Paul McCartney - Egypt Station (#1 album in US) Appreciation Thread 2.0 - New and Improved

Yeah, but I already know what it's about. I can't change that. It cannot be unlearned.

 

Based on the decades lived through, the experiences, the connections and the projects past, current and future McCartney should be an amazing interview every time! Even his personal live is full of lessons learned and questions unanswered (never asked. Maybe we've just seen and read too many interviews already?

 

I miss that Rickenbacker bass (lol sorry)

 

I know vegetarian base and chicken base but Rickenbacker base? Do tell..

 

I seen time fly, I've seen butter fly....but I never seen an elephant fly

 

I've seen pig fly. It was awesome.

 

Just have it be a human drama, then. Most people will listen to it that way (as they won't know the background). I know the background and I still am not thinking about a guitar when I hear the song. (But it doesn't bother me if McCartney does.)

 

I have gone a little Egypt Station Crazy this week and did some DIY projects this week

Live From Abbey Road on CD, DVD and Blu Ray
Live from Grand Central on CD, DVD and Blu Ray
Paul's Spotify singles
The Making Of Radio Special
Between the Tracks "Egypt Station World Premiere Radio Special"

 

How’s the making of special?

 

Other songs titles from the vaults since 2010 or Egypt Station sessions:

- "Quarters" (Kiss Me Now / Hope)
- "The Secret Life Of The Party Girl"
- "Get Enough"
- "The Revenge For John Lennon"
- "Confidante" (Alternate/ also called "Confidante II")
- "If I Take You Home Tonight" (KOTB outtake)
- "Back In Brazil" (Alternate version)
- "The Church (We Never Went)"
- "Fred" (Emerick sessions)
- "Me Show You"
- "High In The Clouds"

And much more data coming soon...

 

I think of a guitar. When he says stuff like "underneath the staircase friend" or "played with you throughout the day". Just kinda weird way to speak about a person.

 

Wow.

I’m missing so much stuff.

 

I am revising this and I am going to celebrate until next Tuesday since the album is still in the top 10!

 

I have to say I find this comment utterly unfathomable. I also suspect you may not be a musician, but I'm just guessing on that one.

 

Funny, the song I get that feeling with is Happy With You. I think it would have sounded entirely different (and better) with his late '60s/early '70s voice. The way he clips off certain notes instead of sustaining them sounds like a man singing defensively to me.

 

I am not a musician.

 

I personally find the performance as it is very moving, but agree that hearing a younger Paul sing it would have been wonderful to hear (if not a bit of a stretch when it came to the 'used to' line). I can imagine him singing it on the 'James Paul McCartney' TV special with the other acoustic ballad performances.

 

I think one of the defining elements of Egypt Station is how personal and revealing the lyrics are. This is not at all the Macca of Jet or Listen to What the Man Said. Songs like Confidante, Happy With You, I Don't Know and Do It Now, among others, cut closer to the bone than Paul usually gets, by a large margin.

 

Good point!

 

Pre-ordered!

 

He looks and sounds better there than he has for a while. Thanks Arnie!

 

I wrote a few notes about the amazing “Dominoes” in the previous thread — including that the guitar scratchings at the end reminded me of bootlegs. Listening the other day I thought of those bits as an allusion to the guitar solos in “The End.” Since it seems to me to be a song about Paul addressing Beatle reunion requests (George?), is Paul winking and and saying you fans heard those wonderful, perfect, iconic solos — THIS is what we heard most of the time.

 

This is an "appreciation" thread. I'll fix it. I am not a musician, but I am told I have beautiful eyes.

Or

Dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a musician!

 

I just wanted to repost this here in the new thread, because I think that Kurstin deserves a lot of credit for his work on 'ES' :

I have just looked through every solo Paul McCartney and Wings release from the 'McCartney' album through to 'Egypt Station' in the current day, focusing on who produced each album, and I truly believe that Greg Kurstin has been the greatest producer of Paul's entire solo career.
I cannot praise George Martin enough for his work with the Beatles, and his contributions to 'Beautiful Night', 'C'mon People','Ram', 'Live And Let Die', 'Tug Of War', etc, but it cannot be forgotten that he also produced 'Pipes Of Peace' (or over-produced it could be argued), where many of the songs suffered from his almost smothering approach. For whatever reason, those early 80's albums together were sometimes too heavy handed, my example always being comparing the wonderful demo of 'Sweetest Little Show' to the finished studio version, and although I respect George Martin for holding his nerve and saying what songs he didn't want to work with, I do feel that he removed too much of Paul's quirkiness, instead of building on the good experimental work on 'McCartney 2' (Songs like 'It's Not On' and 'Simple As That', the second song with that title, not even being released as B-sides attest to this).

