‘The Back Seat of My Car’: Paul McCartney’s greatest vocal performance
Is there really a sufficient way to sum up how Paul McCartney sings? Even though he’s one of the foundational members of The Beatles, there are so many voices that he goes through in any of their albums that it’s hard to keep track of when it’s him singing at times on tunes like ‘Helter Skelter’ or ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’. If we’re talking about the height of his vocal prowess, though, it all comes back to one of the most organic records that he had ever made during his solo years.
Then again, even talking about Macca’s voice also comes down to different spaces within his register. Most people would call out the reckless abandon he sings with on ‘Oh Darling’ or ‘Long Tall Sally’, but judging on that alone is ignoring the beautiful ballads he wrote like ‘For No One’ and ‘Yesterday’. While ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ saw him blending both the heavy and soft sides of his voice, RAM is when he got the chance to spread things out to unheard-of levels.
While most of the record is known for sounding ramshackle in places, the production behind it is absolutely stellar. Aside from the episodic songs like ‘Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey’ or the wild adventures like ‘Monkberry Moon Delight’, ‘Dear Boy’ is one of the best vocal showcases he ever did, working with Linda to get overlapping vocal harmonies that Brian Wilson would have been impressed with.
As the subtle sounds of the reprise of ‘Ram On’ find out, though, ‘The Back Seat of My Car’ turns everything on its head. Despite starting off fairly subdued, hearing McCartney build himself up throughout the verses of the song is the perfect example of tone painting. Because the true power of the song comes from understanding the story at the centre of everything.
Compared to traditional story songs, this is the kind of record that Bruce Springsteen could have written, with McCartney singing about a bunch of teenagers who are running away from their average lives to find somewhere else. It’s practically ‘Born to Run’ years before The Boss wrote it, but not even Springsteen could sell it with this much melodrama, especially in the final moments of the song where McCartney goes for broke and pulls out the Little Richard-esque screams towards the end.
What’s even stranger is seeing it being worked on in the Get Back project. It’s clear that what McCartney was working with was a sliver of an idea, but by the time he had the full arrangement down, he delivered the kind of knockout chorus that felt more indebted to his voice in ‘Golden Slumbers’. And at the risk of committing an act of heresy, there is no way that any of The Beatles could have made this song any better.
Despite the other ‘Threetles’ bashing the album when it came out, this is the kind of dramatic piece of brilliance that is as pure McCartney as it gets. And compared to John Lennon’s claim that he released plenty of ‘granny shit’ songs, hearing McCartney make a tune this aggressive is further proof that he could write a story with some punch behind it as well.
And with looking at the legacy of RAM differently today, it’s about time for ‘The Back Seat of My Car’ to be in the running with some of McCartney’s greatest Beatles compositions. It’s hard to improve on songs like ‘Yesterday’, but if there’s one thing this tune proved, it’s that you don’t have to try to equal something that brilliant. It’s about making something different, and no matter how many times someone plays ‘Imagine’ or ‘My Sweet Lord’, ‘The Back Seat of My Car’ is more than worthy of that company on Macca’s vocal alone.
