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MEMORY ALMOST FULL
Dette er Side 2 (Engelsk: inneholder intervjuer og sangtekstene til alle sangene). Klikk lenkene under for å gå til Side 1 og 3 Memory Almost Full - Side 1(Plateinformasjon og nettlenker) Memory Almost Full - Side 3(Videoklipp) Paul forteller:I actually started this album, Memory Almost Full, before my last album Chaos And Creation In The Backyard (released September 2005). The first recording session was back in the autumn of 2003 at Abbey Road with my touring band and producer David Kahne. I was right in the middle of it when I began talking with Nigel Godrich about a brand new project (which became Chaos And Creation In The Backyard).
When I was just finishing up everything concerned with Chaos and had just got the Grammy nominations (2006) I realised I had this album to go back to and finish off. So I got it out to listen to it again, wondering if I would enjoy it, but actually I really loved it. All I did at first was just listen to a couple of things and then I began to think, ‘OK, I like that track now, what is wrong with it?’ And it might be something like a drum sound, so then I would re-drum and see where we would get to.
I took it from there and built it up. I went through, track by track, making changes as I went along. I fixed things I wasn’t too keen on and it just evolved from there. Without me knowing, or really trying, it started to get its own theme, a sort of thread that holds it all together. So I suppose it’s about half new stuff and half old stuff from 2003.
In places it’s a very personal record and a lot of it is retrospective, drawing from memory, like memories from being a kid, from Liverpool and from summers gone. The album is evocative, emotional, rocking, but I can’t really sum it up in one sentence.
There is a medley of 5 songs towards the end and that was purposefully retrospective. I thought this might be because I’m at this point in my life, but then I think about the times I was writing with John and a lot of that was also looking back. It’s like me with ‘Penny Lane’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’ - I’m still up to the same tricks!
I know people are going to look at some of the songs and interpret them in different ways but this has always been the case. The thing is that I love writing songs, so I just write and write. I never really get to a point where I start thinking I’m going to write about specific subjects. Inevitably though, what I am thinking is going to find its way into what I’m doing
The opening track of the album is ‘Dance Tonight’. I recently got myself a mandolin and I was just playing about with it and came up with the basis of this track. A couple of weeks ago we made the video, which was great fun. It’s directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind) and stars Natalie Portman and Mackenzie Crook. I’m not going to give the plot away. You’ll have to go and watch it for yourself, but we had a good time doing it.
The album title came after I had finished everything. For me, that’s when they normally come, with the exception of maybe Sgt. Peppers, otherwise I don’t think I have ever made an album with The Beatles, Wings or solo where I have thought of a title and a concept. I was thinking about what would sum the whole thing up and ‘Memory Almost Full’ sprung to mind. It’s a phrase that seemed to embrace modern life; in modern life our brains can get a bit overloaded. I realised I had also seen it come up on my phone a few times. When I started bouncing the idea round with some friends they nearly all got different meanings out of it, but they all said they loved it. So the feedback helped solidify the title.
After completing the album I then started thinking about the album artwork and how I’d want it to look. I really wanted to make the CD a desirable object. Something that I know I’d want to pick up from the shelf, something that would make people curious. I hope our final concept has done that. The album sleeve itself includes an etching by a friend of mine, Humphrey Ocean. As with the album lyrics, I’m looking forward to seeing how people might interpret the artwork.
Currently I’m just starting out on the promo trail and beginning to get the first bits of feedback about the album and so far so good! It’s interesting now as I’m getting to hear what other people are making of the songs and what their feelings are. I’m also talking about the album myself and I’m really enjoying the discovery process.
I really enjoyed making this album with David Kahne and I’m proud of all the songs. We had a great time. I hope that the fun we had will communicate itself to the people who are going to listen to it.
All the best, Paul McCartney, April 2007 Det blir en ganske svær reklamekampanje i USA for albumet, her er planene: "MEMORY ALMOST FULL" - US MEDIA LAUNCH- June 1st, 2007 SPECIAL LAUNCH EVENTS: Special performance events scheduled to take place in New York, Los Angeles and London. Additional information to be disclosed. PRESS: Significant national coverage expected from both Television, Print, and Online outlets. Appearances on national TV shows are anticipated, as well as interviews/reviews in daily newspapers such as USA Today, NY Times & LA Times, and music/lifestyle magazines such as Rolling Stone, etc. RADIO: First single "Ever Present Past."Add date: April 30th. AAA, Mainstream AC, News Talk, Classic Rock, Beatles Specialty Shows, Classic Hits Radio, Jack FM, Public Radio. RETAIL: High visibility campaigns, price & positioning support and regional listening events planned. VIDEO: "Dance Tonight," directed by Michel Gondry and featuring Natalie Portman. Video servicing to all national outlets with emphasis on VH1 & VH1 Classic. Video will also be serviced to YouTube, Google, Yahoo, and other key websites for major impact. NATIONAL CABLE & NATIONAL/LOCAL MARKET BROADCAST TV ADVERTISING: Extensive 30:second TV ad campaign to commence Friday June 1st ·National Cable outlets will include the following: A&E, BBCA, BRAVO, CNN, VH1, DISCOVERY, CNN, FOX NEWS, MSNBC, BIOGRAPHY & HISTORY CHANNEL·Additional advertising will take place on the following Broadcast programming; either national or Top DMAs: TODAY SHOW, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, THE VIEW, ELLEN, LIVE WITH REGIS & KELLY, CBS SUNDAY MORNING. NATIONAL PRINT ADVERTISING: USA Today 1/2 Page Fri. June 1 2.1 M TRADE: Billboard - False Cover and Inside Front Cover - June 2 issue; Radio & Records - Cover - June 3 issueAdditional advertising campaign to target Dads and Grads. NEW MEDIA: Online marketing specialists will secure placement, editorial and reviews with music, lifestyle and affinity sites; likely 60-80 sites for initial push and focus, including AOL, Yahoo & VH1.com to name a few. Additional tasks include MySpace and YouTube content, coverage and management, as well as placement of extensive banner advertisements throughout the web. LIFESTYLE MARKETING: Movie Theatres: Movie Tunes: 13,500 screens for audio, 2,500 screens for video exposure; Cinema Sounds: 13,500 screens for audio, 2,163 screens for video; Landmark: 208 screens in 23 cities; Laemmle Theatres: 88 targeted art-house screens Airlines: American: Aug. in-flight audio feature and AAtractions; United: Video placement for June or July (TBD) & feature in Hemispheres; Delta/Northwest: Video placement TBD. Street Teams: 7 week campaign in 8 markets: NY, LA, CHI, SF, BOS, ATL, PHI & DC; 14" x 22" posters visible in over 4,000 locations; In store play in over 800 locations. Så langt USA. Hva man har til hensikt å gjø i de andre verdensdelene er ukjent. Da Pauls forrige studioalbum, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard kom ut var Paul veldig aktiv med promotering i UK og dukket ofte opp i radioen. Men her i Norge var NW skuffet over EMIs manglende promotering av albumet. Denne gangen er det ikke EMI men Universal Music som distribuerer Pauls plate her i Norge og så langt har vi merket oss at artisten og albumet hans er fraværende på selskapets websider. Intervju med Billboard 12/5-07
