POLL: How do you rate Paul McCartney's "Driving Rain" album?

I voted solid effort, recommended.

I just listened to it last week and I'm surprised how much I liked it, with the pummeling it takes. About You should be toured live. Title track is fun. Heather, great. Tiny Bubble, also nice.

I like this more now than when it first came out. Ohgodhelpme

 

agree

 

I could see it that way but Macca never said it was a double. It really is though in terms of length but you know what I mean.

 

I rate it as Not Bad with a handful of very strong tracks, but I think you're slightly off on the idea of a trilogy. To me there's a very clear trilogy that begins with Flaming Pie and continues through Run Devil Run, which you omitted, and concludes with Driving Rain. "Pie" is haunted by the fear of losing Linda (listen closely to "Somedays" if you have any doubt about this). RDR, though mostly covers, is a musical walking tour of the stages of grieving. Some of the emotion is so raw that it's hard to listen to, brilliant as it is. And, knowing Paul's disinclination to write a lot of soul-baring songs, covers gave him the vehicle to process the pain without having to put it into words himself. Just compare his version of No Other Baby to the original: He turns a happy, upbeat tune into a howl of agony. Driving Rain is about coming through that experience and beginning to reconnect with the joy of making music and the possibility of falling in love again (yeah, it was with Heather, but we all make mistakes). The opening tracks, Lonely Road and From a Lover to a Friend, are pretty clearly about the terror/joy of reconnecting with love and romance. I'm not at all sure Paul intended the albums to work out this way, but to me the thread is unmistakeable.

 

At the time it came out I would have agreed with you.And I bought Driving Rain when it came out on vinyl.That said,I think Macca has sunk to even lower depths since.Memory Almost Full and Kisses on The Bottom are tied for worst IMO. New come after that.

Driving Rain is Venus and Mars,Ram,or any other classic 70s album.when you compare it to these newer ones.

 

I've never liked it. To me it lacks McCartney's greatest songwriting strength, melody. It's one a of a handful of his albums that I just don't play.

 

I voted not bad. But sadly, the only song on the album I can recall is Tiny Bubbles, so I guess I was too generous and it's really lower tier!

 

New..pecking order.

Ram
BOTR
McC
Wild Life
RRS
V&M
MAF
Chaos & Creation In The Backyard
New
TOW
Back To The Egg
Off The Ground
DR
Flowers
Electric Arguments

 

I went w/Not Bad.
I agree with others who say they like Driving Rain more now than when it was released. For me, it's a matter of freeing Driving Rain from its pre-release expectations. This was Paul's first album of original material after Linda's death and I'm sure I wasn't the only one hoping this would be an all-time classic reflecting Paul's emotional state.
Instead, DR is like nothing else in Paul's non-Fireman catalogue. He spends the album experimenting, searching, but never going through the motions. The emotions are there, but he is not wearing them on his sleeve.
It's not a perfect album, but it is an interesting one.

 

From the 2002 Driving USA Tour program.

 

This album keeps growing on me, I don't know if it's something fungal and I'm gonna get a rash and need ointment, but it really keeps growing on me.

Favourites: Rinse the raindrops, Heather, Back in the sunshine again, Your loving flame, From a lover to a friend, Magic, Your Way, Lonely Road

Frustratingly I love the intro to tiny bubble and their are elements I like but somehow it's just not quite clicking. Driving Rain is the opposite I can't get into the first 15/20 seconds at all or the 12345 etc but I really like the rest of the song, so close but no cigar for me. I will have to check out the BITUS version

Pretty solid: would recommend to someone willing to play it through 5 or 6 times. It's not an immediate get.

 

Driving Rain seems to be an underappreciated album as time passes...as though people's opinion of it has waned over the years. To me, it's sound was experimental and a step forward for Paul at the time, and it hasn't aged as badly as some think it has.

It's themes and emotions ring true rather than being somewhat detached and/or questionable in its sincerity. Which can sometimes happen with Paul, who is one of my favorite musicians. The music matches the lyrics, in a manner that John Lennon excelled in.

Like Electric Arguments, the sound/style is different than some of his albums with more colorful "sound colors". Driving Rain and Electric Arguments also lack Paul's usual "cute"...yet very creative... approach to music making. These albums are creative without the cute. More real and less contrived.

Driving Rain and Electric Arguments are probably my favorite Post Wings albums by Paul. Next would be Chaos and Creation...another real and authentically felt album.

 

It didn't give me any appetite to further explore his late work, but is a respectable, workmanlike effort from a pop pro.

 

I think musically, it is one of his better albums, but the lyrics are horrific and the inclusion of "Freedom" seals it as a clunker (voted lower tier).

Lyrically, "1-2-3-4-5-6-7 All good children go to heaven" has poetic license. "1-2-3-4-5 let's go for a drive" is worse than "the dog-gone girl is mine". I absolutely cringe when I hear it.