I am also a big fan of 'Chaos and Creation' and the work that Nigel Godrich did on that album, although I do think that his approach was too tough when it came to some of the material, seeing as he completely dismissed the earlier version of 'Ever Present Past', which I assume sounded similar to the lovely acoustic performance of that song which Paul released as part of his promotion for 'MAF'. Again, it sounds like he was slightly needlessly dismissive with Paul at times; he would say a song was crap or didn't interest him instead of just saying he preferred other material. Some of the creative tension worked really well, but what was released is an album you really have to be in the mood to hear, because Godrich's vision was obviously a serious, at times sombre and mellow album on the whole. Some of the wonderful B-sides from the sessions would have improved the diversity of the album. Again, I also feel that the album was too stately at times; I know that the title song on 'Tug Of War' was what had last made an impression on Godrich from Paul's solo work, but it is a shame in light of what Paul can do experimenting in the studio that not much of the more 'out there' creativeness that appears on Godrich's works with Radiohead and Beck appears on the album.

It is also a shame that we don't have an entire album of Costello produced songs, because the 1988 demos are wonderful, but at the same time some of the songs suffer when compared to the 1987 original demos; it doesn't seem that Costello would have achieved the sound that he had on his own albums with Paul (not blaming him for that necessarily).

As for others like Horn, Lipson, Kahne, etc, none of them achieved anything more than most producers could have done as far as I am concerned, or more than Paul alone could have done, even Chris Thomas, who got a good rocking sound, but who wasn't especially impressive elsewhere.

The only other contender for me would be Youth (Martin Glover), but he hasn't worked with Paul on a 'McCartney' release, and he either worked purely on studio improvisations or on remixes, instead of taking songs already composed and 'producing' them.

Funnily enough Tedder also only improvised songs with Paul in the studio, similar to Epworth on the 'New' album, to interesting affect, but it also isn't the same as working on songs already mainly written. I would say that Mark Ronson, Epworth, Giles Martin and Ethan Johns all did some good work with Paul, and over an entire album they may have competed with Kurstin in some ways individually, but we don't know that because Paul went with all 4 of them (whereas he chose to work with Kurstin alone apart from one week where Kurstin double booked on accident and worked with Beck), and although I enjoy much of what Martin did with 'New', I am not so keen on the contemporary modern 'sheen', and where 'Egypt Station' is really edging 'New' for me right now it is mainly down to production (and I say that as someone who rates 'New' in my top 3 or 4 solo McCartney albums).

Kurstin seems like Paul's perfect studio foil; he understands Paul's body of work, both Beatles (who he loved as a child) and solo (he name dropped 'Chaos' as being something like his goal for this album), he is a fellow multi-instrumentalist used to also experimenting and working with many different genres, he knows when to keep a song simple (Confidante, Happy With You), and when to keep working on it (Back In Brazil), and he has inspired Paul to work on some of his most ambitious work in many years (the longer form 'Hunt You Down' medley and 'Despite Repeated Warnings'). He has also produced some very strong vocal performances from Paul, vastly superior to those on 'In The Blink Of An Eye', and there are none of the strained vocals evident on a song like 'New'.
On top of all of this, are the wonderful little flourishes on songs like 'I Don't Know' (the beautifully recorded piano intro), 'Back In Brazil' (the synths), 'Hand In Hand' (the flute), the drum sound across the entire album, the solo and strings on 'C-Link', etc.

From what he said in the RS interview, he worked out a way of pushing Paul where he needed it, but also of dealing with Paul's confidence and deserved ego, finding the right balance for a creative relationship with a healthy back and forth (in a way someone like Padgham couldn't). The results speak for themselves, and I now look back and wish that more of Paul's work could have been produced with such confidence, good taste and knowledge of where to experiment and where to keep something simple.

 

I do like the melody and playing on the song, though. It's a solid track! Sorry for the negativity.