hi! wanted to respond to your tags on my post about get enough :) i like your perspective on the use of auto-tune as a way to make paul sound like his younger self. i see it as a technique that grounds the song in the modern day in part because of ryan tedder’s production. the vocoder also makes it so distinctly 2010s to me! (it’s evocative of feels like we only go backwards by tame impala specifically). especially for a song about memory/“early days,” which paul has written plenty about during this period but with significantly more subdued, acoustic production.
and while i love to conspiracy theorize and do personally believe that the song is primarily about john, i’ve also considered that lyrically it could point to the beatles as a unit and really as a group of friends. paul also did say during the promotion cycle for egypt station that it was reflecting on the beatles’ openness to new production techniques that led him to agree to using auto tune so heavily on get enough in the first place — that, to me, speaks to the narrative of longing for the past while remaining rooted in the present, where the wisdom of age mourns what’s been lost while taking what remains as inspiration and reason to keep moving forward.
No, I totally got your point with the autotune! I think it's actually really neat that it works both ways, and you can kind of combine them: modern technology that can conjure up a ghost of the past that was hitherto impossible (kind of like Now And Then actually).
TBH, if I were to assign the song to a single person, I would assume it was about Linda. The first verse does paint a specific picture, and I see how John could fit it, but the docks and tugs could suggest either Liverpool or New York IMO (or another port city, but those are the ones I think he might be talking about… mmmmaybe London). That being said, the second verse shifts into a more abstract language where I think one could make a case for just about anyone Paul lost (including, say, his mother) and I also could imagine Paul invoking Liverpool because it's nostalgic to him without necessarily recounting a real event. That would absolutely also make sense for the Beatles as an entire band, and I really like the idea of Paul trying to revive them by getting experimental with the recording, like a seance. Again, that's sort of the auto tune being the past and the present combined. The updated version of the old method.
Anyways, thanks for dropping by to talk Get Enough with me :) can never get enough of THAT amirite?