The album also reeks of Heathen Mills.

 

If only he had the voice to carry that "late career run".

 

True. I still think he sounds pretty good, but he's definitely lost some. However, for me the biggest drop-off was between MAF and NEW...it was pretty gradual up until MAF but then it's like his voice went off a cliff!

 

Really? I don't know. I thought he was in fine voice on Electric Arguments & still pretty strong on Kisses. I was pleasantly surprised to be honest with how well he sang on Live Kisses. I think his age is showing on New but on a song like Early Years he uses the older, fragile quality to very good effect. It adds rather than detracts.

Of course I don't know how much longer his voice will last, genetics are the main determinant of the rate at which vocal chords age. He's 72 in what less than a fortnight? I'm in awe of him really. I think he's putting in a good late innings.

 

I think his late career work has been outstanding, but to be completely objective about his voice, he hides its limitations on "Electric Arguments" but using a lot of studio manipulations (which is perfectly inline with the whole "Fireman" concept) and hides them again on "Kisses" by choosing to sing the songs in a "whispered tone". Wise choices.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think his voice is still damn good. But compared to what it was even 10 years ago, let alone his prime, he's lost a lot in recent years. That being said, I'll still gladly listen to him any day!

 

Totally agree and point taken. Still studio trickery is allowed. Nothing wrong with a bit of smoke and mirrors

I think part of it is expectations too, I guess as a fan of Bob Dylan's late work, I probably without having really thought too much on it, just accept older artists will no longer have the voices of their youth and will sound like they've been round the block a time or two.

I'm not expressing this well, I guess what I mean is I was pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed his Live Kisses performance but on an unconscious level, part of that was taking his age into account. I appreciate he doesn't have the voice of his youth, but I thought he made the most of what he still has.

 

When Dylan's voice really left the building (mid-2ooos), I found that I could (and can) still really enjoy the material written FOR that voice. I have a much harder time with hearing him perform older songs in that voice, which is why I stopped attending his concerts and collecting those shows (both of which I did religiously for nearly 20 years). Paul can still "get by" on most of the older songs, at least on most nights. Every once in a while though (like the SNL performance to promote the Band on the Run reissue), the emperor has no clothes on those old songs. It's a reality of life - I'm happy that he's still with us and I wish I was going to be in Lubbock in a couple of weeks

 

It is the reality of life.

I am going to be at Candlestick Park in August and I have never seen him in concert before! I'm looking forward to it. So long as he turns up and can still carry a tune in a bucket, he'll make me happy

 

Yes, Freedom was added on to Driving Rain following 9/11 and doesn't really fit the rest of the album. It's not my favorite... yet it doesn't offend me, even though it's fairly redundant and generic.

(Paul McCartney)

This is my right, a right given by God
To live a free life, to live in Freedom
talkin' about Freedom

I'm Talkin' bout Freedom
I will fight, for the right
To live in Freedom

Anyone, who tries to take it away
Will have to answer, Cause this is my right

I'm talkin' about Freedom
I'm Talkin' bout Freedom
I will fight, for the right
To live in Freedom, yeah oh

(LEAD SOLO)

talkin' about Freedom
I'm talkin' bout Freedom
I will fight, for the right
To live in Freedom

Everybody talkin' bout Freedom
We're Talkin' bout Freedom
We will fight, for the right
To live in Freedom

Talkin' bout freedom
I'm talkin bout freedom
I will fight, for the right
To live in Freedom

I'm talkin' about Freedom
I'm talkin' about Freedom
We will fight, for the right
To live n Freedom

 

I lost close people in 9-11 and really really really appreciate what Paul did, and what the song means...but it obviously was too contrived to ever catch on, be hummed, be revered, be a hit, etc. Even Eric Clapton couldn't save it. Paul should have collaborated with others.

At the very least- yes, it should have been left off the album.

 

I listened to Driving Rain today while working via my computer and actually liked hearing Freedom more than I remembered liking it. But I know that it has been received with mixed reviews and mixed feelings. And many people dislike it more than ever.

It was possibly a bit opportunistic when Paul wrote it in a hurry during this unique time period in 2001...but I think Paul's heart generally was in it. I heard an interview with him after 9/11 saying something about..."if it was good enough for our parent's generation...well then it's good enough for us"...enough said about that...but it was in the context of 9/11. Having said that, he always did have that side to him...that ran counter sometimes to John and even George in the late sixties. "You say goodbye and I say hello..."

You can hear it in the music they each put out while with the Beatles during that time period, even as these three Beatles were all multi-dimensional personalities, being versatile musically and in their lyrics when they were Beatles.

Some things are too deep to put into song too quickly...that's why songs like Nights in White Satin really hit home when they started playing it much more frequently right after 9/11. Because people knew the song and it really "hit home"...having so much presence and depth as a song in its own right.