The Paul McCartney album George Harrison didn’t like: “[They] don’t do much for me”
The ending of The Beatles was always bound to be messy. Since the Fab Four had known each other since they were teenagers, the unravelling of their band due to business decisions led to many hard feelings when working on their first handful of solo albums, with John Lennon and Paul McCartney getting into musical sparring sessions on their first recorded output. Although the band’s breakup burned George Harrison, he thought one of his bandmates didn’t hit the mark as a solo artist.
Then again, Harrison’s star as a solo artist would be one of the most successful at first. Since he had been stockpiling songs trying to crack the Lennon/McCartney stronghold, his debut album All Things Must Pass became one of the watermarks of his career, creating bold declarations of love and spirituality in tracks like ‘What is Life’ and ‘My Sweet Lord’.
As Harrison was putting together his messages to God, both Lennon and McCartney had started to reinvent themselves in the wake of the breakup. Having gone through emotional trauma, Lennon would pour his heart into his debut solo release, Plastic Ono Band, creating songs that were informed by his pain on tracks like ‘God’ and ‘Working Class Hero’.
At the same time, McCartney was stripping everything back down when putting together his self-titled McCartney project. Since Macca was known as the resident perfectionist in the group, his first steps as a solo artist were far more ramshackle than most people expected, with many songs sounding like demos compared to early Beatles recordings.
When asked about McCartney’s debut, Harrison would say that he wasn’t much of a fan, saying, “‘That Would Be Something’ and ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ I think are great. And everything else I think is fair, you know — is quite good — but umm, a little disappointing. I think those two tracks, in particular, are really very good. And the others, I mean, just don’t do much for me”.
While many of the songs had been worked around the same time as The Beatles’ final tracks, Harrison thought that fans got to hear them in their worst possible iterations, explaining, “I can hear other people play better drums and guitars and things. And the arrangements of some of these songs, like… ‘Teddy Boy,’ and ‘Junk,’ and stuff — with a little bit more arrangement, they could’ve sounded better. I suppose it was the only thing he felt he could do at the time”.
Despite the criticism from his former bandmate, McCartney has since developed a cult following amongst his fans as one of his more overlooked efforts. Outside of the colossal ballad ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, McCartney’s homemade approach to the album was somewhat ahead of its time, creating a sound that was closer to the indie music of today.
Although the public and even his fellow Beatles didn’t get where he was going on future albums like RAM, McCartney was determined to get back to a sound that he liked, eventually forming Wings with his wife Linda in the 1970s. Even though Harrison may have taken a more detailed approach if he were in McCartney’s shoes, the cute Beatle’s debut is still an engaging listen for those looking to get into The Beatles’ solo highlights.
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