McCartney spoke to Billboard about "Memory Almost Full," other upcoming work and the fresh challenge of working with a new label as he approaches his 65th birthday on June 18. Billboard: You must be aware that in current circumstances you're under greater scrutiny than ever with the lyrics on this album? Paul: Yeah, well -- what else is new? Remember "How many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall" (from the Beatles' "A Day in the Life")? I got a question on that last week at a football match. It was just some mate. He happened to be from Blackburn. So they're still asking questions, still examining the lyrics ... I don't mind. It's when they stop examining them that you've got a problem, I suppose. Billboard: People will think about your personal life and say, "Oh, he's throwing himself into his work," but haven't you always done that? Paul: I don't mind work. I don't work that much. I'm never in any office before 11, I don't work every day of the week and most of what I do is playing music. I often point that out to people. It's something I love, and I always say, if I didn't do it for a living, I'd do it as a hobby. Billboard: Was the Starbucks deal in the works for a long time? Paul: About a year ago, I was talking to my producer David Kahne. We were in the throes of the excitement of making an album and loving it. Billboard: You started "Memory Almost Full" in 2003, so was there a period when you had three albums in the works, including your 2006 classical piece "Ecce Cor Meum?" Paul: Yes. I've always got a few things on the (go). I like to be able to work that way, because if suddenly your producer's not available or whatever, it's nice to be able to pick up another thread. Now, even though I've got all this happening, I've got a guitar piece in the works -- an orchestral guitar concerto? I never know what to call it. And I've got a photographic project I've been working on for a while. It's nice to have a bit of variety. Billboard: Was there any bleed-through of songs from "Chaos" to the new album? Paul: It was the same pool of songs. Some of them crossed over. Some of them we nearly did on "Chaos," but mainly it was pretty separate. Anything we'd started, I didn't want to remake for "Chaos," so I kept what we'd started, then wrote new stuff for it as we went along. That was one of the fun things we used to do with the Beatles. John and I would have seven or eight things ready by the time we went into the studio, and then we'd try and write the other six or seven. Billboard: Is the discussion about the Beatles' catalog going online anywhere nearer to being settled? Paul: Oh, yeah, very much so. It's virtually settled. And in a virtual world, that's something. Billboard: So we should expect an announcement soon? Paul: Hopefully, yeah. I don't want to pre-empt anything, but we're well on the way to something happening there, which is very exciting. Billboard: And are you planning to go back on the road? Paul: I'm going to do some little bits and pieces to support the album, but it won't be a major tour until possibly next year, and that's basically down to personal circumstances -- "he said" (laughs). Billboard: Touring is obviously something you still enjoy. Paul: I do love it, and while the audience seems to love it, I will. All that singing and playing -- it's good for you. INTERVJU MED PITCHFORKSir Paul McCartney needs no introduction-- but those of us who have known him since we first heard "Yesterday" in the cradle often need a reminder not to take him for granted. His new release Memory Almost Full comes out June 5 on Hear Music, aka the Starbucks label, but it's the youngest-sounding record he's released in years. And, like his previous album, 2005's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, it's a surprisingly revealing and nakedly melancholy turn for someone we'd think couldn't reveal anything more of himself to us. At age 64, McCartney has regrets and grudges. He has a press corps in Britain that chases after any salacious rumor it can find about his recent divorce from his second wife, Heather Mills. And thanks to a new deal with iTunes, he's just now entering the digital music era. But he also has a sense of humor, and a veteran hippie's outlook on how groovy the world still is. Pitchfork: Hello, Sir Paul? McCartney: Yeaaahhhh. Or just Paul to you. Hey man, how are you? Pitchfork: Good, how are you? McCartney: I'm very good, thanks. It's a lovely day here in London, it's nearly 4 o'clock in the afternoon and it's sunny. Clear blue sky. Pitchfork: I'd like to ask you a few questions about your new album, Memory Almost Full. It seems a lot more upbeat than Chaos and Creation. Many of the new songs are referencing the past, or seem nostalgic. McCartney: I wouldn't use the word nostalgia, so much. Nostalgia implies something a bit soppy-- it's not a sort of very complimentary word. I would use the word memory more, because I think a lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it's all you've got, unless you're brilliant and can write totally in the now. You know, you're always looking at last year, or 10 years ago, or your school days, or your teenage years, your formative years. Because that's exactly what they are, they're your formative years. And yeah, I did look at the album and think, "Whoa, it's all very retrospective." But then I thought, "Wait a minute, when I was twentysomething I was writing about Penny Lane, which was my teenage years." So, it's something you do. If you're using your imagination, you tend to look into the past for ideas. Pitchfork: Going through this process, did you have any insights or new thoughts on your formative years? McCartney: Hmm. I think yeah-- I'm trying to think of a specific example. One of the songs is called "That Was Me", and that is really general snapshots from my life, just like flicking through a snapshot album. I'm not sure I discovered anything, but I remembered moments. "The Royal Iris" is a reference to Royal Iris, a ferry boat that used to sail on the River Mersey, and they used to have these things called riverboat shuffles, where people would buy tickets and there'd be a band, and booze, and food, and the ferry would go up and down the river and we'd play. So things like that. It's just remembering that I did all of those things. And then there is kind of a moment of discovery in the lyrics. "If fate decreed that this should make a life, who am I to disagree?" I think that is a little moment of self-discovery. "Geez! All these snapshots. This has all happened to me? Wow, I can't believe it!" And that's just a tiny fraction of snapshots. Surrounding each of those one-line snapshots there's