MACCA SOLO ALBUMS!

Oh God y'all, I'm listening to Give My Regards to Broad Street for the first time in probably 20 years, probably for the second or third time ever, and there's so many oddball sonic and production choices all over this thing.

"Ballroom Dancing" is a crappy listen, but does it have Dave Edmonds on it? I feel like maybe that boogie-cum-unnecessarily-loud-brass-arrangement brew all might've made more sense if you were watching the film (ok, that's a lie -- no film Paul McCartney has ever been behind has ever made a lick of sense).

Fake edit: Ok so now I’m WATCHING THE GIVE MY REGARDS MOVIE on YouTube and there is a whole sequence of them shooting a video to this in a ballroom and a West Side Story-esque tussle over a woman. The arrangement does actually make a little more sense when you’re watching it. John Paul Jones, Edmonds and Chris Spedding and Ringo are all playing on it.

Other things, I’m noticing:

There’s a whole sequence at the beginning of this movie with Paul, recording in a studio with Ringo, who is tuning his drums initially, while George Martin is producing. Oh hey look, on trombone is the same guy who played on Sergeant Pepper, who also so happened to teach trombone at my college while I was there.

Tracy Ullman shows up about a half hour into this, I think as the girlfriend of Harry who they think stole the mater tapes. There are actually a lot of pretty good actors in this. I have to imagine a bunch of people just wanted to work with Paul.

Now after some guy break danced through “Silly Love Songs,” with the whole band dressed like some 80s French aristocrats, with shaved mullet wigs and white makeup, we’re on to Live From Paulie’s House where Paul and his band do some rough and ready version of “Not Such a Bad Boy.” Linda is rocking a splendid fedora.

“So Bad” comes next. I’ve always had a soft spot for this kind of awful song. It got a ton of radio play the year before. Eric Stewart is here now looking like Matthew Sweet, as are about 400 overdubbed 10cc background vocals that are clearly not Live From Paulie’s House.

The third song from this section is No Values, which I have zero memory of. It’s a p good rocker.

Well, I guess I am live blogging this now, so I suppose I’ll just keep going.

Now a radio interview followed by straight arrow (thru me) live in the studio versions of For No One and Eleanor Rigby. I actually kind of wonder, when combined with the studio stuff earlier in the movie, Paul just wanted to show himself playing and singing a bunch of these tunes effortlessly but also, with his studious filming of mixing board faders and racked gear, to demonstrate all the craft and care that goes into capturing and promoting this stuff.

Ok so Eleanor Rigby evolves into a show hall performance and then a fantasy sequence with Paul in some Vixtorian era carriage with him and Ringo drinking wine and eating grapes by a lake and rowing boats with swans. Sunday in the Park with Paul and Ringo … but not George (or John, he’s dead).

The pastoral bliss is interrupted when Paul imagines Harry stealing the tape and everyone goes over a waterfall and dies.

Now it’s snowing and Victorian Paul sees a ghostly Linda riding a horse in the sky. Then he’s wandering the streets of London with the whores and drunkards, peering like Jack the Ripper at Harry skulking around with the tapes. Harry tries to hide the tapes but is caught by some Peter Grant looking heavy we met a few scenes earlier in the movie and beats him. Then the actual Jack the Ripper who is a record executive I think shows up in a carriage and stabs him. Jokes on you, Harry – those tapes you stole were from Press to Play! Anyway Harry stumbles back to the steps of a concert hall with all the record execs and dies there. Paul then awakes from his dream.

Paul gets back in his ZZ Top car from the beginning of the movie, which has a computer in it that gives him his schedule for the day. He drives past the Battersea powerstation, listening to the Wings version of Band of the Run.

Now he goes to Ralph Richardson’s house. Ralph has a monkey. Ralph serves him tea and suggests Paul slow down a bit and then looks like he’s about to hypnotize him.

Paul cruises around the streets of London some more in his ZZ Top car, listening to a cheesy Baker Street sax version of him singing “The Long and Winding Road.” Meanwhile Tracy Ullmann laments Harry’s disappearance. Brian Brown, his manager, paces a lot and the shadowy corporate guys walk around with suitcases because they’re going to foreclose on Paul or something if he doesn’t find the tapes in time.

Anyway, Paul drives past the Broad Street rail station and has a revelation and parks his ZZ Top car. As he walks around the abandoned rail station to “No More Lonely Nights” Paul imagines himself as a busker. And then once his fantasy ends, he looks over at the bench next to him and sees his master tape lying there in the rain. And then he hears poor Harry who apparently locked himself in a shed thinking it was a toilet. Mystery solved!

Paul rings Linda from his ZZ Top car to let her know he’s found the tapes and Harry. Brian Brown informs the suits who look sad they won’t be able to foreclose on the McCartney family farm.

Paul then wakes up in his car and realizes he’s been daydreaming whole time. Cue the disco version of “No More Lonely Nights” over the credits which, yeah, I’d completely forgotten and apparently has Anne Dudley on synths. This thing is extended. After doing 1980s versions of all of his songs, it’s legit like he just timewarped back to 1979 for this. Why? No one knows.

This is all ridiculous and meaningless. But it’s a lot easier to watch when you realize Paul’s entire concept is just to do his own Hard Day’s Night.