Paul McCartney : Ram (Album) Song by Song Thread

I think you hit the nail on the head right there. A ton of artists write some really, really, really bad lyrics and nobody is bashing them for being lazy.

Katy Perry - Firework - "Boom, boom, boom - even brighter than the moon, moon".

If McCartney wrote it - it would be considered lazy.

 

3 Legs: isn't the line "when I fly above the maddening crowd"?

One of those I didn't really like when I first heard it - definitely a lazy lyric at first listen, though the point of the song (when he chooses to make it) is there, in a very subtle way.

Really though, it's the sound, arrangement and performance of this song that eventually made it enjoyable for me - an acoustic blues that unusually has no solos but still maintains interest, thanks to the mood and tempo shifts.

 

Is it "Maddening Crowd" or "Madding Crowd"? If he's quoting Thomas Hardy, it's the latter. I don't honestly know, and I've heard the song 50 times.

But you are right, he's saying more than just "crowd" there.

 

I always thought it was "fly above the man in the crowd".

 

About the "lazy" lyrics. Firstly, yes: McCartney isn't the only one to write lazy lyrics. Ralph quotes Katy Perry. There will be a billion others. Doesn't make it OK.

Let's pick some quotes: "my dog he got three legs, but he can't run". Really? No ****, Sherlock. But he implies that his three legged canine friend ought to be able to. Maybe "AND he can't run" would be better. This is a minor gripe.

"Man I can smell your teeth a mile away". I can't think of a single friend of mine who wouldn't roll their eyes at that.

"The kettle's on the boil and I believe I'm gonna rain." Are you? Wow. Can I watch?

"Admiral Halsey notified me: he had to have a berth or he couldn't get to sea. I had another look and I had a cup of tea and a butter pie." Butter pie. Can't see that working somehow.

This all sounds mean spirited, I know. But the point is, all these little things aggregate. And most of it is nonsense anyway. Even if it wasn't a butter pie it would hardly make the song meaningful. Sure, it doesn't have to be. But Uncle Albert has such a beautiful, aching melancholy it cries out for a lyric of substance. Don't tack drivel like Admiral Halsey on the end (it's trite no matter how much clever arrangement you slather it in), take some time, put together a lyric that packs the same punch as the melody. Turn it into one of the most beautiful ballads in the history of music. Or don't.

Music is for fun. It doesn't have to be meaningful all the time. And McCartney's right: he doesn't always need to sweat it. But that's what I mean by "lazy": he could if he wanted to but he chooses not to because it's easier.

 

Those lyrics are very twee, very he.

 

Three Legs, I just love the music. To me the first thing that grabs me is the melody, the lyrics may hold me, but the melody grabs me.

Who cares if they are lesser words than Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Keats, Plath etc. the music is great.

 

About the alleged "lazyness" of McCartney's lyrics: it's true that sometimes they sound nonsensical or even dumb, but they are still better that what many other songwriters often do: rely on clichés from the blues or folk tradition.
Instead of singing about flies with three legs, salamanders and dustbin lids he could play it safe and write formulaic lyrics, and probably he would get a pass.

 

That's precisely how I feel about "Smile Away". It fits the music. Granted, it's not the most sopisticated lyric (and yes, the "smell your teeth a mile away"--well I wouldn't necessarily call it lazy as much as a mixed metaphor that McCartney probably felt was like "Hey Jude" i.e., 'the movement you need is on your shoulder" type of thing.


"Smile Away"--well it mightnot be the BEST lyric but I understand it--the insincerity is so strong that he can smell it" not that it matters (and I'm sure that McCartney might not have been thing of this) but bad breath is often due to poor teeth cleaning and CAN be smelled...yes, it's a stretch.

On a simpler level it's just clever word play with a mixed metaphor which clearly was quite deliberate. I can find other examples that are clearly better examples of lyrical stumbles in McCartney's lyrics throughout his career.