a million snapshots that happened before and after that event, you know. So it goes, "At the scout camp"-- sort of boy scout-- and "the school play"-- I once appeared in a school play. I must admit I had a very lowly part. Pitchfork: What were you? McCartney: I was an assessor, they're called. In St. John by Bernard Shaw. And all the big parts were like, proper kids who could act. And there's about 20 of us who just shuffled on mumbling and agreeing or disagreeing with the judge in the court scene. [Chuckles] Pitchfork: Well, that's what's fun about school plays. McCartney: Yeah, you know, everyone gets a part. But like I say, just that one little event, you could probably spend a half hour on. But to me I just encapsulated it: "At the school play." Because I know all the stuff that goes around it.Pitchfork: You recorded half of this with your touring band, and half of it alone, but you don't usually work by yourself. Is that becoming more of a habit? McCartney: It's something I've done throughout my career, to describe it loosely. When I left the Beatles, I made an album called McCartney that I played everything on. And it was kind of a cool experience. I felt like a professor in a laboratory, just crafting stuff and adding this, and putting this on and moving the microphone, and it was very homemade. Which is a good sort of bedroom experience. It was actually a living room, but-- ha ha-- it was that sort of experience....And then I did a couple of ther albums, I did McCartney II, which was again me playing everything. When I did Chaos and Creation, Nigel Godrich, who was the producer, wanted me to play all of the stuff. So I did it again then. And then I came to do this album, which started with the band before Chaos, and I was actually reviewing the stuff to see if it was worth finishing. For simplicity's sake, I started-- if I needed to change a snare drum or something, I would just run out into the studio and hit the snare. So then that meant that the second half of the album then went that way. I would either fix things that the band had done-- not a lot, most of what they did was fine-- or I'd write new tunes and rather than assemble the whole band, I just ran out and played it. It just is quicker that way, you know? Pitchfork: Do you have a home studio? McCartney: I don't. My producer David [Kahne] is super tech, and I'm not. I'm really hopeless. I have a studio and in the control room I have a computer with a music program, so that's the nearest I get to what you're saying. I work on classical music, mainly, on the computer through a music program. So that's a bit more bedroom. That is just me at a screen, and doing arrangements and stuff. Pitchfork: You've mentioned that you expect people to read things into your lyrics, or pick an individual they think a song is addressed to. And you seemed a little annoyed about it. McCartney: I'm not very annoyed about it, but I suppose it's not annoying so much as irritating when somebody gets it wrong. But what I've had to do over the years is just sort of think, "You know what, that's their interpretation, and it's their life, so they can interpret it however they want. " But I've seen some of the books, particularly about the Beatles, where they'll say, "This was McCartney's answer to Lennon's barb"-- and so on and so on. Like hell it was! Pitchfork: Like Ian MacDonald's book [Revolution in the Head]. McCartney: Yeah, exactly. You got it in one, exactly. And you know, unfortunately [MacDonald] is no longer with us. He died, and so I don't want to put him down. But while he was around I must say, I would dip into that book and think, "See now, what's he got to say about this song?" And he'd go, "This is McCartney's answer to-- " and I'd go, "No, it wasn't!" It was just, I just wrote a song. There's some songs off the new album that are getting a bit of that. I've seen one comment already, the song "Mr. Bellamy" has been described as being about my divorce. And it's not. That was the furthest thing from my mind. I suppose people are allowed to just read into it, but it's a bit irritating when I know it's not true. Probably just because they're propagating the idea that it is. And unless I speak up, people may listen and believe the false idea. Pitchfork: Is there a hidden message or anagram in the title of the album? [Ed.: Memory Almost Full can be rearranged to spell "for my soulmate LLM"-- the initials of the late Linda Louise McCartney.] McCartney: I must say, someone told me [there is], and I think it's a complete mystery, because it's so complete. There does appear to be an anagram in the title. And it's a mystery. It was not intentional. But you know, I like those things, when things happen like that. It's kind of spooky. When I heard about that, I thought, "Should I just sort of say, 'I didn't know about it,'" or should I say, [ominous voice] "Some things are best left as a mystery," and smile enigmatically? So that's tending to be my reply. Pitchfork: I was going to ask how your songwriting process has changed in the last couple of albums, but you've often said that you channel songs more than you craft them-- and some of them, like "Yesterday," just come to you in a dream. McCartney: Mmm. I think that's one of the great ways that songs are written. And there's something magical, mysterious about it. Which I like. You know, in some ways we live in a world where things appear to be very logical, very rational, and mechanical aspects of our world are rather scientific and rather straightforward. But I read something recently, it was just talking about trees and what they do as machines. The fact that they pump up these thousands of gallons of water, without anything we would recognize as a machine. It's just a nature machine, it's just a green machine. And the trees then convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. And we go, "Yeah, it's just a tree." But Jesus Christ, you try and do that! If only we had some people who could do that, we wouldn't have global warming, we wouldn't have these problems. Hence we're encouraged to plant more trees. But to me, you can look at that and go, "Yeah, well, that's what trees do." Or you can look at it and go, "Holy cow, that's what trees do!" And you can be totally amazed by it-- because it is pretty amazing. You find that all through nature, is riddled through nature, amazing things that happen that because we're kind of used to it, because we see it all the time, we take it a bit for granted. But what I'm trying to say is, I'm now at a kind of point where I realize how magical some of that stuff is, and how blessed we are to be part of that thing, to be part of nature. That's just pretty amazing stuff. I saw an experiment many years ago on television where they had a little man-made robot arm, like those things on the fairgrounds, where the hand reaches in to a bunch of candies, picks them up, and then moves it over, and always manages to drop it before it gets to you. You know those things. And then it drops it, and then it reaches over again, picks up another one, and this was a machine that was on an assembly line that was doing this. And they said, "This is really clever, because we've managed to simulate the human hand, and it can pick it up and take it over there and drop it." But one thing that struck me was, when all the candies had gone, the hand didn't know. [Laughs] The hand