(Personal reflections inspired by Beatles songs)
Song: “Live and Let Die”
Album: Released as a single
Release Date: June 1973
Pete Townshend once took a stab at defining Rock and Roll:
"If it screams for truth rather than help, if it commits itself with a courage it can't be sure it really has, if it stands up and admits that something is wrong but doesn't insist on blood, then its rock and roll."
I embrace this definition. There are many popular songs that sound like rock music, but in the end if you can’t assign that underlying meaning to the song, then in my mind it’s on the outside looking in. There has to be some risk involved. Some juicy element that makes the listener ponder. An angle on hope or yearning. Songs with these elements will survive the test of time. The others will just fade away (if they have not done so already).
Somewhat randomly off the top of my head I thought of a cross-section-list of songs that would, on musical merits alone, fall in the genera of Rock and Roll. However, in terms of Pete Townshend’s definition, some of these songs may not necessarily fit the criterion. Which ones do and which ones don’t? …
“Mr. Tambourine Man” (Bob Dylan); “Johnny B Goode” (Chuck Berry); “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (Queen); “Have a Cigar” (Pink Floyd); “Purple Haze” (Jimi Hendrix); “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Nirvana); “Slip Kid” (Who); “White Punks on Dope” (Tubes); “Southern Man” (Neil Young); “Dude Looks Like a Lady” (Aerosmith); “Smoke on the Water” (Deep Purple); “What’s the Matter Here” (10,000 Maniacs); “Willie the Wimp” (Stevie Ray Vaughan); “Stairway to Heaven” (Led Zeppelin); “It’s Only Rock and Roll” (Rolling Stones); “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” (AC/DC); “Back on the Chain Gang” (Pretenders); “Up on Cripple Creek” (Band); “London Calling (Clash); “Rock Lobster” (B-52’s); “Lola” (Kinks); “Come Together” (Beatles).
I’ll let you be the judge on that list (for me, three of them fail and one teeters on the border), but I will weigh in on one song for this entry, which may give some insight to my stances on that cross-section list. That song is “Live and Let Die” by Paul McCartney and Wings. I’ve been thinking about this tune in context with the Pete Townshend definition of Rock and Roll all week. In fact, I’ve been thinking about this off and on all year. Indeed, “Live and Let Die” has been percolating in my head throughout this entire Fab Foundations series. I can’t explain why, but it has. It was never about whether this McCartney hit is a great song, which is my standard reason for choosing any given composition for my weekly narrative (although I do believe it is a very good song). No, it was always about that Pete Townshend-initiated “is it Rock and Roll or is it not” question.
Paul and Linda McCartney wrote “Live and Let Die” for the 1973 James Bond movie of the same name. It actually takes top billing, opening the film in grand fashion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBC1FquIrZo). Was it composed just for the fun of it? To make a bit of cash on the side? To booze and schmooze with Hollywood royalty? I’m not ruling those options out as being part of the McCartney’s motivation. But there are elements at play here that lead me to believe there is more to it than that.
Well alrighty then, does “Live and Let Die” fit Pete Townshend’s meaning of a rock song”? My initial inclination was “on the contrary”. After all, this song declares shallow human traits, including those of being cutthroat, self-centered and defeatist. The title of the song alone is sinister enough, and the lyrics back it up. Take this line: “what does it matter to ya, when you got a job to do ya gotta do it well. You gotta give the other fella hell!”. Earlier in the song it’s as if the protagonist gives up on being compassionate. Yow! Yes, the music is powerful, but all-in-all does the song “stand up and admit that something is wrong”? Does it “commit itself with a courage it can’t be sure it really has”?
In actuality yes, it does (in a veiled sort of way).
Sometimes a song needs to tell the truth by taking the counterpoint/low-road position. Randy Newman is a master at it, having composed brilliant tunes such as “Political Science”, “Short People” “Yellow Man” and “Its Money that Matters”. These songs are all from the perspective of the anti-hero. However, when you think about it, what better way to point out the nasty than to take on the musical roll yourself?
Paul McCartney is the last musician I would have expected to write the lyrics to a rock song like “Live and Let Die” though. I mean, the guy is the consummate believer, isn’t he? This is why “Live and Let Die” can be so strange to hear if you know anything about the musician who penned it (even if the song was written for a spy movie). Does this sound like McCartney:
“When you were young
And your life was an open book
You used to say live and let live
(you know you did you know you did you know you did)
But if this ever changin’ world in which we live in
Makes you give in and cry
Say live and let die”
It shows me that Paul McCartney is more complex than what many Rock music fans give him credit for. Here’s an interesting thought: Which Beatle stood for the meaning of the utopian 60s the most? Maybe it was George with his spiritual awakening? Or John with his political stance for peace? Perhaps it was Ringo with his ability to always bring out the better person in those around him (“peace and love, folks”)? Or was it Paul with his laid-back persona that oozes hope.
I posed this question to several Beatles forums on Facebook this week and got back over 100 responses. It was roughly what I expected: 76 votes for John Lennon (55%), 22 votes for George (16%), 6 votes for Paul (4%) and 5 for Ringo (3%). There were also 25 votes for ‘all 4 of them’ (18%). Oh, also 2 votes for Pete Best and 1 for Stu Sutcliffe (go figure). Not to mention 1 that basically said, ‘You Suck!’ (I would have been disappointed if I didn’t get one of those).
I ran this question by Beatles fans because, although I would typically agree with this breakdown, I had a bit of a lightbulb moment this week as I listened to “Live and Let Die”. It is such a real and insightful song. It helped guide me to the notion that maybe Paul McCartney gets a bum rap when it comes to authentication. Such a question as the one I posed drives at the heart of the matter.
Dig under the surface, and more of the 60s-persona-light shines on Paul McCartney. He was after all the Utopian spirit behind the money-hemorrhaging corporation that was Apple Records. And more than John, George, and Ringo, Paul McCartney incorporated all forms of modern art into his life in the late 60s. McCartney was also the Beatle out-and-about the London scene during that time too (he was an early enthusiast of the Syd Barret-lead Pink Floyd in their wild stage-experimentation years), while the other 3 Beatles were immersed in domesticity. You have to drill deeper into the Beatles story to connect with these facts. Deeper than most are willing to do.
Yes, “Live and Let Die” is a dour song. Here’s the paradox though: Only someone with Paul McCartney’s hopeful outlook on mankind could write such lyrics and sing them in such a deeply-reflective way. From his rosy perspective, McCartney was able to view the darker side objectively. I’m not saying he was blind to negativity and self-centeredness…life experience to that point clearly factored to his opening eyes, including the Beatles rancorous “divorce”. But the concept was foreign enough for him to see it for what it was and compose a narrative around it.
With all this in mind, the song fits the Pete Townshend definition of a Rock song.
The Beatles contributed significantly to the idealism of the 60s. They all bought into it. And they each had to change aspects of who they were to get there, none of them more so than Paul McCartney. I know this because when I read of the Beatles younger days, the band member who reminds me the most of myself (in my younger days) is McCartney. Like Paul, I could be opportunistic and cunning and shrewd. Maybe I still got a little of that in me at times, but I do my best to squelch it. This, because even though I came of age in the 70s, I too have bought into the spirit of the 60s. In fact, anyone who takes their 70s’ teen-years seriously is really just a child of the 60s. Live and let live, folks! Live and let live.
- Pete
No comments:
Post a Comment