (plus its B-side)

Weekend Diversion: Imagine Dragons

Ascending Bird – Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble

K-Chuck Radio: More Forgotten 1960’s Classics

The Sound of Silence – Harp Twins

Maria Bartiromo – Joey Ramone

Vibes – Vivian Green (no relation)

Mood Indigo – Ella Fitzgerald

Old Movie Stars Dance to Uptown Funk

Baroque Poultry in D major

Paul McCartney Breaks Down His Most Iconic Songs

The Top 20 Tom Petty songs

The many voices of late Thurl Ravenscroft

The graphic is courtesy of Amanda Peterson at Enlightened Digital

July Rambling #1: Even darkness must pass

Lin-Manuel Miranda and William Daniels Talk Hamilton and 1776

Sister Leslie is out of the hospital, as of ndependence Day. Still healing at home. More probably on July 23.

Flirting with Fascism

The Coming Collapse and Why It is Extraordinary

We Were Warned: What the Movie Villains Should Have Taught Us

As our democracy is dismantled right before their eyes, Americans remain silent

“America First” means China wins

During CBS interview, government agents chillingly showed up to intimidate former ICE spokesman

On July 4th Eve, Jeff Sessions Quietly Rescinds a Bunch of Protections for Minorities

If Pixar Made A DACA Movie

The retirement of Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy is as bad as it seems and Anthony Kennedy, You Are a Total Disgrace to America

Larry Kudlow is Never Ever Right

If You Think Basic Income is ‘Free Money’ or Socialism, Think Again

Turks Have Voted Away Their Democracy

Trust Issues, examining the state of trust in 2018

Fatal accidents, off-the-books workers, a union once run by a mobster. The rogue world of one of New York’s major trash haulers

That Property Down In Coeymans: The City of Albany is still trying to get rid of the proposed site of Jerry’s Dump

Tim Berners-Lee has seen his creation debased by everything from fake news to mass surveillance. But he’s got a plan to fix it

Radical Democrats Are Pretty Reasonable

Israeli airline says it will no longer accommodate Orthodox Jewish men who refuse to sit next to women

There’s some good in this world. And it’s worth fighting for

An Interview with Deborah Mends, UK College Diploma Graduate and Owner of Your Visual Mind – I first met my friend in the summer of 1977 in NYC

Atomic Roundtable: Harlan Ellison 1934-2018

Gene Editing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

How’s the Water?

Agent Zigzag

Geographical oddities

What to Do When an ATM Won’t Give You Any Money

The Counterfeit Queen of Soul

Lin-Manuel Miranda and William Daniels Talk Hamilton, 1776, Mr. Feeny, and More (2016)

Five Muppeteers explain how they operate their characters on Sesame Street

Shat!

Now I Know: When the Jazz Didn’t Stop Playing and How To Fool the World Starting with Two All-Beef Patties and The Macroeconomic Madness Behind Extra Cheesy Pizza

Yes! The Wedding of Winnie & Thomas

MUSIC

I Don’t Know – Paul McCartney
Come On To Me – Paul McCartney

We Are the World video, re-created by a bunch of talented folks from Broadway

Rasta Children – Playing for Change

First Burn (Hamilton)

Smells Like Karen Carpenter – Moneyshot Cosmonauts

Beautiful Life – Rick Astley

Coverville 1223: Cover Stories for George Michael, Men At Work, and Cyndi Lauper

K-Chuck Radio: Gorillaz in our midst and It’s All About That Bass

Friends don’t let friends clap on the 1 and 3 (Harry Connick Jr)

Beatles, especially Paul McCartney, on Quora

In the post-Beatles years, John acknowledged some appreciation for the Band On The Run album.

People ask a lot of questions about The Beatles on Quora. Seeing that it’s Paul McCartney’s 76th birthday – I get Macca’s newsletter every month – I thought I’d steal a few. You’ll find other, sometimes contradictory, answers as well, at the links.

Are there any Beatles songs that were written solely by Paul McCartney that were sung solely by John Lennon, and vice-versa?

Alex Johnston: “‘Every Little Thing’, on Beatles For Sale, was written entirely by McCartney but sung by Lennon, with backing vocals from McCartney and Harrison.”

What did the Beatles think of the Rolling Stones?

Alexander Chiltern: “Yes, they were friendly… A more attentive reading has suggested me that they had envy of each other, but specially The Beatles were very, very envious of the Stones.”

Which classic rock band has aged most embarrassingly?

Stanton Nicholas: “I’m going to commit a cardinal sin among Beatle-philes by suggesting that Paul McCartney is about ready to join this group if he doesn’t stop touring soon.” I saw him in 2014 and I thought he was great, FWIW.

Is there any band artistically better than the Beatles at any time?

Rosalind Mitchell: “The Beatles more or less wrote the rules for bands. It is also that no band has ever been do versatile.”

What are John Lennon’s favorite songs by Paul McCartney?

David Sylvester: “In John Lennon’s interview with Playboy in September 1980, he singled out several Paul songs for praise. These include:
All My Loving (‘it’s a damn good piece of work’)
Things We Said Today (‘Good song’)
For No One (‘one of my favorites of his’)
Yesterday (‘well done’)
Got To Get You Into My Life (‘one of his best songs’)
Hey Jude (‘one of his masterpieces’)
Why Don’t We Do It In The Road (I enjoyed the track’)
Oh Darling (‘a great one of Paul’s that he didn’t sing too well’)
Fixing A Hole (‘writing a good lyric’)
The Fool On The Hill (‘proving he can write lyrics’)

“In the post-Beatles years, John acknowledged some appreciation for the Band On The Run album, the song Monkberry Moon Delight, and notably Coming Up, which he fixated on in the summer of 1980.

