Thursday 4 July 2019

Giveaway

Bloody brilliant!
Paul McCartney would often gives songs away: Mary Hopkin (Goodbye) and Badfinger (Come and Get It) being two lucky recipients that spring to mind.
One that a lot of people overlook is a song called 4th of July. In 1974, between the Band on the Run and Venus and Mars albums, Macca recorded a very loose demo but never did anything with it; instead he gave it to John Christie. Polydor put it out as a single, but, despite its lineage, it never amounted to much.

In 2010, when Venus and Mars was given the Macca remastering treatment, they chucked 4th of July in with the extras. Like a lot of stuff McCartney was writing at the time, it walked that fine line between bloody brilliant and twee. For what it's worth, I quite like it.

Twee?

2 comments:

  1. Never heard '4th of July' before. It's nice, but with a little compositional perseverance it could have been really special I reckon. The 'Venus and Mars' LP is up there among my very favourite Macca works.

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    1. I think you're right; he probably needed someone like George Martin to gently cajole him. Venus and Mars is a very good album, it nearly made my Macca Top 5.

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