#adrian ainclair

[tavolgisvist]

One of his [Paul's] great lines was, ‘Let’s explore the accident, not fix the mistake,’ which I thought was brilliant.”

(Denny Seiwell in The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-1973 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022)

In a 1984 BBC radio interview, McCartney recalled what impressed him about Lennon’s delivery: “He was singing ‘Come Go With Me,’ which I thought was fabulous until I realized they weren’t the right words. He was changing them. ‘Come go with me … down to the penitentiary’ — he was nicking folk-song words and chain-gang words and putting them into the Del-Vikings’ songs, a clever little bit of ingenuity.”

(x)

[tavolgisvist]

'…Paul McCartney was such a fan of Dominic Behan’s ‘Liverpool Lou’ that he recorded it with the Scaffold'

(Liverpool - Wondrous Place by Paul Du Noyer, 2002; Part (I), (II), (III), (IV), (V), (VI), (VII), (VIII), (IX), (X), (XI), (XII), (XIII), (XIV), (XV), (XVI), (XVII), (XVIII), (XIX), (XX), (XXI), (XXII)

Q: “Liverpool Lou” was another massive hit for The Scaffold. That is linked with the recording of the McGear album. A: It was. The BBC telly wanted The Scaffold to do a sketch with the actress, Rita Tushingham and Derek Guyler. They said “Can you sing the song for us? I couldn’t come up with a song. I was working with our kid and Wings in Strawberry and said “Have you got any ideas for a Scaffold song? I’m doing this telly.” He said “Oh, you wanna do Liverpool Lou.” I said “No, it is too folky, too Spinners.” He said “No, just listen to it.” It was very old and had been around for centuries in Liverpool. I had forgotten how it went and certainly didn’t know the words. I said to BBC telly people “Could you get me a song called Liverpool Lou?” They sent me two versions. One was by Dominic Beehan and the other was by Delaney and Bonnie. Scaffold tried to trad arrange ‘Liverpool Lou’ but Dominic Beehan had got to it before us and copyrighted it. He got all the writing credits and all of the money for Liverpool Lou. The other version by Delaney and Bonnie was absolute magic. Our kid heard those two opposites and said “You want to go in the middle there.” He did it, he made that song. That is just Wings with in the middle of ‘Liverpool Lou’, a 10CC gizmo. That’s the weird sound in the middle. Q:The Godley and Creme invention. A: That’s right. It’s hard to play but I think our kid played it. Norm Yardley does the gob iron on Liverpool Lou, I was with him the other night. Nice track.

(Mike McCartney / McGear – The Strange Brew, 2016)

Scaffold’s latest single ‘Liverpool Lou’ released on May 3rd on the Warner Bros. Label. Record No. K 16400. It’s an old song, credited to Brendan Behan’s brother, Dominic. Paul produced and arranged it. In the middle there’s a gizmo solo, it’s a new instrument invented by Lol Creme and Kevin of 10CC, who partly own ‘Strawberry Studios’. There are only two gizmos in the world.

(From Wings Fun Club newsletter N°1, 1974)

Oh Liverpool Lou, lovely Liverpool Lou Why don't you behave just like other girls do? Oh why must my poor heart keep following you Stay home and love me, my Liverpool Lou When love is pleasing, and love is teasing And love is a pleasure, when first it is new love And as it grows it older, and love it grows colder And that fades away, love, like the morning dew <…> When I go out walking, I hear people talking School children playing, I know what they're saying They're saying you'll grieve me, that you'll deceive me Some morning you'll leave me all packed up and gone <…> Sounds from the river Keep telling me ever That I should forget you Like I never met you Please tell me their songs of Was never more wrong, love Please say I've been gone, love To my Liverpool Lou