kept going, picking up some air, and dropping it. And came back for some more air. Now we would know that. This dumb hand didn't. And more than that, my fingers, the sensors on the ends of my fingers, the thousands of little sensors, would be able to differentiate between a leaf and a tabletop, or a shirt, or a t-shirt and a pullover. That's how sophisticated we are. And we take it for granted! We go, "Yeah, well, it's the end of my fingers!" So you see what I'm saying. I have a sense of wonder. So that came off the back of the songwriting thing, and some of these things, how they happen-- I have that sense of wonder about, "Wow, man, how could I dream a melody? And how could it then be recorded by over 3,000 people? It's quite uncanny really." But instead of it seeming super-spooky I just think, "It's magical." And I'm very grateful for it. It's like, "Holy cow. If a tree can do that-- and I can do that-- it's pretty groovy out there!" I think it's good to remember that. We kind of just, you drive to work in your car, you get stuck in a traffic jam, you go, "Ohhhhh shit." But in actual fact, it's more groovy than that. It's a good thing. Pitchfork: I've got a less-natural question to ask. Your solo and Wings albums are coming to iTunes, and I was wondering if you'd thought about how people might experience them differently. McCartney: I wonder too. I don't know yet. What way would you imagine they would experience them differently? Fragmented, kind of thing, choosing the wrong playlist, you mean? Pitchfork: That's definitely part of it, shuffling through the albums-- and people talk about the death of the album. I think you consume more music with this kind of access. It collapses time and it collapses history. You can discover a band in a weekend. McCartney: Yeah, it's an interesting time that way, really. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens. As you say, this [Memory Almost Full] is my first digital release. It would've happened sooner but we had the dispute with Apple over the name. It just so happened that the Beatles thought of the name Apple [Corps Ltd.], and we just thought of it because "A" is for Apple. That's what happened. We just thought it'll be first in any listing. And then you know who beat us? ABBA. And the guys from Apple just called their outfit that, and of course now they're phenomenally global. But at the same time, they had to talk to us about using the name. The good thing is that's totally solved now. And that's all going to go away as a problem. So it means I'm now open to go digital, and ring Mr. Jobs, and say, "Hi." And he's a very cool guy, I must say. Pitchfork: I wanted to ask about the song "Freedom", which you wrote in the wake of 9/11. Lately dropped it from your setlist. Do you think it might come back? McCartney: I'd very much like it to come back, because to me it's a "We Shall Overcome". That's sort of how I wrote it. It's like, "Hey, I've got freedom, I'm an immigrant coming to America, give me your huddled masses." And that's what it means to me, is, "Don't mess with my rights, buddy. Because I'm now free. I used to live in an oppressive regime, I'm from Sierra Leone, but now I'm an American, and don't try to take that away from me." And I thought it was a great sentiment, and immediately post-9/11, I thought it was the right sentiment. But it got hijacked. And it got a bit of a militaristic meaning attached itself to it, and you found Mr. Bush using that kind of idea rather a lot in [a way] I felt altered the meaning of the song. But it was great on the tour immediately post-9/11. It was great to sing it for the American people. It was great for us, it was very healing, it was very, "Stand up and be counted." Pitchfork: Even at the time, some people thought it was uncharacteristically militant. McCartney: That's true. [But] it was not militant. It was written from the point of view of, as I say, someone coming from a repressive, like let's say, European Jew coming to America. He just got away from Hitler. That kind of thing. Or that-- in all its forms. That particularly happens in America. It happens here in the UK, but America I would reckon is global target of people escaping oppression. Pitchfork: It's almost like we lost the word "freedom" because of Bush. McCartney: Well, I think that's kind of what happened. I think it did-- yeah. But I may tour America next year, I'd like to, and I am wondering whether I can sing it again. Because it certainly was very popular. But I don't know, I don't know. It was very flag-waving. And in the wake of 9/11, that was sort of a good thing, because American spirit was in danger of being squashed. And I knew a lot of New Yorkers, for instance. And I knew a lot of people who would write to me and say, "I'm never going to go on an airplane again." And for Americans to say that ... but then I did a concert for New York, the 9/11 concert, that I was part of, and I got a message from some woman in Boston saying, "I'm coming to this concert, and you've really helped me. Because I've got to get on an airplane." And there was this feeling of healing going on, you know. That somehow me and some other Brits were able to stand up and say, "Look, you know, this-- you will overcome this." And it was a feeling that we should try and help." And I was in New York the morning of it. I was at Kennedy, I was just about to take off, at Kennedy Airport. And then the airport closed, and I could see the Twin Towers out of the window of the airplane. And so I was then sort of stranded in America for a couple of weeks while the whole thing unfolded. So you know, I was very much in the area. And everyone was scared, man. There were rumors it was going to happen again. It was a very scary time. And a lot of people wouldn't move, a lot of people were just too scared to do anything. So "Freedom" arose out of that. It was to try and help that, to try and unscare people, try and remind people, "Hey, this is my right, man. Don't mess with me." Plategjennomgang med David Kahneav Claudio Dirani That was the second time I interviewed Memory Almost Full's producer David Kahne. We had our first professional contact in 2001, when we talked about the making of Driving Rain. I can tell he's a very polite and nice person, very down-to-earth. He didn't show any sign of stardoom by having produced Macca. Actually, he seemed to be really in awe of the man, always humble and shy about his skills as a producer. At the same time, he seemed confidend of having done the best he could. This interview were done in bits around the end of April and early May. Most people had already listened to Ever Present Past and the rest of the songs hadn't leaked out in the internet. Some of the references to Paul's past work were used to construct this interview, as I had only listened to the album once and had no track (except Ever Present Past) available to listen back and ask him about, more precisely. The results achieved were really fun, as my questions really sounded very teasing and curious to David Kahne because producers and Paul - as it seems - do not think the same way fans our journalists do. An edited bit of it is due to appear on the Brazilian magazine called BIZZ, out this week. After working in several projects with Paul, you're back with him on Memory Almost Full. How different is now, compared with the Driving Rain sessions back in 2001?
