one of the greatest tragedies in life is that you will always be loved more than you will ever know. someone in class finds your presence inviting and warm, even if youâve only ever exchanged a few words with themâmaybe none at all. someone on the street loves your smile and it gets them down the next few streets. someone you used to be friends with still wishes to fondly call your name. someone you used to be friends with five years ago would give anything to be in the same room as you today. someone who regularly comes into work is disappointed when you arenât there to brighten their day. someone missed you today. someone noticed you were gone. someone loves you when youâre there; someone loves you when youâre nowhere to be found at all. you think you have always disappeared when youâre no longer in the picture, but youâve never left the frame.
Something about Paulâs work with Mary Hopkin feels like he found the perfect feminine vehicle to express himself in a way that he couldnât as himself.Â
The first single he produced for her was âThose Were the Days,â a song that Paul heard in a cabaret club when he saw it performed by the American musician who adapted it from the original Russian folk song. It stuck with Paul so much he held onto it for four years trying to get various people to record it until he was finally able to make it into a single for Mary. If thereâs one thing about Paul, itâs that when he gets his mind set on a project, heâll make it happen, no matter how long it takes. He did it with Rupert Bear and, most notably and with the longest payoff time, with âNow and Then.â He holds onto things that are meaningful to him. The fact that he kept trying to produce this song for years implies that it meant something to him.
What would be meaningful about the song to him? Well for one, itâs very Paul. Only Paul McCartney would see the pop potential in a klezmer infused Russian folk song and we love that about him. Lyrically, though, itâs no mystery why the song connected with him:
Thereâs no way to read those lyrics and not imagine Paul and John, hanging around Liverpool and talking about how they were going to make it big one day.
Themes of nostalgia for days of youthful idealism are familiar territory in Paulâs songs, but they don't really make an appearance until his later years in songs like âEarly Daysâ and âOn My Way to Work.â Hereâs a song he would have first heard sometime in 1964 or â65, at the height of Beatlemania, and heâs already resonating with a pull to this time before fame. At this time it was still pretty common for The Beatles to record cover songs, so why not this one? Maybe it's as simple as it doesn't quite sound like a Beatles song, even to Paul's eclectic ear. But this is a man who made "Mary Had a Little Lamb" into a single. If he wanted to, he would have gotten his band to record it. I think this song felt a little too personally revealing for him.
The song goes on to describe the feeling of looking in a mirror and seeing the unfamiliar face of a lonely woman looking back. Paul loves a lonely woman motif, think of âEleanor Rigbyâ or âAnother Day.â He uses these characters to express himself artistically while maintaining a level of distance from the listener. The women are, at least on some level, all him. Here, heâs using the actual woman Mary Hopkin to sing a song that for whatever reason, feels a little too real for him.Â
When Paul found Mary and matched her to this song heâd been holding onto, I think that opened up a door for him to think about, well if I were a girl what kind of a record would I make? He'd been exploring songwriting through a woman's perspective for years as a way to express vulnerability, but here he had an actual conduit to explore a more complete and indulgent body of work. If he were not only freed of his gender but also of the burden of being Great Songwriter Paul McCartney, what might he create?
He filled the album with his favorite pop standards and show tunes, songs that Mary didnât really like and that didnât fit her folk background. Paulâs selections on Post Card are the kind of song that show his love of âgranny musicâ as heâs still mocked for, and they are, dare I say, a bit camp. I mean, whatâs gayer than âThereâs No Business Like Show Businessâ? Notably, these are also the sort of songs that years later he would feel comfortable using as a vehicle to perform high-camp androgyny, like with âGotta Sing Gotta Danceâ. Which is to say that this aspect of musical theater is something that intrigued him, but that in 1968 he felt belonged to the realm of girl-Paul, i.e. Mary Hopkin.Â
Then of course thereâs âGoodbye,â the song that Paul wrote for Mary. In the demo that he recorded, he doesnât change the pronouns when he sings âFar away, my lover sings a lonely song and calls me to his sideâ. But now heâs taking the character to a new level, heâs performing as Mary, singing the song in an imitation of her falsetto to make it clear that the song is for her. But the song isnât just a generic love song, itâs about two lovers who make music, who call to each other in song but are being separated by some unknown force.Â
If Mary is his way of exploring girl-Paul, then this is really the ultimate expression of that, and of course it's about John. As he said in 1985 when talking about the breakup, âI mean, I couldnât stand in the way of someone whoâd fallen in love. You canât say, âWhoâs this?â You canât really do that. If I was a girl, maybe I could go out andâŚâ Sure, if he were a girl he could sing campy show tunes and sappy nostalgic songs about dancing with his best friend and no one would look askance. But really, if he were a girl, he could tell John he wants to be with him.
