Seven Songs for the Week #156 - 1st Apr 26

After about three years of speculation and a week of strong suspicions, we finally got new music from a new Paul McCartney album. How many more times shall we enjoy such an occurrence? The song was premiered on BBC Radio Merseyside at 2:50 in the afternoon. It is such a contemplative song, it was hard to measure it against the brief concentrated hype online and on the BBC. I was sitting having lunch with the other half who patiently understood that I had to have headphones in. An amusing set up. The last significant release like this was The Beatles Now & Then, which had its world premiere while I was at my father's funeral. I think about that alignment of events a lot. As for Days We Left Behind, after a few days and a few more listens, it's another perfectly crafted song from Paul.

And so let's hear it for songs about "the good old days". Are the boomers particularly sensitive to this type of song? Here's Neil reminiscing when he was \\checks notes// 44 years old.

One of the first singles on The Beatles Apple Label, Those Were The Days was a massively successful release. Mary Hopkin was Paul's addition to the label, producing the Post Card album and having her record TWTD. Paul had heard the song performed by the writer of the English lyric version, Gene Raskin, in the mid-sixties and filed it away for a yet-to-be-known future use. The fact that there was so much success in Apple Records often gets overlooked in the drama/politics/hippie madness of the story. Those Were The Days is obviously a song Paul would have loved to have written himself, and although it might get criticised for its chintziness, in reality it should be praised for its accessible internationalism, which is really what a record label being run by The Beatles should have been going for.

Remember that brief period where Bowie hadn't died or retired from music forever, but instead gave us new stuff, before actually dying? Better times. I shall be in Berlin next week, so I've got that going for me.

I mean, it's very good.

Amongst the parodies of songs you know for which Al is famous, there are also his own original songs, albeit in a specific style, of which this is one. In many ways, these songs are somewhat lethal - it's one thing to change the lyrics of Like A Virgin to Like A Surgeon, it's quite another to craft a spot-on James Taylor song which you couldn't tell apart from the real thing from the next room. The chord change after "Those were the good old days/ those were the good old days" is excellent stuff. Why do we even need James Taylor? Al can do it all!

"The good old days weren't always good and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems" - you tell 'em Billy!