Dear Mr. McCartney:

Please stop posing like this.

You are a genius. You are a respected, best-selling, paradigm-shifting, history-making, innovative, wildly creative, enormously talented 65-year-old genius, and a knight.

What you are not is cute.

Please stop trying to "sell" yourself. If people don't know who you are, posing like this isn't going to tell them. If they do know who you are, posing like this will make them deeply uncomfortable. There's nothing less becoming than an elderly man, a freakin' eminence gris already, acting all frisky and puppy-doggish. It is, frankly, repellent.

You have a new record to promote, and I understand that. I'm not the one who put a chair on the cover, you did that. Your last record had dignified, evocative packaging, why spoil things with this kind of picture?

This is not new. You've succumbed to this sort of thing for 35 years now. You posed with a finger up your nose in the gatefold of McCartney, you posed in silly glasses in the gatefold of McCartney II, you seem to be willing to arch your famous eyebrows for anyone who asks. It was unattractive when you were 30, but now it's just grotesque.

Speaking of which, what the hell is this? I'm glad that you've jumped into the 21st century feet-first and I'm glad you're not sitting around wondering what the hell happened to all the record buyers, it reminds me that you're a canny and sophisticated businessman, but is this the best you could do? Singing your new song in a bathroom and then begging Amazon customers to buy your new album? Why not put on a blue vest and welcome customers at Wal-Mart?

I can see that you managed to maintain your dignity at Amoeba the other night, good for you! Keep it up! This is more like it should go. I wish I had been there.

Oh, and one more thing:

I hate your paintings. They suck. When I found out you were painting these jejune, insipid canvases on an easel that once belonged to Matisse, because you could, I wanted to punch you in your face.

Love,
Todd

I can't find the reference for this, it's in one of these books I have but I can't find it, so maybe I have the details wrong, but this is one of the things that drives me completely crazy about McCartney and, after everything else is sorted out, my feelings about his music, the shape of his career, his professionalism, his lack of inspiration, etc, after all that is sorted out, this is the thing that still gets to me.

The competition between John and Paul is the engine that drove the Beatles to ever-higher feats of compositional glory. It could even be argued that, from Sgt Pepper onward, the Beatles became Paul's group, that if it were up to the others there wouldn't have been any more Beatles albums at all after Revolver. And yet they continued to put out masterpieces on a schedule of months (their record company was very unhappy with them for waiting a punishing 18 months between the albums Sgt Pepper and The White Album, with only Magical Mystery Tour, "All You Need Is Love," "Lady Madonna," "Hey Jude" and "Revolution" to sell in between -- sweet hopping Jesus, what a schedule). The fact that most bands these days can't be bothered to put out mediocre product on a schedule of decades says a lot for McCartney's professionalism and ability to inspire.

The competition between Lennon and McCartney's continued after the Beatles breakup, but took on a much uglier, detrimental turn. It would be nice if these two songwriting titans could bring themselves to compete with the other acts of the day, but the fact was that there were few others who could match their talents. Who is Lennon going to compete with, Bernie Taupin? Is McCartney going to worry about Steve Miller breathing down his neck?

So while it is unhelpful to compare apples and oranges (you know, why didn't McCartney start an Orange label for his records? That would be just like him), a Beatle fan in the 70s could not help but compare the products of their heroes, and Lennon and McCartney knew it. For the purposes of this piece, I'm going to begin the competition in 1970, even though Lennon started putting out albums before that; the competition ends in 1980 for obvious reasons.

Morbid curiosity brought me to watch this move -- slack-jawed astonishment kept me watching.

It's awful, a train wreck, but not in the way I thought it would be.

It's utterly wrong-headed, flat-footed and depressing -- but again, not in the way I thought it would be.

HOST: Tonight on Hardball, Beatle Paul McCartney, singer Stevie Wonder and screenwriter/blogger Todd Alcott. Our subject is racism, let's start with Sir Paul. Paul, what is your answer to the age-old, seemingly insoluble problem of racism?

Last time, I attempted to pin down what makes the Beatles' recordings work, or at least what makes them so appealing and deathless to me. I came up with a handful of terms which I would now like to apply to McCartney's post-Beatle work. These terms are: urgency, immediacy, drama, complexity, joyfulness and experimentalism, coupled to a faultless melodic sense and set to unique, indelible arrangements. How does McCartney's post-Beatles work compare?

If you will bear with me a moment, I'm going to attempt a syllogism, or at least a mathematical formula:

IF we say that the recordings of the Beatles represent a certain extremely-high standard of professionalism, creativity and musical success,

AND Paul McCartney was one-fourth of the personnel of the Beatles,

AND said McCartney was one-half of the writing team responsible for most of the Beatles songs, that gives us SIX PARTS of responsibility, of which McCartney may reasonably lay claim to TWO, or ONE THIRD.

THEREFORE, ONE THIRD of solo McCartney material, post-Beatles, and absent other Beatles, may reasonably be expected to reach the same level of professionalism, creativity and musical success.