The only difference is that I know Paul better now, so I have more insight into the way that he works and what he's looking for. He's still the same great musician. I'm still the guy trying to figure out what to do next. And how would you describe the feel of the new album and how did you achieve it?
Oh, The feel of the album is very broad, and most importantly, very personal. The whole album is that way. Beatle-ish and classic McCartney-ish, but very contemporary. There's a very timeless quality to it, and some things he's never done before on an album. That comes from the writing and incredible vocal performances, and also from taking the time to let the album develop. The achievement is not mine, but that of everyone who worked on the album. How many tracks did you tape for the album and which studios did you work at?
We recorded around 25 songs, I think. We worked a lot at the Mill (Paul's place in the UK) and some at Henson Studios, Abbey Road, AIR London, and my place in NYC, SeeSquared. According to Paul himself, you started working even before starting his (latest album) Chaos And Creation In the Backyard. How many songs on Memory Almost Full are from the early sessions and how many of them (included on MAF) were finished later?
Roughly half and half. We worked really hard on the tracks we did before Chaos, though, when we started back up again. Do you recall how many songs were recorded before and after they did "Chaos"?
I don't really know in detail which songs were recorded where or when. Actually, I am not too good at timelines because I tend to remember what happened and not when as far as recording goes. I do know we did You Tell Me, Mama Only Knows, and the medley in the first group of sessions, pre Chaos. All those were done at Abbey Road. After the hiatus, most of the other songs were recorded at the Mill, plus all the continuing work of the medley. We worked some at Henson in LA, RAK and AIR in London, and my place in NY, SeeSquared. Any song off the album that you would call it "a favourite"?
Hard to answer. I couldn't say I have a favorite, but Nod Your Head and House of Wax are two that I listen to a lot. Oh, and Mr. Bellamy. Based on the first track available to the public, Ever Present Past , we realise it's something really different compared to his recent past recordings. Some reviewers even compared this track to some stuff released on his McCartney II (1980) solo album, which I don't agree although it has some electronic feel throughout. Was the whole atmosphere of the track based on something Paul had already in mind or everything turned out very spontaneous?
One thing people should know about Paul. He doesn't think about or reference other music he's done. It's all as purely compositional and performance driven as it can be. Because he's singing and playing, one can go back and make a case for "this is influenced by that", but I've never seen a hint of that. My (sic) Ever Present Past was a song he was playing on acoustic guitar. We recorded an electic guitar track to a loop, Paul went and played the drums, then more guitar, then bass, then sang it. As I said, the mystery is not where or what Paul was referencing; the mystery to me is where his ideas flow from inside himself. And I'll never know the answer to that one. Yeah, I see. But we are all speculative, you can't stop us, you know (laughs).
It's true, indeed. Now I'd like to hear from you a little about Memory Almost Full tracks, commencing with Dance Tonight, the album's opener.
Paul had never played mandolin before. Great chord voicings. And I love the fuzz bass. The mandolin/whistling bits take me back a little bit to the track Ram On (from Ram 1971's album). Any reference to mix/record this song while producing it? Was it the first track to be taped, by the way?
"Dance" was actually the last one recorded. You know, what I told you before was true. I've never had one conversation with Paul about references. He doesn't think like that, ever. He just writes and records... I see. It's sort of always moving forward, looking for a new sound, new recording.
Right, it's basically that. Second track on MAF is Ever Present Past, the first song broadcast recently on the radio and internet. You already talked about some of the arrangement, but I can tell I found the bridge very interesting, it comes in very quick in the song.
Yeah, the bridge works so well. You get there quickly, and it's a huge lift. Harpsicord part is perfect. Paul has a custom harpsicord that has a ton of bass. What about this "Getting Better-like" guitar throughout?
The "Getting Better repeating note" is not exactly like getting better. In Getting Better, the note (called a pedal tone) is repeating on the 5th. In this song, it repeats on the octave or the 5th, and sometimes both. Paul has pedal tones on other songs too, but it's very loud in getting better. That song feels more centered around the 5 chord, whereas this one is a little more centered around the 1 chord. It works very well as a single in my opinion. However, I wonder why Ever Present Past wasn't picked as the international track? I heard the choice for the UK and international market was Dance Tonight.
