---INTERLUDE – Medleys/Suites---
As we all know from the Beatles catalog, Paul has always been interested in melding separate unfinished compositions together to make an even better whole – see, e.g., second side of Abbey Road, “We Can Work It Out,” “A Day In The Life,” “Baby You’re A Rich Man,” and “I’ve Got A Feeling.” John even got into the spirit of this practice with “Happiness Is A Warm Gun.”
As solo artists, though, I can’t think of any Beatle except Paul who continued this practice, certainly not with such frequency if at all. My opinion is that Paul is masterful at this; it takes an ear that not many people would have to put together such disparate parts into a larger composition that makes sense. In this countdown, we’ve already covered “Travelling Light” and “The Pound Is Sinking,” which both fit within this category. I don’t think it would be a big surprise to find others such as “Band On The Run” and “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” entering our discussion later, too.
My next selection is likewise going to be a medley/suite, depending upon how you look at it – my general working definition is that a medley comprises pieces that could stand alone as song, while a suite does not. I made that up, though, so use whatever definition you’re happy with. Before I get to that, I wanted to discuss a few that won’t make my list, some better and some worse.
One of the issues that I sometimes run into with these medleys or suites is that, if I don’t like one or more of the components, then the whole of it gets a downgrade or can even be ruined entirely. This is the case with the
five-part medley from
Memory Almost Full, consisting of “
Vintage Clothes,” “
That Was Me,” “
Feet In The Clouds,” “
House Of Wax,” and “
The End Of The End.” This medley was on my countdown at one point, so I wanted to mention it here because I think some of you might enjoy it. The reason it came off my list, though, was that I have some love/hate portions of the third portion, “Feet In The Clouds,” and just despise the “House of Wax” section. My favorite sections are “Vintage Clothes,” a bouncy, almost Beatle-y composition with some very cool guitar sounds and fun whistling, and “That Was Me,” with its walking bass line and Paul scatting again(!) before jumping up an octave for the final verse. “The End Of The End” is a sweet piano ballad with some nice chord changes and good whistling, too. Check it all out and see what you think!
Here are a few others (not an exhaustive list) from Paul over the course of his solo career that won’t end up on my list, together with OH comments:
Red Rose Speedway medley (“Hold Me Tight,” “Lazy Dynamite,” “Hands Of Love,” and “Power Cut”) – both OH and I awoke at the end to find that we’d forgotten music was playing. Only comment from OH during the listen was, “Did Ringo write this?” followed by gales of laughter.
Hot As Sun/Glasses (
McCartney) – OH: “This is not hot. I do like the homemade quality of this record. I can where Guided by Voices got their thing from. But there haven’t been a ton of good musical ideas on it. Like have a good riff. I don’t know what the #### that song was all about. I would have preferred three minutes of the noisy wine glasses.”
Backwards Traveller/Cuff Link (
London Town) – OH: [air drumming] “That’s a robot playing drums.”
After The Ball/Million Miles (
Back To The Egg) – This one made my early cuts but not quite onto the final list. OH: “I like that pump organ part, like a Tom Waits song that doesn’t suck. Without a fake hobo in it.”
Winter Rose/Love Awake (
Back To The Egg) – OH: “I can’t see any reason for that song to exist. Why? I don’t understand how you have ideas that dumb. I mean, we all have ideas that dumb, but why bother executing them? Why go to the trouble of plugging in the guitars and amps and stuff? Is he lifting the lyrics from a drugstore greeting card? It’s like an awful condolence letter.”
Good Times Coming/Feel The Sun (
Press To Play) – OH: “WHEN!?!?! I feel like thus far he has failed to deliver on his promise of good times coming. I’m still waiting, as per instructions.”