I’m occasionally tempted to answer some of these queries, but time and, usually, a sufficient extant answer dissuades me. For instance, there are always questions about whether the Beatles will be remembered decades from now. There is no telling the future, but the preponderance of evidence, such as the sheer number of cover albums of their music being produced each year, suggests the answer is YES.

Here today – “I am holding back the tears no more”

You’d probably laugh and say
That we were worlds apart
If you were here today

The relationship among the Beatles is a very popular topic on the Quora website. Someone asked: If John Lennon were still alive, would he and Paul McCartney have patched up their differences?

It’s a reasonable question, given the number of post-breakup fight songs that were released by all four of the ex-Fabs, none quite as nasty as Lennon’s How Do You Sleep?, “an answer to Paul McCartney’s ‘Too Many People’ and a direct attack on his old friend.” It even features a slide guitar part played by George Harrison.

As all the respondents noted in one way or another, before he died, John had already resolved his relationship with Paul.

To a similar question, a writer notes: “It’s easy to see how Paul feels about John. Every time he sings “Here Today”, he wells up with tears. There was a lot of love between those two. Brothers always.”

Well, not every time; I’ve seen McCartney get through the song dry-eyed. But in this 2015 interview, around the time of what would have been John’s 75th birthday, Paul notes how he is surprised how affected he can sometimes become, singing the song he wrote back in 1981 about his late friend.

I remember that shortly after Lennon was murdered in 1980, someone put a microphone in front of McCartney’s face and asked him how he was feeling. Paul uttered something like, “It’s a real drag, man.” And he was criticized in some circles.

Stick a mic in front of any grieving person and one is like to find a lack of eloquence. That’s something I’ve been sharply aware of when reporters stalk out people after tragedy.

Listen to Here Today

Only tangentially related:

Coverville 1194: The 14th Annual All-Beatles Thanksgiving Cover Show

Ringo Starr does NOT support Roy Moore’s campaign – reference to “You’re Sixteen”

Labor woes: How it all began in America

June rambling #3: Macca and Brian Wilson are 75

Millennials are the most likely generation of Americans to use public libraries

Plastic pollution in Antarctica 5 times worse than expected

America’s Amazon Problem

Are You The Husband Or The Wife?

“The good advice my mom gave me that I still don’t like” published in The Lily by Margaret Sullivan

Rachel Maddow: The Rolling Stone Interview

Millennials are the most likely generation of Americans to use public libraries

Political Violence is Our Issue Too

Obama’s secret struggle to punish Russia for Putin’s election assault

Russian official linked to South Florida biker club spent millions on Trump condos

What, He worry?

John Oliver blasts ‘human megaphone’ for the anti-vaccine movement

Power Causes Brain Damage Over Time, leaders lose mental capacities—most notably for reading other people—that were essential to their rise

The Daily Show presents: THE DONALD J. TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL TWITTER LIBRARY

Nearly every outright lie he has told publicly since taking the oath of office

The Racist History of America’s Chinese Restaurant Boom

vlogbrothers: Cheyenne, Wyoming

The length of a dog’s memory

Total Solar Eclipse 2017: When, Where and How to See It (Safely)

Comedian Bill Dana, Who Played the Character Jose Jimenez, Dies at 92. He penned one of the funniest ‘All in the Family’ episodes. Plus the TV Academy has put together a very nice page about Bill Dana

Stephen Furst, who I watched on St. Elsewhere, died at the age of 63. Film director Kevin Smith wrote: “As an awkward round kid, Flounder was the Delta I most identified with in #AnimalHouse, my fave comedy.”

Speaking of Smith, he and TV writer Ken Levine do a podcast crossover, first on Smith’s here, then Levine’s here and here

What Play Finally Brought Tim and Tyne Daly Together Onstage?

Ace magician Misty Lee creates her new show

Leptospirosis Death Warning Hoax – Rat Urine on Soda Can Top

How To Make A Bedtime Snack

KFC to launch fried chicken sandwich into space

The redesigned Names.org offers origins, statistics and popularity rankings for people names. Users can search and compare the most popular names, find trending names and review various list of names by origin, region decade and more

Stop Sending Me Chain Letters Because They Can Be Dangerous! Also, VERY annoying

Arthur mentions unmentionables

Now I Know: The People Who Can’t Take Socks For Granted and China’s Extremely Personal Loans and Why Parisian Bakers Can’t Always Go On Vacation and The Hamburger on Display in a Canadian Legislature

How do they make cake sprinkles?

MUSIC

The Impressions – Gypsy Woman (1961)

Highway Tune – Greta Van Fleet

With A Little Help From My Friends – The Gibson Brothers Bluegrass

Surf’s Up – The Beach Boys

Coverville 1175: 75th Birthday Celebrations for Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson

Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 – Elgar

Tunes from c 1987

Musicians Look Back on the Albums They Don’t Remember Recording

You Can’t Do That! Making Of A HARD DAY’S NIGHT (1995)

Steve Earle: ‘My wife left me for a younger, skinnier, less talented singer’

Pet Sounds v. Sgt. Pepper