http://www.scotlandonsunday.com/weekinreview.cfm?id=596992002She loves you: irony as Macca courts the Queen
Kirsty Milne
IN the year of the Queen’s Coronation, Paul McCartney was a Liverpool
grammar
schoolboy who won a class competition to mark the event. In the year
of her
Jubilee, he is a millionaire, a knight and chief Crown crooner.
At tomorrow’s celebration concert in the gardens of Buckingham Palace,
Sir
Paul will lead the chorus of the Beatles’ 1967 hit ‘All You Need is
Love’.
The evening will be rich in sentiment. McCartney and Eric Clapton are
to play
‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ in memory of George Harrison, who died
last
year, while McCartney will be serenading his fianc?e, Heather Mills,
whom he
is to marry in a few days’ time. Prince Charles, hovering to pay
tribute to
his mother as the concert concludes, will be hard put to compete.
There are manifold ironies in this situation, as John Lennon’s acerbic
ghost
would appreciate. Although the Beatles accepted MBEs from the Queen in
1965,
it is hard to imagine Lennon, even at near-pensionable age,
volunteering for
a Buck House sing-along with Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones.
His less than reverent attitude to royalty was best illustrated at the
1963
Royal Variety Performance, when he invited the blue-bloods to "rattle
your
jewellery". Lennon sent his MBE back in 1969, with a telegram to the
Queen
protesting at Britain’s involvement in the Biafran war and support for
America in Vietnam.
So it is a reasonable guess that McCartney’s co-writer would not have
been
thrilled about his lyrics - ‘All You Need is Love’ was his song -
being used
to buttress what he liked to describe as "the class system and the
bullshit
bourgeois scene". Lennon’s relationship with the British state was
scarcely
friendly. MI5, as well the FBI, kept files listing his donations to
left-wing
groups.
As for Harrison, the composer of ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ nursed
a
lifelong resentment that Lennon and McCartney refused to take the song
seriously until he brought Eric Clapton into the studio to help play
it. With
half the group dead, Sir Paul is now semi-official custodian of the
legend.
Sometimes the copyright is literal. He recently blocked the
handwritten
lyrics of ‘Hey Jude’ from being auctioned at Christie’s, and
complained
about Julian Lennon’s use of ‘When I’m 64’ as an advertising jingle.
Sometimes it is emotional. His characterisation of Harrison as "my
baby
brother", while touching, over-simplified a relationship that was more
complex and edgy than the description suggests. Unlike Harrison, who
stayed
in the shadows tending the garden of his Oxfordshire mansion,
exploring
spirituality and funding quirky comedy films, Sir Paul, now
approaching his
60th birthday, has emerged as a senior member of that ?lite club, the
elder
statesmen of pop.
From the Royals’ point of view, this puts him in the same category as
the
Cliff Richards and Chris de Burghs, the Phil Collinses and the George
Michaels. The palace has learned that the music of these mellow,
middle-brow
millionaires can stand in nicely for the National Anthem.
The Princess of Wales did her in-laws a favour with her determined but
much-derided love of Top Ten tunes. Since Elton John reduced the
nation to
tears from Westminster Abbey there has been a niche market for
soft-pop as a
proxy for patriotism.
Of course, only certain artists and certain songs need apply. Geri
Halliwell
fits the mould of cheeky, unthreatening goodwill, but not Madonna;
Robbie
Williams, but not So Solid Crew. McCartney could not sing ‘Revolution’
at
tomorrow’s celebration, or ‘Taxman’ - or even ‘Imagine’, given the
international situation.
In a culture that worships youth it is hard for rock stars to inhabit
an
older skin with dignity. The romantic thing is to die young, like Jim
Morrison. But for those who stay alive, the alternatives are to ignore
the
years (like Mick Jagger, still chasing the girls), to drop out or to
make the
best of your name and your back-catalogue. On his recent US tour Sir
Paul
said that he could imagine being wheeled on stage at the age of 90 to
croak
out ‘Yesterday’.
What McCartney has managed is an image of sane celebrity. On a circuit
dominated by death, drink, drugs and divorce, he sustained a long and
apparently happy marriage, bringing up talented and apparently
well-adjusted
children. His music, robbed of Lennon’s caustic input and the early
impetus
of Wings, has sunk into banality, but his faith in romance could teach
Prince
Charles a thing or two.
Would Lennon have worn so well? If he had lived, would he be a
Manhattan
recluse or an anti-globalisation guru? Would he be out there
campaigning with
Bono, experimenting with new media like Bowie, or expanding his
musical
boundaries like Elvis Costello? At the time of his death in 1980,
Lennon’s
former headmaster said he simply could not imagine him being old.
It is quite possible, however, to imagine Lennon being sardonic about
McCartney, not just for his royal renditions but for his increasingly
fuzzy
politics. The sight of Sir Paul donning a fireman’s helmet in New York
was
one thing; the unthinking sloganising of his post-September 11 song,
‘Freedom’, was another. Lennon might have been confused about politics
but
he would have recognised that freedom is not a property to which the
US can
lay exclusive claim.
Understandably, McCartney does not like being portrayed as the
straight,
saccharine foil to Lennon’s angry sophisticate. Recently he has been
stressing that his simple-seeming songs carry "veiled" meanings,
telling US
audiences on his recent tour that Blackbird refers to the struggle for
civil
rights in America.
The Queen need not fear being bothered by politics tomorrow. The worst
the
palace should worry about is McCartney offering an impromptu rendering
of
‘Her Majesty’, a track from Abbey Road which begins, not
inappropriately,
"Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl/But she doesn’t have a lot to say."
Don’t be surprised to hear a faint hissing sound off-stage. That will
be the
sarcastic spectre of Lennon, dropping acid in the Royal Mews, jeering
and
corrupting the courtiers.
