No. 214: Maybe I'm Amazed

"McCartney" by Tom Wills, August 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgg5WxX8m74

"Maybe I'm Amazed" is a perfect song.
For what is basically a four-track home recording, it's just the right balance of mellow and heavy.
Paul McCartney gets to use all of his great voices: A little "Get Back," some blues, a pinch of falsetto, and a touch of "Let It Be."
Even the length is just right.

"Maybe I'm Amazed" came out of a bad time, then came out at a bad time.
The Beatles were finished, so said John Lennon.  Paul retreated to his farm and fell into months of depression, uncertain of what to do next.

"Maybe I'm a man and maybe I'm a lonely man
Who's in the middle of something
That he doesn't really understand"

But songs started to form, with encouragement from his wife Linda.

Maybe I'm amazed at the way you're with me all the time
Maybe I'm afraid of the way I leave you
Maybe I'm amazed at the way you help me sing my song
You right me when I'm wrong
Maybe I’m amazed at the way I really need you

This is my favorite Paul period -- at the end and at the beginning.
The album "McCartney" came out in April 1970 before The Beatles' "Let It Be," despite the pleadings of George and Ringo.
So, Paul took a lot of blame for the breakup of The Beatles.
People at first derided his simple songs about sunglasses, junk in the yard, Linda, and a few instrumentals and experiments. The album gatefold was full of family photographs.
The cover was a bowl of spilled cherries, as if to say, "Life is NOT a bowl full of cherries."
No one, however, dismissed the second-to-last song, "Maybe I'm Amazed."

The song had been spiffed up to eight tracks at Abbey Road and sounded not unlike The Beatles.
Paul played the greatest guitar solos he'd ever played, nailed the drums, stroked the piano and of course was stellar on bass.
He did it all, a giant declaration of independence. Who needs 'em!

Though he refused to release "Maybe I'm Amazed" as a single, radio stations began to pick it up.
This confused me, when I was 9 years old. There was a new "Beatles" song on the radio.  But it wasn't in the 45 bins at Woolworths or Strouss or Warren Music Center.
My dad and I tracked it down in what had been Hank Ross's Trumbull Camera and Hobby Shop in the Trumbull Plaza (its original site, before relocating two more times and then closing).
Hank sold albums and had them on a peg board along a wall of the store. One of them was the bowl of cherries record.  

On the back was a bearded Paul with a baby tucked inside his coat, the word "McCartney" emblazoned across the top.
A green Apple Records logo was in the bottom left corner.

At first I loved only "Maybe I'm Amazed."
As the years have passed my appreciation for this first homegrown effort has quadrupled. It's quite an achievement for just one musician, even if it's a bit sappy. There is a lot of wicked guitar playing and good vocals; it's easy to sing along and even play along with.  He is a very good drummer.

I played a lot of McCartney in the days it took to complete this drawing. He has made a lot of music. Most of it is good, some of it is icky, but a few are downright great. "Maybe I'm Amazed" is at the top, for me.
The illustration actually captures Paul at the piano during the making of "Let It Be," a record that he had wanted to keep simple. But it became a mess that had to be saved by an outside producer, after the Fab Four had moved to their separate corners.
In "McCartney," Paul realized his simple album the only way that it could have been done: On his own.

This illustration is for sale.
For inquiries, hankbonesman@embarqmail.com