Post Card was recorded in late 1968, at the same time as the White Album, right as things with John were starting to come apart in earnest. I think Paul was trying to do what he could to hold onto John. He found a certain freedom in using Mary to explore his feminine side, to pine for his youth with John, to try to call him back and sing to him unashamedly using male pronouns. Whether consciously or not, his desperate lamentation of "if I was a girl" began here.
no one ever talks about gimli being not even slightly tempted by the ring. motherfucker had no hesitation just walked up with his axe and immediately tried to wreck it. obviously that didnât work but like, the ring had zero visible effect on him. amazing⌠gold sickness in the line of durin WHOMST?? not in gimli son of gloin
I love how in the films Boromir and Aragorn made a Hobbit Dad Agreement⢠that Aragorn was responsible for looking after Frodo and Sam, while Boromir was responsible for looking after Merry and Pippin.
On Caradhras, Boromir carries Merry and Pippin while Aragorn carries Frodo and Sam; Boromir trains Merry and Pippin to sword-fight; in Moria Frodo/Sam both call for Aragorn when they need help; on the stairs of Moria Boromir takes Merry and Pippin while Aragorn takes Frodo and Sam; when going down the Anduin Boromir goes with Merry and Pippin in a boat while Aragorn goes with Frodo and Sam; etc, etc, etc.
The big climactic payoffs to these relationships are Aragorn allowing Frodo/Sam to leave the Fellowship, and Boromir dying for Merry and Pippin.
Aragorn and Boromir mustâve had a conversation offscreen like âOk hereâs the plan: two hobbits each. We canât separate Merry/Pippin or Frodo/Sam, so weâll each take care of one Hobbit Duo.â
The reason Frodo/Sam were Aragornâs hobbits is probably because the Fellowship didnât trust Boromir to look after Frodo. Aragorn was better at resisting the Ring.Â
But I also enjoy the idea that Aragorn was like âI want to look after the relatively laid-back and mature hobbits who take this quest completely seriouslyâ and Boromir was like âI WANT THE HYPERACTIVE LITTLE BROTHER ONESâ
 I also think itâs relevant that Aragorn and Boromir âswitch hobbitsâ in the end.
After Gandalfâs death/as he loses hope, Boromir begins trying to reach out to Frodo.
And after Boromirâs death, Aragorn decides to rescue Merry and Pippin. He lets âhis hobbitsâ go to Mordor alone, then sets off to save the hobbits who (up until this point) have been Boromirâs responsibility.
My favorite thing about Bilboâs adventures is that thereâs technically no ââcanonââ version of Bilboâs adventures.Â
Like The Hobbitâ the bookâ is canonically a very biased account of events written by Bilbo himself. Itâs also Canon that some of things Bilbo wrote were flat-out-lies (Ex. the original version of Riddles in the Dark, where Gollum willingly gives him the Ring as a gift.)
In the books Frodo also says that Bilbo âalways jokes about serious thingsâ, makes light of things that were actually important to him or hurt him. Which obviously also puts the bright, jokey tone of The Hobbit in a new light
So the question ofâŚwhat really did happen, and what was its real effect on Bilbo? Is up in the air. And the only sources you have to piece it together are 1. a ridiculously biased account thatâs mostly true but also contains who-knows-how-many lies and half-truths, told by an unreliable narrator aggressively determined to Laugh It All Off, and 2. a few random snippets, some that agree with Bilboâs account and some that contradict themÂ
It struck me really hard after watching the Battle of Five armies that, whenever Bilbo told stories about his adventure, he only ever talked about the trolls and the dragon and sometimes the riddle game. The parts that made good, fun stories for the kids and could be toned up or down depending on the audience. But⌠he never talked about the dwarves. He never told anyone about the friends he shared this whole journey with and how much they meant to him, how he probably grew to love them all like family. He never elaborated about his relationship with Thorin (whether friendship or something more, either way, we know it was strong) and his grief over Thorinâs death, arguably the most traumatic part of his quest. But Bilbo spares only a single sentence to describe his tears even though itâs clear from the movie that Thorinâs loss haunted him for a long time after. All those little moments that meant something to Bilbo personally, all those times when he was afraid or angry or when he made mistakes or failed to save someone⌠all of THAT got crammed into a little box in his mind labeled Not Important, Donât Look, Donât Open, Just Pretend It Never Happened.