Another song where Paul used a Gizmo - I’m Carrying

McCartney originally recorded the song accompanied by just his acoustic guitar during the London Town sessions aboard the stern of the yacht Fair Carol in the Virgin Islands on 5 May 1977. In December 1977, he overdubbed orchestral strings and he also overdubbed his own playing of an electric guitar using a Gizmo. The Gizmo is a device invented by 10cc members Kevin Godley and Lol Creme, which allows a guitar to be played by vibrating the strings rather than plucking them. (x)

By dawn's first light I'll come back to your room again With my carnation hidden by the packages I'm carrying, something I'm carrying something for you Ah, long time no see baby, sure has been a while And if my reappearance lacks a sense of style I'm carrying, something I'm carrying something for you I'm carrying I'm carrying, can't help it I'm carrying I'm carrying something for you

People say, ‘What does this song mean?’ and I say, ‘Well, it’s up to you.’ It can mean a million things. What am I carrying here? I kind of make it clear that it’s packages. So I’m like Dapper Dan, with my carnation hidden by the packages. I’m bringing presents for you, I’m carrying something for you, but also, when a woman is having a baby, she’s carrying. There are a couple of other meanings that rule themselves out. One is carrying a gun. Another is carrying drugs. One meaning that might have a little traction is the idea of one person ‘carrying’ a band, with the others riding on the coattails. I’m not even sure about that. I’m just playing with the word ‘carrying’. It’s a very ambiguous little song, but that was the sort of freedom of Wings, to do something a little bit ambiguous. It’s been suggested that this song sounds Lennon-esque. I’d admit to it if it were, but to me it sounds more McCartney-esque: just the little voice. I couldn’t imagine John doing quite such a little voice. But you know, if it’s seen as Lennon-esque, that’s no great problem. We did learn how to write songs together, after all.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics, 2021)

The Tuesday and Wednesday sessions [February 18-19, 1975, New Orleans when John didn'tt come] were spent fleshing out ‘Spirits of Ancient Egypt.’ Paul added Moog and Gizmo guitar, Linda recorded synthesized string swells, Joe added gong at the start of the track, and Alan O’Duffy recorded the sound of a telephone busy signal, to be used at the end of the song. Finally, the whole band, plus O’Duffy, gathered around a microphone to overdub the song’s rich vocal harmonies.

(The McCartney Legacy: Volume 2: 1974-1980 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2024)

We knew George Melly from Liverpool. George was a very posh Liverpudlian, and he used to be the vocalist with a band called the Merseysippi Jazz Band. He was a very nice man, flamboyant, slightly eccentric. He had a big collection of paintings by René Magritte, the Belgian surrealist. In the seventies I was very into surrealism too, and Magritte in particular. It goes some way to explain the wacky nature of some of these songs. I always thought I didn’t do quite enough with the title. ‘Spirits of Ancient Egypt’ could have been intriguing and mystical, yet I somehow went the opposite way. ‘You’re my baby / And I love you / You can take a pound of love / And cook it in the stew.’ There are very lyrical moments ‘Spirits of ancient Egypt / Shadows of ancient Rome’ . . . ‘Echoes of sunken Spain’ – all great epic legends, but then set against those moments you’ve got just a love song. It’s the ordinary pitched against the extraordinary.

(Paul McCartney, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, 2021)

<…> I'm your baby do you love me? I can drive a cadillac* across the Irish sea – but when I've finished doing that I know where I'll want to be Cos I'm your baby, and you love me. Spirits of ancient Egypt Shadows of ancient Rome Spirits of ancient Egypt hung on the telly hung on the telly hung on the telephone…. <…> Spirits of Ancient Egypt Echoes of sunken Spain Spirits of ancient Egypt Hung on the phone – a –hung on the Phone a-hung on the phone …again… **

*Cadillac - first association - Elvis' gold-plated Cadillac ("We’d once heard that Elvis Presley had sent his gold-plated Cadillac on tour, and we thought that was just brilliant. So we thought, ‘We’ll make a record, and that’ll be our gold-plated Cadillac.’" - in The Lyrics)

Also it's funny: I'm your baby <…>I can drive Cadillac - Baby you can drive my car

