For as long as I can remember, new Paul McCartney music has been a big event for me.
It started with the Beatles music my mother played around the house when I was very small. But McCartney’s post-Beatles work really formed the soundtrack of my life. Aged four, I sat at the breakfast table waiting for Mom to bring me breakfast while one of his early post-Beatles hits played on the little transistor radio atop our refrigerator. On long trips in Dad’s Ford, my brother and I used to sing his most famous songs a cappella together. I spent much of one youthful summer swimming while a monster hit he did with Wings played constantly on the radio. I danced at the big middle-school dance to his flamenco-charged nod to disco. During my disk-jockey days, I played his new songs on the radio. I sang his new songs to my new baby as he cried with colic. I let his words soothe me when I suffered my divorce. And I never failed to share his new songs with my sons, who can sing along with me now on a huge portion of the McCartney catalog.
And now comes his new album, New. It released yesterday. Thanks to Amazon.com I downloaded the music first thing yesterday morning and then a copy of the CD awaited me in my mailbox when I arrived home from work.
As always, I will listen to it incessantly in the car for the next several weeks. I will soak it in. I will learn the lyrics and sing along. It will come to remind me of this time in my life and the things I am experiencing now.
Paul McCartney never meant to save the world with his songs. He just wanted to craft some good, clever pop that kept our knees bobbing. He’s done it again, aged 71. Here’s the lyric video for the title track of New.
Paul McCartney saved my life once. He has no idea, of course. Read that story.
