The song Paul McCartney said the world needed to hear: “A magic moment”
Ever since the 1960s, Paul McCartney has never stopped his search for the next great song.
John Lennon may have had moments where he stopped making music or only picked the guitar up when he had something to say, but coming up with melodies was practically second nature to Macca whenever he found himself anywhere close to an instrument. He could squeeze the catchiest tune out of nearly anything, but he was still an admirer of a great lyricist whenever he heard one out in the wild.
Then again, McCartney was never exactly the most consistent lyricist in the world when you look at his track record. There are some fantastic works of prose in his songbook that deserve to be put next to the greatest pieces of music ever written, but are we really going to say that the same guy who wrote songs like ‘Bip Bop’ should be considered a lyrical genius? There’s nothing wrong with him being goofy, but it’s not at the level that Bob Dylan set for himself by any stretch.
That’s half the reason why Lennon worked so well with his writing partner. The Beatles’ material was always about making people smile, and while McCartney could be his usual jovial self on nearly every track they made, Lennon would often be the one bringing everything back down to Earth, whether that was calling for people to speak out on tracks like ‘Revolution’ or managing to undercut McCartney’s songs with some pessimism like the bridge of ‘We Can Work it Out’ or the backing vocals on ‘Getting Better’.
But above all the mood switches, McCartney knew that he could never go wrong but telling the truth in his songs. He might disguise how he’s feeling behind a character some of the time, but when you listen to a song like ‘My Love’ towards the beginning of Wings’s career, no one’s doubting what he was saying. He was madly in love with Linda, and you can feel that romantic ecstasy throughout every moment of the tune, even if the rest of the world called it a bit too lightweight.
Aside from his greatest love songs, though, Macca had those few songs that got away as well. There had been something in the water that he missed when listening to Sting pen ‘Fields of Gold’, but even when The Beatles were suddenly back in style again at the height of Britpop, he felt that The Verve hit on something that the giants hadn’t even touched on when they released Urban Hymns.
They may have come riding in on a Rolling Stones sample on ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, but ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’ was what made McCartney turn his head, saying, “There’s always a magic moment. [Like] in ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’. I remember hearing that record, the acoustic coming on, but when he hits that line, it’s like, ‘Fucking hell, that has to be said.’ It hadn’t been said before.”
And for a genre that was all about optimism, having this kind of song is actually a great way for everyone to look at the big picture. It’s no secret that people like Noel Gallagher were getting off their faces on God knows what they were shoving up their noses, but after seeing his band dissolve one too many times, Richard Ashcroft was almost obligated to put this kind of tune into words.
The drug culture may run rampant throughout all of rock and roll, but at the end of the day, hearing Ashcroft hoping to see his other half’s face again is one of the most honest lines that any rock star has ever written. The drugs might help for a little while, but what matters is love, and as Lennon helped remind us long ago, that really is all you need to get by in this world.
