Bless, engagement is exactly what we're after! No apologia tolerated round these parts 😤 (lookin at you fellow Macca fans, he's done more than his fair share of scumbag shit)
Reflecting on this, and my main two takeaways are that solo George is pretty badly mischaracterised here -- surely eschewing per se songwriting + rebounding from dark nights of the soul are more applicable to solo Lennon? There's a comfortable case that George was the most meticulous and dependable Beatle for at least the first half of the '70s, and the likes of "Try Some Buy Some" are at least as harmonically complex as any of Paul's everything-and-your-granny's-kitchen-sink fare from the same period (and all the better for being less flamboyant with it) -- and that 'shepherd[ing]' is an extremely polite choice of wording for the ministerial presence Paul exerted over the other Beatles in their final couple of yrs
"deliberate equals in a world that demanded male dominance, proudly codependent in an increasingly atomized and isolated society, remains aspirational to many for good reason"
Big 100% to this, but I think it's all the more potent + frustrating an observation when placed in the context that Paul soaked up all the credit and none of the flack from comparable behaviour in the way he conjured up a musical platform for Linda, in a far more tokenistic capacity at that. "Too Many People", while still an undeniably great tune, might be the single most hypocritical tune to come out from the whole Lennon/Macca beef period (rivalled closely ofc by "Crippled Inside")
You are very much detecting my Paul bias (and also perhaps the origin of this piece as being written in the voice of a scumbag late-70s record executive sizing up prospective signings in terms of which Beatle they're most like X.X)
Linda definitely did get a fair bit of flack from what I've read though! Lol makework job for untalented wifey, and all that. IMO to the extent that she and Paul got less flack than John and Yoko it was exactly because she was pretty much happy to play a supporting role in Paul's career.
Very dense (in a good way!) and engaging piece. I love what you've done here.
Signed,
a Lennon fan, but not a Lennon apologist
Bless, engagement is exactly what we're after! No apologia tolerated round these parts 😤 (lookin at you fellow Macca fans, he's done more than his fair share of scumbag shit)
Reflecting on this, and my main two takeaways are that solo George is pretty badly mischaracterised here -- surely eschewing per se songwriting + rebounding from dark nights of the soul are more applicable to solo Lennon? There's a comfortable case that George was the most meticulous and dependable Beatle for at least the first half of the '70s, and the likes of "Try Some Buy Some" are at least as harmonically complex as any of Paul's everything-and-your-granny's-kitchen-sink fare from the same period (and all the better for being less flamboyant with it) -- and that 'shepherd[ing]' is an extremely polite choice of wording for the ministerial presence Paul exerted over the other Beatles in their final couple of yrs
"deliberate equals in a world that demanded male dominance, proudly codependent in an increasingly atomized and isolated society, remains aspirational to many for good reason"
Big 100% to this, but I think it's all the more potent + frustrating an observation when placed in the context that Paul soaked up all the credit and none of the flack from comparable behaviour in the way he conjured up a musical platform for Linda, in a far more tokenistic capacity at that. "Too Many People", while still an undeniably great tune, might be the single most hypocritical tune to come out from the whole Lennon/Macca beef period (rivalled closely ofc by "Crippled Inside")
You are very much detecting my Paul bias (and also perhaps the origin of this piece as being written in the voice of a scumbag late-70s record executive sizing up prospective signings in terms of which Beatle they're most like X.X)
Linda definitely did get a fair bit of flack from what I've read though! Lol makework job for untalented wifey, and all that. IMO to the extent that she and Paul got less flack than John and Yoko it was exactly because she was pretty much happy to play a supporting role in Paul's career.