**a telephone busy signal = Call Me Back Again (was written in the spring of 1974 in Los Angeles after reconnecting with John, recorded 3 and 6 February 1975 in New Orleans: February 6 John phoned Sea Saint Studio and told Paul that he had moved back to the Dakota on February 3)

And the fact that Yoko Ono selected 'Liverpool Lou' on Desert Island Discs in 2007 as the song John had sung to Sean as a lullaby: 'Her third pick was the Irish poet Dominic Behan’s ‘Liverpool Lou’ which was a lullaby. Introduced to the song by Lennon, Ono reminiscence, “I don’t know why but one day John, in England, sang ‘Liverpool Lou’ and said ‘Isn’t that beautiful?’… And when Sean was born, he would just sing this song until Sean went to sleep almost every night.”'

[tavolgisvist]

For Paul, vocal overdubs were not always just a matter of waiting for the red light to go on and singing the tune. Often, he had a particular sound in mind, as if his song were being sung by a fictional character that Paul was playing, a character whose sound was not necessarily confined to the natural timbre and quality of his voice.

<...>

Deeply curious about how music of all kinds worked, Paul had attended most of the orchestral sessions Martin had led during the Beatles years, and he had distinct ideas on how to make an orchestra sound the way he wanted it. He also had experimental ideas he wanted to explore, and he indulged some of them at these sessions [RAM]. <…> “They said, ‘McCartney took about 40 minutes to tune the orchestra,’” [Denny] Seiwell reported. “This was the David Nadien string section—these guys don’t need more than three seconds to tune up. But Paul tuned it in a specific way, and when they heard the first playback, they said it sounded like the London Symphony.”

***

What they had for the moment, though, was just a basic track [Mumbo], with piano, bass, drums and tambourine, and Paul shouting in his best rock-screamer voice, pumping out a song’s worth of nonsense syllables and somehow making them rhyme, as if he were singing actual lyrics with such passion that they could not be understood.

(The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-1973 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022)

Part (I), (II), (III), (IV), (V), (VI), (VII), (VIII), (IX), (X), (XI)

[tavolgisvist]

On the way back to Los Angeles [from Palm Springs, 19 March 1975], Linda lit up a spliff, and Paul launched into what Smith described as “a monologue” about the demise of the Beatles, full of inside details, that lasted the entire drive. At 7 A.M., just as they entered Cathedral City, they were pulled over by a highway patrolman for the second time in as many weeks—this time because Smith had been clocked at 85 mph in a 55 mph zone. Knowing that Linda was carrying a sizable bag of grass and was already facing possession charges, Smith jumped out of the car and walked toward the officer as he approached the smoke-filled car. Powell left the car a moment later and watched as Smith was handed his speeding ticket. The patrolman then glanced over at two passengers still in the car. “There was blue smoke everywhere in the car,” said Powell. “And [the policeman] said to me, ‘Is that John Lennon?’ I said, ‘No, it’s Paul McCartney.’ He said, ‘Holy shit! Can you get me his autograph?’ So I went to Paul, I said, ‘Listen, the cop thinks you’re John Lennon, but can you give an autograph? It’s going to get us out of the shit.’ He says, ‘Anything, man.’ He signed his autograph; I gave it to the cop and the cop waved us on. It was hysterical. Sometimes the word ‘Beatle’ works in your favor tremendously.”

(The McCartney Legacy: Volume 2: 1974-1980 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2024)

[tavolgisvist]

Words of Love and No Words (haha, again, yeah) and unexplained bossy modes

This [Words of Love] isn’t ours. It’s an old Buddy Holly speciality which we used to do again at The Cavern. There was a fabulous guitar bit on the Holly disc, sounding almost like bells. George took the same riff and double-tracked it, and sounds just as good.