I have no idea how they picked the singles. I hope they did! It's really up to them... The following song is See Your Sunshine, also in my opinion one of the most "regular" McCartney tracks on the album.
I see...but listen to the bass playing. Every possible inversion of every chord. True counter-melody playing that Paul is the best at. Next we have one of my favourites, Only Mama Knows, the big rocker on the album.
It's great indeed. And it's straight up rock, with a great story. You can hear the Abbey Road room sound. A big room with a close feel. I'll tell you what I really got intrigued by the orchestral intro and ending on the track. How did you come up with this arrangement?
We just had an idea and put it on there, to hear the theme in a different setting. It fitted very well, the results were great. You Tell Me, the ballad, sounds like an old Brazilian tune to me.
It's such a sweet yet sad song. The vocal tone throughout still baffles me; I have no idea how he can make high tones hang in the sky forever. What about the backwards tape sound placed in the intro. Any particular idea behind this arrangement?
No particular idea. There's some backwards stuff and some forwards stuff. It just fitted nice on the song. Now we have Mr. Bellamy, another outstanding track on the album in my opinion.
Storytelling at it's best. You know, it was really fun doing the flugelhorn parts. The second bridge counterpoint is a classical composition. It sounds as something he's never really done before. How did you achieve that on the studio? I mean, was it deliberate?
We had the song there, and Paul wrote a counter melody. His melodies are always strong, and the two melodies worked together the way some classical pieces do, so we put them together. It was nothing like "let's put a pop song and a classical arrangement together" going on, you know. Gratitude is next, a very bluesy and soulful track with outstanding vocals...how did you work on the recording of that?
As we worked on the vocals more and more Paul took more and more chances, and it kept getting better and better. It was like watching a flower bloom, actually. You know, I'm so grateful for getting to work on this album. Then Vintage Clothes comes in.
Beginning of the medley. The low Mellotron notes that distort through the Mellotron speaker are so great sounding. The Mellotron sound is very upfront on the mix. Any particular reference to use the instrument in the arrangement? Also was it done using Paul's Hog Hill mellotron, if I'm not mistaken?
Yes, Paul's Mellotron at the Mill. But no, not really. No references. Other than the fact that the mellotron has been used before by Paul, you know. True. And on one particulary famous song... (Strawberry Fields Forever e.n)
Second track in the medley is the cool rockabilly-like, That Was Me.
Yeah. We were talking about needing a lift for the third verse, after the vocal/guitar solo riffs. Paul said maybe he'd sing it up an octave. What's on the track is the second take. My hair was standing on end. It was like a rocket took off. What about the sort of distorted piano riffs? I know you don't use references, but...
I know you'd like to find some references, but there aren't any. Wix (Paul Wickens, the keyboard player) was goofing around on the piano, and he hit that chord and I thought it sounded great because it's so dissonant. Paul liked it, so we put it in. Later, I thought it was kind of like the guitar chops Steve Cropper plays on Green Onions (Booker T. and the MG's). Paul's then got his Feet In The Clouds. What about this next track?
There are several very personal moments in this song that might escape some listeners at first. And the chorale sections were really fun (and very painstaking) to work on. The Handel robots. What sounds amazing for me on this track at first listen is the crispy acoustic guitar sound.
We worked quite awhile to get that particular acoustic sound. It had to have an immediate feel to pick up from That Was Me. Also, there's no drums for awhile, so size was important. I wanted it to feel like it was holding the voice in it's hand, to make it extremely close and personal because of lyric in the chorus. As I told you, some of the tracks have become quickly personal favourites, but House Of Wax really stunned me. It's a track hard to define, also different than Paul's past recordings.
I agree. I've never heard a song like this, about this, with a vocal like this. Aside from the truly poetic lyrics, one of my favorite things in the track are the guitar solos. The sections were open for a long time, and I suggested to Paul that he play guitar solos in each one, maybe changing each solo feel-wise to build the song. Half hour later, these were done. I've never heard him play guitar like this! Yes, the song is one hard to describe. The orchestration has got a very "dark approach", by the way.
As far as the orchestration goes, t's a dark song, so we followed the logic of the composition. There's three drum kits, one of them slowed down to half speed. The thunder at the beginning and end are actually tom fills. Amazing recording, I can tell.
We're close to the End of The End now... Was it recorded at Abbey Road by the way?
Yes Abbey Road on the Lady Madonna piano.Think about what this song is about, and what effort it takes to be direct and open about this topic. I don't know of a song about this, like this, from anyone in pop music. An artist can only write one song about this as far as I'm concerned. Think too about the connection he makes between stories and songs, children and lovers. Any particular story of this session?
On End of the End, Paul was singing and playing live, and he had on headphones. After a few takes, he stopped and said he didn't need the headphones since he was just singing and playing, so he took them off and was sitting in the middle of the room at Abbey Road 2 playingand singing his song, as bare and purely musical as could be. About three takes later, he did the take you hear on the album. The high part at the end was so pure, like a blimp hanging in the air indefinitely. I was holding my breath as he finished, wondering if it was all going to fall apart because it was so delicate, but it stood up like iron. He came upstairs and we listened, and it was done. Boom, just like that. A lifetime in a moment. I loved the feel of the last track, Nod Your Head. It seems out of Chaos And Creation At Abbey Road TV special, the improvisation made by Paul at the end of the show. Did Paul ad-lib the lyrics and then record it?