Partly, it may have been out of habit. Itâs the way of hobbits to avoid anything Uncomfortable, to hide those messy emotions behind a polite smile and pretend everything is fine. But I also think⌠it was too painful for Bilbo to even process. He had no one to talk to about it, no one to cry with him, no one who would really understand what he went through. I always took his opening lines in the first movie to be his decision to finally tell Frodo alone about how it all truly affected him and how it changed him and how there are some things he will never quite heal from. Maybe Bilbo hoped it would help Frodo on his own journey⌠or maybe he just finally felt ready to open up to someone he trusted. Weâll probably never know.
honestly, iâm so glad i read this because i didnât know some of these things, or really realize.
but i just have to think like⌠what if tolkien is looking down and thinking to himself, âi just got lazy half-way through, relax ya bunch of detectivesâ LMAO
My mom, Leona Gibson, passed away last night. She turned 78 last Sunday.
An obituary would say, âafter a brief illness,â but she wasnât ill. She suffered an accident of biology, and it took her body a few days to catch up to what had happened in her brain. She would hate that I put it that way, she would say I was making fun, and I shouldnât be sharing that anyway. Sheâs not wrong, she and IâŚ
In the shadow of sorry â a dying loved one â there is beauty and a reminder that, as the Sleeping at Last song âSaturnâ puts, âThe universe was made to be seen by your eyes.â. (Or something like that. Iâm not going to look up the lyrics. They hurt too much.)
Picture taken at Lynchburg General Hospital.
I wrote a LinkedIn post.
I feel dirty. Iâm a writer. I value words. I value meaning. I value connection. LinkedIn is devoid of all that.
The LinkedIn style is short sentences, toxic positivity, endless and unexpected life and career lessons, relentless brand building. Personality is discouraged. Paragraphs of more than a sentence or two are anathema.
Iâm writing this in the LinkedIn style.âŚ
From time to time I think about two customers from my long-ago EB Games days.
There was a man named Malcolm who came in the store on the weekends with his son, aged around 10. (I cannot remember the sonâs name, but it mightâve been David. Thatâs what Iâll use going forward, but it might not be right.) They never bought anything, David would look around the store, and they would leave.
One day,âŚ
Friday afternoon, after going to the bank â Pennsylvania still is not depositing my unemployment checks to my back account, despite updating my banking information three times â I stopped at the grocery store on the way home. I knew I needed to for some reason as I drove down Springwood Road, and then it occurred to me â I needed both milk and coffee creamer.
I stopped at Weis as I generally do,âŚ
What if the Vince Guaraldi Trio recorded Paul McCartneyâs âWonderful Christmastimeâ for âA Charlie Brown Christmasâ? Thatâs what this delightful little cover of Maccaâs Christmas favorite by the Jason Frederick Cinematic Trio imagines.
âFavoriteâ? Well, âmoney pump.â Itâs a money pump. Last I saw, McCartney earned something like one million dollars a year in performance royalties for âWonderfulâŚ
A Christmas song I have turned to time and again, even in non-Christmas seasons, in the five years since its release â Lapwingâs âHope Christmas Gets You to Me.â
Not much revelry in it, just a plaintive meditation on the need for human connection, written in the shadow of the first Christmas season with COVID. It has its moments of festiveness, but they come mixed with a weight of longing andâŚ
She said,
âI know what itâs like to be dead.â
â John Lennon, âShe Said She Saidâ
When I was in my twenties, I was struck by a drunk driver.
Iâve told the story before and its weird sequel â I was t-boned, car was totalled, I had a few bruises, nothing broken, but in the months and years that followed my brain would sometimes get a little confused.
It would tell me I didnât have a left armâŚ
âOn every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of the winter, at the exact midpoint, everybody stops, and turns, and hugs, as if to say âWell done. Well done, everyone! Weâre halfway out of the dark.â Back on Earth, we called this Christmas, or the Winter Solstice.â â Doctor Who, âA Christmas Carolâ
I woke this morning. It was snowing, the first snow of the year, or the first sinceâŚ
Somehow, despite being aware of cricket, I had in my mind that "the cricket bat Noel beaned Liam with" was a croquet mallet, a completely different thing entirely. :facepalm:
I saw Oasis in New Jersey Sunday night, and it was everything I hoped it would be.
I have no idea if they will record more music -- a live album from this tour is almost a certainty, I think -- and if they don't I am more than okay with that. Oasis ended in 2009 in an awkward, unsatisfactory way with a backstage fight, and Oasis in 2025 is a worldshaking triumph.
The brothers Gallagher have written a new ending to their legend, and maybe that was all they ever wanted.