(Paul McCartney, Disc, 14 November 1964)

No doubt ATV, and perhaps Chevrolet, insisted that Paul acknowledge his Beatle past in the program. But there was another reason Paul happily played these tunes. As he knew from his discussion with Lennon in November [1972], Allen Klein’s contract with Apple was due to expire on March 31 [1973], and sentiment among the former Beatles leaned toward not renewing it. By the time James Paul McCartney aired, on April 16 in the United States, and May 10 in Great Britain, Klein would be gone. For anyone seeking between-the-lines messages—and Klein would certainly be among them—the one Paul was sending here was clear and unequivocal. <…> John declined to discuss the reasons for the split with Klein<…> Asked whether the Beatles were better off, post-Klein, than the Rolling Stones—who had lost both their publishing and master tapes to the manager—John offered an analysis that Paul could only have read as a long-belated vindication. “Due to the presence of Lee Eastman looking over Paul’s shoulder all the time—and therefore looking over Klein’s shoulder—[Klein’s] movements were hampered. We can now be thankful for that situation. We knew it was beneficial all the time playing one off against the other, and eventually we ended up here.” <…> Elsewhere, John made an even fuller concession to the arguments Paul had made all through 1969. “Well, there are many reasons to get finally given the push,” he said of his abandonment of Klein as his manager. “Let’s say that possibly Paul’s suspicions were right.” <...> …Lennon, Harrison, Starr and Apple countersued Klein, at the High Court in London, claiming damages for misrepresentation. Harrison provided the perfect mood music in his song ‘Sue Me, Sue You Blues.’ For Paul, the suit against Klein could not have been richer: Lennon and company were now arguing that their May 1969 contract with Klein—the contract they tried to strong-arm Paul into signing at Olympic Studios—should be considered invalid “because they did not understand the nature and effect of it.”

(Denny Laine in The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-1973 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022)

Hold me close and tell me how you feel Tell me love is real Words of love you whisper soft and true Darling, I love you

(Words of Love, 1957/1964)

I wish you knew, that's just how true My love was

(No Words, 1973)

‘No Words,’ for example, was two songs that became one song. I wrote the first few verses and couldn’t get any further. I took them to Paul, and he added his little bit of magic.”

(Denny Laine in The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-1973 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022)

You say that love is everything And what we need the most of

(No Words, 1973)

And I know, I’ve read cracks about, “Oh, the Beatles sang ‘All You Need Is Love’, but it didn’t work for them,” but nothing will ever break the love we have for each other. And I still believe all you need is love.

(John Lennon, January 23rd, 1972, interview with DJ Howard Smith)

Hey, you've got to hide your love away

(Hey, You've Got To Hide Your Love Away, 1965)

I've got a feeling, a feeling deep inside Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's right I've got a feeling, a feeling I can't hide

(I've Got A Feeling, 1969)

Don't you know that inside There's a love you can't hide So why do you fight that feeling in your heart?

(Lazy Dynamite, 1971/73)

You're burning love, sweet burning love It's deep inside, You mustn't hide, your burning love Sweet burning love, your burning love

(No Words, 1973)

Let me hear you say the words I long to hear Darling, when you're near Words of love you whisper soft and true Darling, I love you

(Words of Love, 1957/1964)

You want to turn your head away And someone's thinking of you I wish you'd see, it's only me, I love you

(No Words, 1973)

We were once having a right slagging session and I remember how he took off his granny glasses. I can still see him. He put them down and said, ‘It’s only me, Paul.’ Then he put them back on again, and we continued slagging…That phrase keeps coming back to me all the time. ‘It’s only me.’ It’s became a mantra in my mind.

(Paul McCartney, May 3, 1981 with Hunter Davies)

Denny’s ‘No Words,’ a song about a romance going through a rough patch, moves like a George Harrison tune. Its melody, like many of Harrison’s, begins cheerily but quickly takes an unexpected turn toward the lachrymose, with phrases that sound as if they are in minor keys, even when the accompanying chords are major. The opening line, for example, is a gently rising melody over an A major chord; but a sudden drop from C sharp to G, transforming the accompanying chord into an A7, gives the melody a dark, thoroughly Harrisonian lilt.

