Paul McCartney, the only one to face the pandemic without rhetoric

When five years ago it came out “McCartney III“, on 18 December 2020, the world was at a standstill. Studios closed, tours cancelled, artists forced to deal with the absence of the public and a domestic dimension of musical creation. In that suspended context, Paul McCartney released a record that, at first glance, seemed almost like a minor gesture: no guests, no lavish production, no declared ambition of a “grand opera”. But even then the most attentive ears had sensed that the greatness of McCartney’s album lies precisely in the absence of frills, one of the most coherent, intimate and conceptually radical works of his late career.

A third chapter that closes a circle

The title is not accidental. “McCartney III” is explicitly inserted in the wake of “McCartney” (1970) and “McCartney II” (1980), two albums born in moments of fracture: the first in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Beatles, the second during a phase of crisis and redefinition of Wings. The third chapter was also born in a period of insulationbut this time McCartney doesn’t have to prove anything, nor does he have to reinvent himself. He can afford to record alone, in his studio in Sussex, following only his instinct.

Unlike a lot of lockdown production, “McCartney III” doesn’t indulge in melancholy or self-pity. It’s a record energeticmade up of grooves, riffs and small imperfections deliberately left intact. McCartney plays almost all the instruments, as he has always done in these solo projects, but (here even more than in other cases) without exhibitionism: it is simply the most natural way to work in a context that does not allow other solutions.

A notebook without rhetoric

The risk of lapsing into the most banal rhetoric was high, as well as perfectly normal. It happened to everyone, at least once, in those desperate months. Songs like “Find My Way” and “Seize the Day” instead show a Paul still capable of writing immediate songs without forcing current events, while “Deep Deep Feeling” is surprisingconsidering his most recent production: over eight minutes of layering, dynamic changes and a slow, almost hypnotic construction. As shocking as “Slidin'”, a piece so aggressive that it seems in contrast with the sweet and reassuring image of the former Beatle.

“Lavatory Lil” and “Pretty Boys” instead represent the more ironic and melodic side, because even in sad times McCartney gives up thehumorwhich has always been an integral part of his writing. There is no single “manifesto song”: the album works as an organic whole, also because each song is different from the other. Rock, blues, pop; aggressive, thoughtful, cheerful. All together.

Subsequent reinterpretations (“McCartney III Imagined”) expanded the universe of the album, but paradoxically confirmed its original strength: the album works above all in its primary, bare and private form. A sound notebook which tells of a rare moment of balance in the career of an artist who has experienced almost every possible phase of pop and rock music, while outside his door the world no longer knows what balance is. A no-frills, direct and fun record, for an artist with such a cumbersome history behind him, is the most authentic form of sincerity.