Does McCartney meet the demands of this (arbitrary, unfair) formulation? Do the other Beatles?  Could anyone?

My response to the life and work of Paul McCartney is complex and contridictory. Where to begin?

Perhaps the thing to do is to find an orientation point. Where did I begin?

I've been thinking a lot about Paul McCartney, what with his new record out, with its valedictory feel, and all. McCartney is a subject of longstanding fascination, fandom, frustration and exasperation around my household, so much so that it's hard to know where to begin. For every moment of genius in his work (about sixteen million or so) there seems to be an equal number of missteps, squanderings of talent, outright atrocities and failures of character, and I'd like to take the time to sort it all out in the next few days.

But here's a good place to start:

Above: the young McCartney, pale and drawn, haunted by his recent encounter, and the ensuing recording.  Is the awkward pose a kind of code?  And why are the other Beatles obviously distancing themselves from McCartney?  Are they worried about possible sniper fire? 

Below: the young woman in question.

______________________________________________________________

Your ex-girlfriend has a message for you.  The message is, "She loves you."

And you know that can't be bad.

Can't it?

Let us consider.

It is 1963.  You are, presumably, a teenage boy, although the song does not specify age or sex.  The point is, you have an ex-girlfriend and she says she loves you. 

The question becomes: Who is your ex-girlfriend?

Your ex-girlfriend is, apparently, a person of considerable power and influence.  How do we know this?  We know this because Paul McCartney is her messenger boy. 

McCartney, one of the most celebrated young men in the United Kingdom at this point, has recently been in contact with your ex-girlfriend and she has impressed upon him the overwhelming, urgent nature of her message, which is that she loves you.  Not only is McCartney impressed, but he is sufficiently terrified of the repercussions of his failure to deliver this message that he has enlisted the aid of his band The Beatles, overwhelmingly the most popular and influential musical act in the UK, to assist him with this message delivery.  McCartney, you see, apparently does not know you personally, nor does he know where to find you.  All he knows is that your ex-girlfriend has a message for you and it is his urgent need to deliver this message.

And so McCartney has used every ounce of his compositional talent to craft a bombastic, hysterical football-chant of a song, immediate in its impact and devastating in its catchiness, and has enlisted The Beatles to play it, and on top of that has enlisted the aid of Parlophone records to distribute the recording to every record store in the nation, and Swan records in the United States (and, when their distribution capabilities prove inadequate, Capitol).  Every radio station in the English-speaking world will be pressed into service to play it, and The Beatles will even sing a version in German on the off-chance that the message might reach you in Deutschland as well.  On top of that, The Beatles, leaving no stone unturned, will eventually visit every civilized nation in the world (and Indonesia), playing this song in concerts before millions of listeners, and will continue to do so for three years, in a marathon attempt to deliver this message to you.

That's some ex-girlfriend.

Who is she?  How did she come to wield such power and influence?  Why didn't McCartney simply say to her "I'm sorry luv, I'm a rather busy pop star and this, frankly, seems to be a private matter?"  What methods did she use to impress upon him the overwhelming importance of her love, so that he would spend the next three years of his life delivering the message, through recordings and live performance, to every possible recipient in the hope of reaching you?  Your ex-girlfriend, it seems, has an iron grip on the attention of Mr. McCartney.

I think we have to allow the possibility that your ex-girlfriend is unstable and possibly dangerous.

What suggests this?  Let's examine the primary evidence, the message itself.

"You think you've lost your love, well I saw her yesterday, it's you she's thinking of, and she told me what to say."

Seems simple enough.  Let's move on.

"She says you hurt her so, she almost lost her mind."

Okay, let's stop right there.

Your ex-girlfriend has instructed Mr. McCartney to write in his message to you that she has "almost lost her mind."  What kind of declaration of love is that?  "Please come back to me, I'M NOT CRAZY."  This passage speaks volumes.

Now let's go back to that first line.  "You think you've lost your love."  Why were you trying to lose your love?  What makes you think you've succeeded in losing your love?  How intense were your efforts, and how diligent has she been in following you?  And consider the subtext of McCartney's desperation: "You think you've lost your love, well I saw her yesterday."  What he's telling you is "You think you've lost your love, well, she she was able to get to me, Paul McCartney, the biggest celebrity in the UK, a man of considerable power and influence.  What chance do you think you stand of avoiding her?  Give it up, for the love of God, talk to her, PLEASE, TALK TO HER." 

And "I saw her yesterday."  Apparently she can get to him any time she wants.  Note how in every performance of this song, and McCartney must've racked up thousands by now, he still sings "Well I saw her yesterday."  She is, for years, in near constant contact with one of the most heavily guarded personalities of his time.  This ex-girlfriend, obviously, has her ways of getting to people, and does not give up easily.