Nevertheless, I will concede that there are some lazy moments that I had forgotten about lyrically but at the time it was released I thought I understood them.

Having said that, if they fit the music and aren't offensively stupid, well I'm OK with that. There are plenty of mixed metaphors in Dylan's songs (some of which work and some which don't) and some word play in other people's lyrics that could be taken a couple of ways.


QUOTE=Paul H;6162703]About the "lazy" lyrics. Firstly, yes: McCartney isn't the only one to write lazy lyrics. Ralph quotes Katy Perry. There will be a billion others. Doesn't make it OK.

Let's pick some quotes: "my dog he got three legs, but he can't run". Really? No ****, Sherlock. But he implies that his three legged canine friend ought to be able to. Maybe "AND he can't run" would be better. This is a minor gripe.

"Man I can smell your teeth a mile away". I can't think of a single friend of mine who wouldn't roll their eyes at that.

"The kettle's on the boil and I believe I'm gonna rain." Are you? Wow. Can I watch?

"Admiral Halsey notified me: he had to have a berth or he couldn't get to sea. I had another look and I had a cup of tea and a butter pie." Butter pie. Can't see that working somehow.

This all sounds mean spirited, I know. But the point is, all these little things aggregate. And most of it is nonsense anyway. Even if it wasn't a butter pie it would hardly make the song meaningful. Sure, it doesn't have to be. But Uncle Albert has such a beautiful, aching melancholy it cries out for a lyric of substance. Don't tack drivel like Admiral Halsey on the end (it's trite no matter how much clever arrangement you slather it in), take some time, put together a lyric that packs the same punch as the melody. Turn it into one of the most beautiful ballads in the history of music. Or don't.

Music is for fun. It doesn't have to be meaningful all the time. And McCartney's right: he doesn't always need to sweat it. But that's what I mean by "lazy": he could if he wanted to but he chooses not to because it's easier.[/QUOTE]

Points taken except for "Three Legs"--sometimes we expect lyrics to make sense but like poetry (this isn't poetry mind you) it doesn't have to or the contradiction inherent in the lyrics works-for example with "Three Legs" the lyrics make appear to be about a dog with three legs but it's not--it's about The Beatles and Paul's role in the band as well as the management troubles the band had but it can be extended well beyond that to any group with members missing that expects to function normally. As was pointed out by citadel McCartney doesn't resort to cliches here. Does it work? Well, that's up to you.

Again, lyrics aren't necessarily narrative although we expect them to be. They have more in common with poetry in that while there is a narrative implied it isn't always surfaced narrative but narrative established through simile, metaphor, the use of allergories, etc.

Does the word play of Joyce's Ulysses always make sense? No not to us but like Joyce McCartney chooses to use words for their impact, effect as well as their meaning just like John did and he borrows from a literary tradition that is very much separate from that of songwriting where we often expect a clean, clear narrative structure that makes sense in telling a complete story. Does the poetry of Ezra Pound or Ginsburg (one of McCartney's literary heroes) make sense? Sometimes and sometimes it doesn't--the point is that McCartney, Lennon and some other songwriters have attempted to incorporate lessons outside of the traditional structure of lyric writing in the tradition of the American songbook as represented by Berlin, etc.

As to whether or not McCartney is successful at it that's another thing entirely but because our expectations were set up by the fact that McCartney typically as a songwriter would create cleaner, clearer narratives we often call the lyrics lazy when, in fact, they might be an attempt to expand within a different literary tradition.

 

But nobody expects any better from Katy Perry! She's done nothing to give anyone any reason to have any expectations at all.

We're talking about the frickin' Paul McCartney!

He wrote the lyrics to "For No One".

He "sat" on "Yesterday" for over a year, until he found a lyric he felt good enough to live up to the melody (whether he ultimately did or not can be debated, but the effort/thought put into the words cannot).

This is what happens when you suddenly have to write all the lyrics to all the songs by yourself, and lyrics don't come as easy to you as music.