No, the lyrics weren't ad-libs. He wrote out a lyric and sang it, worked on it more, and kept singing it until it was right. I don't think verse two sounds anything but composed, with the great word-play and tense changing going on in there. There was some talk of this being an instrumental. When Paul finally put a vocal on it, I was stunned. He reached down and pulled magic out. He's the only singer ever to sound like this, and here he is pounding it out for us all to hear. We now are aware that there'll be three bonus tracks included on the album's special edition. They are 222, In Private and Why So Blue, which makes only 16 tracks available to us. I'd like you please to comment on these three leftovers and if there's chances for other songs to surface.
OK. 222 is a groove track in an odd meter. Very moody, very cool and inside. In Private is an instrumental with a slight Indian flavor, although played on acoustic guitar. Why So Blue was on the album for awhile, and came off near the end. It's a great story song, and I always described it as being very kind. The other songs weren't finished. To wrap this up, what would be your final comments on it? Did you enjoy the questions or some of them were off-base? (laughs).
No, they were cool. One thing that interests me about the questions you ask (and many other people ask me too) is that in trying to find references for new songs in old ones, you're making a memory game out of listening. (I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It just interests me.) A lot of this album is about memory, and Paul of all the people I've worked with - someone who has absolutely unique and voluminous experiences to remember- doesn't use his past work to inspire him. He has kept going, doing new things. You may recognize someone by their walk or their face, but you're not seeing them in the same place you saw them before because everything has moved on, including the planet. Paul's instinct is to find a new chord, a new sound, a new way to hit a note, a melody he's never thought of before. It's still Paul's voice, and it's still an electric guitar, but it's Paul on his own frontier, not looking back musically. Even though on this album the memory feeling is so strong. I think that's a great double feeling, a very rich contrasting landscape. Paul may not realize something as completely as he'd hoped to, but he's never - in the absence of knowing exactly what to do next - gone back and copied himself. That's the history of all great artists. That was a great overview of Paul's framework. Thanks for the interview.
You are welcome. Cheers. TeksterDance Tonight(McCartney) Everybody gonna dance tonight
Dance Tonight This was the last track I recorded for the album. I was on my way into a meeting, but before I actually got there, I had a bit of a walk to experience life for a minute. There's a guitar shop that I always drop in on, and I was chatting to the guy in there. He mentioned that he had a left-handed mandolin that he wanted to show me. I ended up getting it. The great thing about it was that I didn't know how to play.It's tuned like a violin, so I had no idea what the chords were. It took me back to when I was a teenager being presented with an instrument.I had to figure out how to play it.I found one chord, then another, then a real strange chord.I still don't know what it is, but it sounded great.With this little instrument at home over the holiday, I started stomping in the kitchen, just enjoying myself, trying to find chords.I start singing, "Everybody gonna dance tonight." Every time, my little girl would come running in and start dancing, so I fell in love with this song and with the mandolin.The song kind of wrote itself. I thought I'm just gonna keep it simple. I liked it so much I ran into the studio to record it and stuck it on the album. It seemed like a good atmospheric opening. Ever Present Past(McCartney)
I've got too much on my plate
Ever Present Past Sometimes I just sit down and try and write a pop song. I've done it throughout my life and it's an interesting thing to do, to make something kind of catchy that might be attractive.It starts off, "I've got too much on my plate."The way I write I just follow that thought and think, "What did I mean by that? Explain yourself." So I think, "Well what I meant was ..."After I'd got the verse, this idea of my past, my 'Ever Present Past,' came about. No deep meaning in it. I think what happens with me is I just write a thing and people read into it.I like that because I think often you do things in a subliminal way you don't actually realize what you are doing. So something that I might think is a simple statement, somebody might go, "Yeah, but it means that."I like multiple meanings to these things even though I often start it off as a phrase that's really to help me write the song, to get me to the next bit.
See Your Sunshine(McCartney)
She makes me feel glad, I want her so bad
See Your Sunshine I'd already recorded most of the songs, but when it came to put the bass on it I did it fairly straightforward.Then just for my own pleasure I started goofing around, playing way too much, going over the top and I joked with the producer at the end of the take, "Whoa that was way over the top!" He said, "No that's great, do another take like that.I think that's exactly what the song needs." That was dangerous, because I pulled out every lick in the book and just had fun playing. But when I listened back, it all seemed to make sense. I was going where I wouldn't normally go, throwing in notes, but somehow it fit. I think I only did two takes, it's mad like that, but those were the ones that we used.
Only Mama Knows (McCartney) Well, I was found in the transit lounge Only Mama Knows 'Only Mama Knows' really is like a short story.I've done that in the past, not always writing from a personal perspective. So it's kind of nice because you get more into your imagination, and that's something I enjoy. Writing about Eleanor Rigby;I don't know a woman who picks up rice in a church, nor do I know anyone who was stranded in the transit lounge of an airport, as in 'Only Mama Knows,' but I like to get into those imaginary stories and then just follow them through and become that character. So the lead character who's singing is someone who was left by his mother, doesn't know why she left him and doesn't know if he'll ever see his father's face.It's interesting because it gets you out of yourself.You can become an alter ego.It doesn't have to be me singing it.It can be this other guy singing. It's good to do, it lets you have another vocal and emotional approach.
You Tell Me (McCartney) When was that summer when the skies were blue?