(The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-1973 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022)

Wings’ rehearsals [on August 14, 1973] had their ups and downs, as rehearsals do. But from McCullough’s point of view, a lot of it was the ‘My Love’ session all over again, except without Paul relenting and letting him try out his own ideas. During a rehearsal of ‘No Words,’ on August 14, Paul was intent on Henry playing the solo he had mapped out. Henry had an idea of his own that he wanted to try, but Paul was not having it. <…> …for Henry [McCullough], it was hard to see Paul’s refusal as reasonable.

(The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-1973 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022)

+this quote from Man on the Run

[tavolgisvist]

Linda was also the inspiration for ‘Warm and Beautiful,’ a piano ballad with a lyric that reads as effortlessly poetic and direct, and an ingenious chord progression that unfolds by Paul’s shifting a single note (or in one case, two notes) within a chord up or down a half-step. Understanding how this gradually morphing progression works tells us a lot about how Paul’s piano technique and his approach to the keyboard often led him to fresh ideas. <…> The introduction to one of Paul’s favorites among his Beatles-era songs, ‘Here, There and Everywhere,’ works similarly, and the connection was not lost on him. “I wrote ‘Warm and Beautiful’ just the same way as I did ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ on the Beatles’ Revolver album,” he explained a few months later. “It’s the same kind of effort. But I’m not a great analyzer of my own stuff.”

(Rockwell, John: “McCartney, Trying Wings in Three Shows, Talks of Yesterday,” New York Times, May 21, 1976 - in The McCartney Legacy: Volume 2: 1974-1980 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2024)

…But the only – the person I actually picked as my partner, who I’d recognised had talent, and I could get on with, was Paul. Now, twelve or however many years later, I met Yoko, I had the same feeling. It was a different feel, but I had the same feeling…

(John Lennon, interview with DJ Dave Sholin December 8th, 1980)

“I find it a very emotional melody,” Paul said of the song, “and in the middle there’s a sort of slide guitar in the instrumental thing where it suddenly goes into harmonies. And it’s funny I always think of that song in close harmony, but the rest of the song isn’t—it’s pretty much just a solo — me and a piano.”

(The McCartney Legacy: Volume 2: 1974-1980 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2024)

+ about Here, There and Everywhere

[tavolgisvist]

In the days between the interviews [with Jann Wenner on December 8, 1970, was published 21 January and 4 February 1971*, and with Howard Smith on December 12 for Smith’s weekly show on WABC-FM], John telephoned Paul, and they agreed to meet for dinner on Sunday, December 13. The chat was pleasant, with John mentioning that one reason he wanted to meet was to discuss the Maclen/Northern Songs dispute, focusing on the possibility that they might receive some back royalties (and gliding past the fact that Paul was not consulted before Klein filed suit in his name).

(The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-1973 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022)

*The McCartney Legacy makes me crazy: for some reason in book it is ' Rolling Stone published the explosive interview in two installments, in the January 7 and February 4 issues (which hit the newsstands on December 16, 1970, and January 13, 1971).' Why December - before it was published? Why January 7? Look at the cover, it's January 21.

Part (I), (II), (III), (IV), (V), (VI), (VII), (VIII), (IX), (X), (XI)

[tavolgisvist]

…on February 10, Paul and Linda turned their attention to the vocals for ‘Too Many People,’ starting with a lead vocal from Paul, which he then doubled and tripled before calling Linda to the microphone. Together, the y added backing to the ends of several lines—“piece of cake” and “lucky break,” for example. These additions seem intended more to emphasize those lyrics than for purely musical reasons; they do not always occur at predictable points. <…> Boogying in the vocal booth at the end of the session, McCartney accidentally pulled his headphone’s lead out of the patch bay, causing him to exclaim, “My plug came out!” (a comment he decided to leave in the finished mix).

(The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-1973 by Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair, 2022)

Part (I), (II), (III), (IV), (V), (VI), (VII), (VIII), (IX), (X), (XI)