Of course I'm glad I/we still got what we got from him post-Beatles. But the thought that he could've done even better if he had simply taken a bit more time between album releases, constitutes a significant artistic loss to/waste in the history of popular music IMO...

 

If you filter his lyrics through a cloud of pot smoke... they make much more sense.

His lyrics were never 'important' or even his strong suit. He's a melody man. A sound man. Sometimes the words are simply musical accompaniment. They aren't literal or even figurative... they are phonetic.

 

Can we change this to "There's no one left at home and I believe I'm gonna rain"?

 

The line is "But there's no one left at home and I believe I'm gonna rain".

Always loved that line and took it as he's about to cry.

 

With regards to the "Three Legs" lyrics, I always thought that the "most flies they got three legs, but mine got one" lyrics were a thinly-veiled dirty joke. Anyone else share that opinion?

 

Not sure. Certainly possible.

I think Paul referenced sex in a lot more songs than people realize/talk about.
For example, if Charles Manson had never happened, instead of the never-ending defensive stories about the playground slide (which does/did indeed exist, of course), more people would realize the entire song is one big sexual innuendo...

 

Ram, oh yes, without a doubt one of McCartneys best! This album has reached the level of being right up there with Band On The Run, Flaming Pie and Memory Almost Full for me. Wings Over America still reigns supreme though.

Too Many People - It's just excellent, everything about it is great, my fave is the guitar soloing. McCartneys current lead guitarist Rusty Anderson nailed all of these during the Space Within tour. I was absolutely thrilled when McCartney performed this song, I always say McCartney should perform much more of his Wings/solo material and the excellent live performance of this song is a definite reason why. The crowds absolutely loved it!

3 Legs - one of my absolute faves from this album, it's funky, bluesy and rocking! When McCartney starts singing the when I fly bit, the song is in high rocking gear, It's yet another of his fantastic songs I wish he would perform live. Simply fantastic!

 

Regarding criticism of Pauls lyrics:

I think a lot of the time he's going for a general feelling in a song. Sometimes his melodies are so profoundly powerful they say more to me then any lyrics could. 'Singalong Junk' says more to me without lyrics then it does about people deciding not to buy some old tat in a shop.

Back on three legs:
Some of the more bizarre theories I've read about this song include that the guitar playing style is supposed to be a piss take of John (I don't get that, if anyone does I'd be interested - maybe that's the inside dig to Lennon?) and that my dog he got 3 legs but he can't run - is supposedly a reference to he being able to survive without the other 3 Beatles but they couldn't survive without him.

 

Agreed. "Eat At Home" anyone? Oops...I guess I'm getting ahead of the thread here.

 

And see I love the metaphor of the junk in the yard. I think it's beautiful and poignant. How what was once new and treasured is now old and "useless"(the sign saying "buy buy" but the junk going "why why" - like why have we been left behind here,why are we not wanted anymore? and it sounds more like a junkyard to me than a proper store, thus the "junk in the yard"), not just things but people. The song isn't about the people not buying it's more from the point of view of the "junk" already left behind, in fact there are no people not buying appearing in the song, simply a sign offering the junk for sale. It kind of reminds me of the theme of a Byron poem, about how what was once most hoped for is now just a past memory:

And all that Memory loves the most
Was once our only Hope to be,
And all that Hope adored and lost
Hath melted into Memory.

The fact that it references some specific types of junk(bicycles for two, sleeping bags for two, building bricks, candlesticks, "something old and new") suggests this is the baggage from the end of a relationship.

And not to suggest anything but considering how often both John and Paul compared their partnership to a marriage....I don't necessarily think the marriage imagery is literal in this case.

IMO that's precisely the problem, you can't just "pick some quotes", because they are part of a lyric and thus have a context that is or can be lost taken out of that context.