You Tell Me I started off just remembering summers."Were we really there?" "Was it real?" Sometimes for a lot of people your memories, particularly childhood memories, seem so golden and you think, "Did it really never rain all summer or am I just imagining the sunny bits?"And then the phrase, 'You tell me," began to be the theme of the song.I wrote it out in Long Island, during one of those summers.I was just looking at a red cardinal.For someone English it's magical, seeing a bright red bird coming out of a tree, so he appeared in the lyric.A lot of it was actually just there as I was writing. It became a tribute to golden summers. Mr Bellamy (McCartney) I'm not coming down
Mr. Bellamy Who is Mr Bellamy? I never know who these people are.Who are Chuck 'n' Dave from 'When I'm 64'? Who is Eleanor Rigby? Who's Desmond and Molly from ['Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da']?I don't know.I make them up.I like giving characters names, just making them up and trying to make them fit.I had a little piano riff that is behind the verse.I wanted some lyrics that would poke in and poke out of this piano riff so I began, with "I'm not coming down, no matter what you say. I like it up here."Sometimes I don't actually know where I'm going, so then I look at just what that verse is and in this case I got a picture of a guy sitting on top of a skyscraper and all the people in the street, the rescue team, the psychiatrist, the man with the megaphone shouting "Don't jump" and the people shouting "Jump."So I fished around for a name and came up with "Bellamy," which just sounded like someone who might want to jump. And I just followed the story through.The end is like a pull back on a camera, there he is, little Bellamy sitting on the ledge, enjoying it up in the clouds.And that's how we recorded it, as a sort of film. Gratitude (McCartney) Gratitude X3 
Gratitude I've always had a couple of voices.Originally you're just a kid at home, like everyone else and then you start to dream this dream of maybe being a singer.My heroes then were Elvis Presley, so my ballad voice I think was based on Elvis and the screamy voice was me trying to be Little Richard. I loved him so much.When I got in the Beatles, John used to like that and it's remained with me as something I enjoy doing, that sort of gritty soul-y voice. So on this track I was just thinking of how much there is to be grateful for in life and I wanted to put that into song and use this voice to do it with. Vintage Clothes (McCartney) Don’t live in the past
Vintage Clothes For me, 'Vintage Clothes' is about my clothes from the '60s and the fact that what's out comes back, fashion going round in circles. I meet quite a few guys in young bands and a question they always ask is, "Did you keep the clothes?" As a matter of fact I have. The Beatles' tailor Dougie Millings is in a scene in 'A Hard Day's Night.' Instead of just going to get a suit as you used to before that, for a job interview or whatever, suddenly you were going to get epaulets and fancy buttons, materials and linings. To me, that is where 'Vintage Clothes' comes from. It's sort of saying don't hold onto the past. The message of vintage clothes are great but don't live in the past. It's ['Vintage Clothes'] the opening of a medley. The next four songs are designed, with this as the opener. I hadn't done since 'Abbey Road' and I thought it would be quite nice to flirt with that idea again. It just means it's a slightly longer form, you've got to think, "What came before? What statement are you going to make now? How's this going to lead on?" It's not that different from just sequencing an album, but you suddenly think of them as a suite of songs and it becomes interesting to write them in that way. That Was Me (McCartney) That was me, in the scout camp, in the school play
That Was Me One of those things that I hear people say often is that they can remember more from their childhood than they can from a month ago. I think that is a fact of life, I don't know why.So all I had to do for this song was to think back. And immediately I go back to Liverpool where there was a little place we could escape to, beautiful little woods.Come springtime there would be these carpets of bluebells.It was a magical place. There's something about me at the bus stop that's a big part of my memory, going to school, coming home from school, going to the pictures, going to your friend's house. So all of these things got in there, in the cellar, which is the Cavern; Royal Iris, which is a ferry boat they used to have, they'd call them River Boat Shuffles, and some of our earliest gigs were on these. So these are just exciting memories of mine.And when I connected them, "on a blanket, in the bluebells, at the bus stop" and then eventually get into the Beatles "that was me, on TV, sweating cobwebs in a cellar."It was great to revisit it. Feet In The Clouds (McCartney) Teacher said I had my head in the clouds
Feet in the Clouds Because of the retrospective look of this medley, it then goes back to school and teachers.I had a real motley bunch of teachers at the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys.Some of them were complete maniacs. School was very dark and gloomy, the building itself wasn't the lightest of buildings, it was an 1825 building.This seemed to affect the attitude of the teachers.They were quite a dark bunch of people. So the song is like a therapy session for me.I wanted to go robotic on some harmonies, to do a vocoder type thing because it's kind of a nostalgic sound and yet it's robotic.It could be from the future but in fact it's from the past, so I liked that. House of Wax (McCartney) Lightning hits the house of wax
House of Wax There's something about chords in a song that can take you to a place.In this song they are not complex but there's something in the tonality of them that takes you to what the vocal becomes. And I like the lyrics."Lightning hits the house of wax, poets spill out on the streets, to set alight the incomplete remainders of the future."It's quite surreal lyrically. So I enjoyed singing them because of those chords and the mixture of the melody and the lyrics.I think this will be a good to do live. It's another one that the band was on.In fact the medley was conceived early on in this album and the band is featured on a lot of it. End of the End (McCartney) At the end of the end
End of the End I'd read something somebody had written where they were talking about dying and I thought, 'That's kind of brave."It seemed a brave subject to deal with rather than just shying away from it. So I fancied looking at this as a subject of myself. And then I thought, well I like the Irish approach of a wake, where it's celebratory. I remember once an Irish woman wished me well by saying, "I wish you a good death," and I was like, "Say what!?"I thought about it and thought actually, it's a great thing to wish someone.It was quite a brave subject for me.I thought, "Well, what would I like?"Jokes, wake, music, rather than everyone sitting around glum saying, "He was a great guy," though they can do a bit of that.So that led into the verse "On the day that I die I'd like jokes to be told and stories of old to be rolled out like carpets."I have played it to my family and they find it very moving because, you know, it's Dad. It's a strange combination, because you're talking about a very serious subject.But I'm dealing with it lightly. Nod Your Head(McCartney) If you really love me baby | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mange av låtene kunne helt klart vært på en offisiell Mccartney plate! Jeg er en av de som synes de to første utgivelsene var heller håpløse greier og heldigvis har han lagt fra seg tecknoknålet og satset på melodiøs eksprimentell musikk og det låter helt strålende 
