Making the perfect Paul McCartney granny album
Throughout the history of The Beatles, Paul McCartney almost seemed too lighthearted for his own good. There are many moments throughout his career where he can write a fantastic rock song, but there are too many tunes that bleed over into cheesy pop territory for most fans to consider him the true rock and roller of the group compared to John Lennon. Although Lennon was usually the first one to dismiss the whimsy of Macca’s tunes, that didn’t mean that there weren’t some merit behind his “granny shit”.
Because, really, the lighthearted songs are what made the Lennon/McCartney partnership work so well. They may not have agreed on which direction every song should have gone in, but since Lennon had a more caustic approach to his music every time he picked up his guitar or got behind the piano, having McCartney there with a more mellow approach always kept things in check.
Granted, there are moments where it could go too far in the opposite direction. It’s hardly fair to call every single one of McCartney’s tunes disposable pop garbage when they come on the radio, but looking at an album like Abbey Road, the whole thing feels perfect so long as you ignore pieces like ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ thrown right in the middle of everything.
But maybe we’re simply not hearing those songs in the right context. The White Album was the ultimate example of the band making four different solo records at one time, so if McCartney managed to get all of his granny songs out of his system at one time, it could have made for a pretty compelling record.
So, what would a Paul McCartney ‘granny’ album sound like?
The first rule that we’re making with this kind of album comes down to the songs that should be included. Since The Beatles’ greatest records are set in stone, we’re only going to be looking at the lighthearted songs that McCartney wrote during his solo career. While that does leave some fantastic music off the table, it’s better to look at his solo catalogue to get a good idea of what he’s capable of when left to his own devices.
Looking at his career both with Wings and beyond, though, there are a lot of different types of granny songs in his arsenal. There are songs that are meant to be a fanciful love song or a fairy tale, and there are occasionally the ones that are so sugary that they could give someone a sugar rush if they listen to it more than once a day.
But if put in the right order, these songs help show what’s going on in McCartney’s head most of the time. There are occasional songs that aren’t supposed to mean anything at all, but if he had chosen to make songs like ‘Jet’ for the rest of his life, it would have become incredibly boring, knowing that he was only ever going to make the same tired schlock that he was used to.
So, really, we should all be thankful for McCartney’s “granny songs”. Some people can’t help but cringe whenever they hear him sing another lighthearted, whimsical tune, but if he removed the whimsy from his sound, we would have been left with morose ballads like the ones that turned up on Driving Rain. McCartney was always more than that, and even if he had come off as less of a rocker, it’s never at the expense of the song.
The perfect Paul McCartney album
- ‘Dance Tonight’
- ‘Bluebird’
- ‘You Gave Me the Answer’
- ‘Heart of the Country’
- ‘Calico Skies’
- ‘Happy With You’
- ‘One More Kiss’
- ‘English Tea’
- ‘Little Willow’
- ‘I’m Carrying’
- ‘One of These Days’
- ‘Baby’s Request’