And I totally don't get the problem with my dog he got three legs but he can't run - you know what? Lots of dogs with three legs CAN run. Not very fast perhaps but they can certainly run on three legs, dogs with three legs for the most part can do almost anything a dog with 4 cans, just a bit more awkwardly and often not even that. To me that's being kind of petty and just looking to find trouble. It's like calling someone illiterate because they misspelled 2 words out of 100(erm...guilty probably, I usually misspell something).

And "butter pie"? Really? That happens to be a real dish, you can find recipes for it. So what's the problem with butter pie?

To me that's a little peak into a scene - the Admiral calls up needing a berth, the man he calls isn't exactly in a huge hurry to get it for him - he takes ANOTHER look(meaning he's been asked before), not exactly enthusiastically, and then goes pours himself a cuppa and eats a piece of pie. It also suggests that admirals tone actually was annoyed when he called up(as it seems to be the admiral saying "I must have a berth or will not be able to get to sea!" and this is why--this guy isn't exactly on top of his job)

McCartney was always very into the surreal when it came to art and literature and I think a lot of times little surreal turns of phrase would catch his fancy.

 

Besides the title track on ukelele (2010) and Too Many People (2005), has Paul performed any other material from Ram live?

 

Don't misunderstand me. I get the lyrics to Junk, I understand the Metaphor.

I'm not citing Junk as an example of a poor lyric, I'm citing the fact that the melody says more to me then any lyrics could. That's how powerful I feel some of McCartneys music is.

 

Ram...has any album taken more of a critical drubbing while selling so well at the time and gaining more and more favor over time? Landau's review was scathing, and when I read it today, it sounds like the worst sort of opinionated drivel I hear from anonymous trolls on unmoderated websites. But there was also an element of truth to it. In retrospect, I feel the same as I did at the time, that this was the first post-Beatles album that sounded like a Beatles album, with all the oddball bells and whistles, and most of all a sense of joy and fun. Yes, fun...it's the one thing that money can't buy, right? Marvelous, challenging, whimsical album...one of the all-time greats.

"Too Many People" - I never cared a bit about the lyrics to this one...it was all about the music for me. A very unique chord structure and sonic footprint, absolutely compelling melody, that compressed acoustic strum that has both a thumping depth and a razor sharpness, those over-the-top whooping solos...what's not to love? One of my favorite tracks ever, and such a pleasant surprise to discover as the B-side of "Uncle Albert". This song never gets old for me...still love to hear it, still turn it up.

"3 Legs" - I always figured the third leg was a silly phallic reference, a bluesy caprice of naughtiness. But who knows...again, the lyrics are subordinate to the vibe. I really wouldn't advise getting overly analytical about any lyric written by a Beatle, not after "Glass Onion" anyway. This song is all about burning one down, cranking the speakers and rocking it out...plain and simple. Paul wasn't trying to change the world or be cleverer than he is...he was just delivering good, mindbending rock and roll of various flavors. This song, once again, is FUN. I like fun in music. It's an undervalued commodity that many artists cannot deliver. In that year of confessional singer-songwriters speaking hard truths over a Vietnam War backdrop, these joyful romps were a fantastic diversion.

 

I might be alone in the universe here, but I've always bristled at the suggestion that Paul - especially in this time period - was referencing the Fabs, Apple, John or the legal troubles with every other song. Certainly he makes allusions to it, as he himself has said, but 'Three Legs'? I don't think so. Just because all of us wonder about stuff like this, all the time, doesn't mean McCartney was obsessing over it.

It's art. The lines in 'You Never Give Me Your Money' surely came from the Apple business, but the rest of the song? I have always admired the way he used words like strokes of a paintbrush.

Sure, many of the lyrics aren't brilliant, but I try to see them in the context of the recording-as-art. I don't think it matters a whit what Admiral Halsey wanted or didn't want.

 

From 'Wingspan': "Why the dog or the fly had three legs, I have no idea."

 

I always thought it was Magic clouds. he used Magical in Magical Mystery tour to imply drugs before, so I thought he was doing it here too.

Love this album. Don't like long haired lady and some of Paul's vocal tics are kind of annoying, but the songs are great.