Paul McCartney has one of the most easily-recognizable voices in rock ‘n’ roll. We’ve grown up hearing his voice crooning to us over the radio, and any new McCartney album’s vocals will have the familiarity of an old friend. In his new release, Driving Rain, McCarney’s natural compositions and his simple, beautiful lyrics feel like home.
The album opens with the addictive “Lonely Road.” A simple bassline is the first instrument heard on the entire record, reminding the listener that playing the bass for the Beatles was where it all started. In an interview after the second recording session (the album only required two), McCartney explained that the track was “a defiant song against loneliness.” In contrast to the many lifeless, unfelt vocalizations plaguing pop today, the rawness of McCartney’s voice gives more feeling to a line than Christina Aguilera gives to an entire album.
The second track and first single, “From A Lover To A Friend,” is a ballad that will be featured in Tom Cruise’s upcoming movie Vanilla Sky. There is nothing offensive about the song, in fact it is very pretty; but ballads are not McCartney’s strong point. No one says that “The Long and Winding Road” is their favorite Beatles song?yeah, its a good track, but it’s a long and winding song. This track isn’t representative of the album, and is a strange choice for the first single.
“She’s Given Up Talking” has an ethereal sound, almost as if McCartney is singing through a speaker suspended in the sky. The song is based on a daughter of a friend of McCartney’s who wouldn’t speak at school. “I ended up thinking that was a pretty good strategy for school, I wish I’d have thought of that. Of course, I would have just got canned, they were wise to that kind of shit, my school,” McCartney said. In a way that would make any songwriter seethe with jealousy, McCartney said that he wrote the song from demos 10 minutes before the recording session.
The track “Magic” is about the night he met Linda, his wife of 30 years who died of breast cancer three years ago. Their romance was legendary?according to a spokesman, they only spent one night apart during their entire marriage. The song captures the moment that he decided to approach her as she was leaving a club, and his recognition that his decision to do that changed his life: “If I hadn’t stopped you / I’d always regret.”
McCartney’s on-key romantic songs continue with “I Do,” which is reminicisnt of the track “I Will” on the Beatles’ White Album. The lyrics are bare, but the words that everyone wants to hear: “This is all I want / This is all I need / This is all I long for, I do.”
McCartney’s personal life is further developed on the album in the track “Heather,” its namesake being McCartney’s finance, Heather Mills, the 33-year-old anti-landmine campaigner and disabled persons activist. Following in photographer and animal rights activist Linda McCartney’s footsteps would be challenging, and Mills seems up to the task. A former swimwear model, Mills’ left leg was amputated below the knee after she was run down by a police motorcyclist in 1993. She currently runs a foundation that provides artificial limbs for the victims of war. In a press release, McCartney recalls “jamming on the piano and Heather, who doesn’t know all of the Beatles songs because she’s young, said, ‘That’s great?which Beatles song is that?’” He explained that he was just making it up, and then he recorded it. It is just as unlikely that she wouldn’t know all the Beatles songs as it is that Yoko Ono hadn’t heard of the Beatles when she met John Lennon. Mills may be young, but she is going to marry a former Beatle?she better brush up on her knowledge of the Greatest Band of All Time before the big day.
One of the more unexpected tracks on the album is “Rinse the Raindrops,” clocking in at over 10 minutes and having a jam-band like feel (don’t fret Phish haters, it actually rocks). McCartney described that a week before the recording session, he was on a trip in India and was ripped-off by a carpet salesman. He called the salesman and yelled at him, causing him to lose his voice. The strain is apparent on the track and fits nicely.
Added on to the album at the last minute was a track called “Freedom,” performed live after Sept. 11, featuring Eric Clapton on guitar. The proceeds from the sale of the song will benefit New York police and firemen.
In a skit on Saturday Night Live several years ago, Chris Farely asked Paul McCartney on the “Chris Farely Show” if the lyric, “The love you take is equal to the love you make” is true. When McCartney replied, “In my experience, I have found that what you give is what you get” Farley expressed the thrill of talking to a “living legend of rock ‘n’ roll,” someone who creates such seemingly simple lyrics that so many people have found so profound. McCartney is back and doing it again on Driving Rain. Lyrics from “Lonely Road” capture listening to the album: “I hear your music / And it’s driving me wild / Familiar rhythms / In a different style / I hear your music / And it’s driving me wild again.”