("Yesterday."  There's that word, a word that would haunt McCartney for the rest of his life.  He saw your ex-girlfriend yesterday; is it only coincidence that yesterday is the same day that so shattered him, that saw him reduced to "not half the man [he] used to be?"  There's "a shadow hanging over me" -- a troubling image we will examine the implications of later.)

"But now she says she knows your not the hurting kind."  This line could be read a number of ways.  Either your ex-girlfriend is confident in her abilities to overpower you physically (Why not?  She's got Paul McCartney wrapped around her little finger) or else she's whistling in the dark.  You have disappeared, fled this dangerous, unstable young woman, in fear for your life, and in her desperation she has crafted a fiction about the nature of your personality.  "Come back, I know you didn't mean to hurt me, I understand completely and I love you, and I won't let Paul McCartney out of my clutches until you respond in kind, in order to prove my point."  What could this possibly be except the actions of a crazy person?

(In German!  They recorded a version in German!  Why?  Has your ex-girlfriend expressed a concern that you perhaps have amnesia, and are living in Germany?  Does she think, perhaps, that some German-speaking friends or relatives might relay the message to you?  What evidence does she have of this?  Does she think that, in your desperate avoidance, you have fled the country, changed your name and taken up speaking a foreign language?  What the hell did this young woman do to you?)

"Although it's up to you, I think it's only fair."  Yes, that's right, it's totally up to you.  Please don't let me, Paul McCartney, biggest pop star in the UK, influence your decision in any way, it's absolutely your decision to make.  HOWEVER: "Pride can hurt you too."  Ah, there's the rub.  It's utterly your decision to make, but YOU WILL FEEL THE PAIN OF THAT DECISION." 

"Apologize to her."  Oh, now wait, what the hell?  I thought the message is that she loves you, now she's demanding an apology?  Not herself, of course, no, that's not her style.  No, it's McCartney, McCartney is pleading with you, please, for the love of God, apologize to her, or you will find yourself in a world of pain.  This is no tender declaration of love, this is a plain-spoken threat.

"And with a love like that, you know you should be glad."  Yes, you should be.  But McCartney, at this point, is fooling no one.  Look at the way certain phrases are repeated, chantlike, over and over -- "She loves you, yeah yeah yeah," "and you know that can't be bad,"  "and you know you should be glad."  This is what Shakespeare referred to as "protesting too much."

An image forms in my mind.  The Beatles return from a world tour, exhausted and terrified from their international mission of message delivery.  A pale, drawn, shaken McCartney returns home to London, thinking he's fulfilled his duty, but is greeted at his door by your ex-girlfriend.

The rain pours down, wetting the young composer's hair as he stands, crestfallen at the sight of the trembling, enraged young woman.  "Did you deliver the message?"  She asks.  "What was the reply?"

McCartney has no answer.  Distractedly, he fumbles with a cigarette.  He can't get a match to strike, not in this sodden English weather.  "I didn't hear back," he stammers, "I did my best.  Please, you have to understand --"

"You didn't even locate the recipient, did you?" she cuts him off.  McCartney goes pale.  The cigarette, soaked and lifeless, trembles in his lips.  He knows that he will have to go back to the other Beatles and insist that they tour the world once again, enduring constant threat to their lives, in the service of this young woman.  It's going to be another long year.

(Did McCartney, perhaps, actually die in 1966, as was widely rumored?  Was it at the hands of your ex-girlfriend?)

More important, perhaps: who are you?  What did you do to this young woman, who must be a middle-aged woman by now, if she's still alive?  Are you still alive, or did you pay for your relationship with this young woman with your life?  When will it be safe for you to come out of hiding?  Are you waiting for another message from McCartney, a song whose chorus goes "It's all right, she's dead, you're in the clear?"  What will it take to heal this wound?  Can your ex-girlfriend ever be satisfied?

Let's face it, in the end there is only one possibility: your ex-girlfriend is a supernatural being of terrible power.  Your ex-girlfriend may be, in fact, not your ex-girlfriend at all.  The song does not, after all, identify her as an ex-girlfriend, merely that she is female, that you "hurt her so," and that she loves you.  She could be your daughter, your sister or even your mother.  You may not even be aware of her existence, but she loves you and her love is powerful, constant and unstoppable.  She could, in fact, be a ghost and, like Sadako in Hideo Nakata's Ringu films, she will never rest until her message has been disseminated to every living person on the planet.  Which begs the question: what did you do to her?  You "hurt her so."  As per Sadako, did you push her down a well because of her awesome powers of destruction? 

Whoever she is and whatever her powers, her mark on McCartney was permanent and irreversible.  In three short years, she turned him and the other Beatles from cheeky, entertaining moptops to sallow bickering, paranoid drug addicts.  What else explains the Beatles' withdrawl from public life, their investigations into psychedelia and escape into hallucinations, John Lennon's relationship with the Sadako-like Yoko Ono, George Harrison's obsession with spiritual life?

What will free the world from the curse of her "love?"