Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)
— Lennon/McCartney “We Can Work It Out”
Somehow, I’ve recently been on another serious Beatles kick. I think my present episode even surpasses my first deep dive into their work, back in the early 80’s. That first plunge was typified by my quest (successful) to find all the original Parlophone LPs. It was an exploration which I found exciting, though to this day, I cannot explain it entirely. I’m at rather a loss to account for the strength of my emotional connection to the Beatles’ music. They weren’t really “the soundtrack of my youth” the way they were for millions. Well, with probably the notable slight exception of the single (at that time I should have called it a “45” which chanced to come with a “Close and Play” phonograph I was given when a boy: “Yellow Submarine”/”Eleanor Rigby.” Which, by the way, must likely have been my first exposure to a string quartet. By the time I was fully conscious of them, they had been broken up for a few years. Still, I feel a strong sentimental bond. It’s a mystery I may never fathom. My high school jazz band played a kicking arrangement of “Norwegian Wood,” and at the time I’d never heard the original. You could have knocked me over with a swizzle stick, the first time I heard George Harrison sing “Something,” because I’d heard the song in various “easy listening” arrangements a hundred times before. Prior to my 80’s plunge, while I was yet in high school, I experienced a kind of proto-plunge. Walking up Park Avenue, I saw in a record store window the 1962-1966 and 1967-1971 anthology double-LPs. At that age I was not so flush with cash to run in and buy both as an impulse purchase, but I did feel an impulse to plan the purchase of both. Signal discoveries from those compilation albums include “I Am the Walrus.” “Old Brown Shoe” and “We Can Work It Out,” the latter (like “Something” and “Fool on the Hill” I had heard countless times as Elevator Music, so the song’s true provenance was the revelation, as well as what a damned fine song it is. Something I had forgotten for decades, and which I am remembering (somehow) practically as I type this: Our High School Chorus director had us sing a Beatles set, including “With a Little Help from My Friends,” “Magical Mystery Tour,” “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da” and “When I’m 64.” For the last, I was asked to glean and indeed play clarinet licks. So, it may be argued that the Beatles catalogue is more deeply embedded in my past than I have been conscious of. All of this surfaces as I have been considering“Yesterday,” one of McCartney’s greatest musical successes, and (e.g.) “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” which is perhaps not, the late George Harrison once describing it as “fruity.” I’m not writing to pan “Maxwell.” I think most listeners will at least entertain the possibility, if we acknowledge “Yesterday” to be Grade-A McCartney, that “Maxwell” may be Grade-B. It would be unfair to “grade” it any lower, and I certainly think it better than McCartney’s weakest effort(s) on the titular “White Album.” Hence my headline. Decades since, at a time when I myself was apt to think poorly of Mendelssohn, I was reading (I think it was) the Foreword to Joseph Machlis’ History of Western Music, in which he mentions a student objecting, “but isn’t he (Mendelssohn) a “B Composer?” to which the reply was, “Yes, but I don’t think you realize how very good that is.” So I’m not here to trash “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.” It’s just an example leading us to the real value in distinguishing a composer’s/songwriter’s best work from the sub-best. McCartney is an apt subject fpr this thought experiment because, like Saint-Saëns’ analogy of the apple tree bearing apples, Sir Paul has been the most prolific, in his solo career, of any of his bandmates, and sometimes the result has not been as good as Grade-B. He has certainly penned an inarguably impressive number of hit singles. A quick list of eight McCartney solo tracks I think very highly of: “Junior’s Farm,” “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” “Band on the Run,” “Hi, Hi, Hi,” “Helen Wheels,” “Mull of Kintyre,” “With a Little Luck,” “Waterfalls.” I don’t own many McCartney albums, because, where with the Beatles’ albums, on which you remember practically every track, personally I don’t find this true of his solo albums. When “With a Little Luck” was the big single, I bought the London Town album, but I don’t remember any note else from the album. To be sure, McCartney is one of the deservedly most successful song-writers in the world, my ears cherish what I consider the best of his work, and he doesn’t have to prove a damned thing to me. It’s just another day.
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