Paul McCartney has a new album of all-new material coming out this Tuesday titled ‘New‘, which is also the name of the lead single, which I’ve just started to hear on some local stations today.
To promote the record, Paul’s been making the traditional media rounds and some non-traditional stops as well.
Yesterday Paul and his band showed up at a school for performing arts in New York City and gave the 400 students the shock of their lives when he was announced at the end of an assembly. He and the band went through 13 songs and the kids, most of whom were born at the turn of the millennium, knew all the words.
Today he took over Times Square today, in the rain, and freaked out the whole city when the band began to play.
The tragedy of the Beatles was they had gotten too famous to tour and after a final run-through of America in 1966, they became a studio-only band until their 1970 break-up. It was an ironic tragedy in that prior to fame and fortune, they were one of the most road-worn, polished and dauntless outfits in the history of rock and roll, they’d played hundreds of shows a year, many of them five-hour marathons stretching well into the early morning.
In the years since, Paul’s toured around the world, both with Wings and as a solo artist. You could always see the joy of performing written all over his face.
Here’s my quick breakdown of the new single, New: The drums, tambourine and tempo are essentially ripped straight from Magical Mystery Tour’s I Am The Walrus. The baseline, piano and vocals are not self-referential or Beatles-esque in any way – this is because they sound precisely like John Lennon’s late-career hit Instant Karma (give them both a listen, you will see).
Anyway, I’m into it, it’s a cool song…
Paul is 71.
The Beatle’s first album came out in 1963, fifty years ago.
He is amazing.
EOM
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