Paul McCartney - McCartney III

Paul McCartney - McCartney III

Jared Stossel
Music

Paul McCartney
McCartney III
Release Date: December 18th, 2022
Label: Capitol Records

I’ve been sitting here for several minutes trying to figure out a way to begin this review. How does one introduce Paul McCartney? Everyone must surely know the name: The Beatles. Wings. McCartney’s name is synonymous with the word “music”, indisputably one of the greatest songwriters of all time. 

I believe that, at a certain point in any performer’s career, you start to just write music for the sake of writing what you like. No preconceived notions, no worrying about what the label thinks or how to market it; just writing what you like, and hopefully creating something that others like in the end. McCartney III, the eighteenth album in McCartney’s extensive solo catalogue, embraces this mindset. McCartney was even quoted in an interview with Classic Rock about the making on this album, stating, “It was about making music for yourself rather than making music that has to do a job. So, I just did stuff I fancied doing. I had no idea this would end up as an album.” McCartney recorded this album during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, playing all the instruments himself (as is customary on every McCartney entry, along with several other solo works of his). 

The relaxed nature of McCartney III is present throughout every note in the forty-five-minute collection of songs, but yet I found myself still fully engaged and drawn into everything McCartney did. “Long Tailed Winter Bird”, the album’s opening track, is a five minute song that features palm-muted guitar plucking and a grooving bassline as McCartney croons the lines “Do you, do, do, do you miss me?/Do you, do, do do you feel me?/Do you, do, do , do you touch me?”. I don’t know if there is any artist on the planet that could keep me as engaged in those five minutes as McCartney when he’s literally just creating a rhythm to kick things off. 

The album ebbs and flows through various styles and ranges throughout the pop music spectrum. “Find My Way” felt like one of McCartney III most lighthearted and cheerful entries, while “Pretty Boys” showcases more of a soft rock feeling, McCartney strumming away on an acoustic guitar as a mid-tempo drumbeat guides the song along its path. “Women and Wives” finds him behind the piano, with lyrics that traverse one of the most common thematic terrains present in McCartney III: the theme of everlasting hope, cherishing what’s right in front of you, and looking towards the future (“When tomorrow comes around/You’ll be looking at the future/So keep your feet upon the ground/And get ready to run”).

There are two songs on this album, “Lavatory Lil” and “Seize The Day”, that feel like they could both have been Beatles tracks, and both in different eras of the band’s career. “Lavatory Lil”, an up-tempo rock number, could have been plucked from one of the earlier Beatles albums, while “Seize The Day” could have been a post-Revolver cut. “Slidin” finds McCartney singing over a fuzzy blues-like guitar riff, reminiscing about the human condition, how there must be other ways of feeling free. “But this is what I wanna do/Who I wanna be/And every time I try/I feel like I can fly/But I know that I can die tryin’”A standout on McCartney III is “The Kiss of Venus”, a delicate acoustic offering that finds the musician at one of his most sensitive moments on the album, just him and his guitar (as well as a harpsichord that kicks in during the second half). 

The two longest cuts on McCartney III are “Deep Deep Feeling” and “Deep Down”. Both songs have stylistic differences, but they find McCartney at his most experimental. The lyrics in both tracks are rather straight-forward, but they show McCartney layering instrumentation and vocal hooks in unique ways, riffing the same verses and lyrics over and over until he finds the best possible way to bring the song to a conclusion. The song structures in these two tracks are fascinating to me: they establish the lyrics and tone within the first two minutes, and then they just keep going, sometimes trying different things until nearly five minutes have passed. Some organ here, a horn section here, lower harmonies over there. McCartney is just trying things to see how far he can push the song, and that’s fascinating to me. 

We come to a close with the reprisal of the “Winter Bird” acoustic riff we heard at the beginning of McCartney III, but only for a moment, as we are lead into one of the album’s finest moments. “When Winter Comes”. There’s something about this song that just relaxes me, with McCartney performing a song that’s so simple yet so beautifully complex. He writes about needing to tend to things on a farm land, questioning “when winter comes?” The track closes with the lyrics, “When summer’s gone/We’re gonna fly away/And find the sun/When winter comes”. There’s something so beautiful about that last line to me, about finding light in the darkness. Even with things feeling as bleak as they are, even with certain dark days ahead, McCartney leaves the listener with a feeling of hope: as dark as things may seem, we’ll still find a way to bring in the light and cast the darkness out. A lot of things have changed over the years but one thing is certain: Paul McCartney’s still an incredible musician and compelling songwriter. 

(Note: In 2021, ‘McCartney III Reimagined’ was released, which found McCartney remixing the songs on the record with artists like Dominic Fike, St. Vincent, Beck, and Anderson .Paak, and Phoebe Bridgers. Available now on Capitol Records.)

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