I just finished a biography of Paul McCartney (Fab, by Howard Sounes), and I feel like addressing it here because, well, Amazon doesn't truck with cursing in its reviews...dammit.
Actually, I wanted to address it here because I felt like more of an open-ended essay than a proper review, so here goes:
I have a complicated relationship with Sir Paul, dating back to when I first got into the Beatles and realized that, for all its many faults, the local library was stocked with Beatles-related histories and biographies for me to pursue. I gravitated towards Paul first because (do I really have to say it?) I play air-guitar lefty.
In my defense, I started doing air-guitar in my early pre-teen phase of liking music but not necessarily loving it, and I enjoyed doing air-guitar in the mirror because this was the tail-end of the hair-metal movement and everything that I saw on TV featured long-haired guys with wicked guitar solos, usually done in slow motion while they milked it for the camera. A towel draped over my head and any long, vaguly rectangular object (such as a ruler or even a stick) in hand, I would emulate these fellows, looking in the mirror and seeing myself reflected as playing right-handed, even though I was actually doing it wrong (I'm righty). I did it this way for long enough that, to this day, when I do air-guitar I favor my left hand, even though really I should be doing it right-handed.
There, now you know my secret shame...anyway, I gravitated to Paul for that most superficial of reasons, which is why, when I eventually rejected him as a false idol and turned to John instead, it was for an equally superficial reason (John and I have the same birthday). Plus, it doesn't hurt that, in his solo career especially, Paul has aimed for the easy buck, with schmaltz that was evident during his Beatle career taking over for the genuine songcraft he often exhibited when pushed to do better (usually by John). But the man wrote my favorite song of all time, "Hey Jude" (and I bet, if you're honest with yourself, you probably like one or more of his Wings or solo songs, too. They're just so damn catchy sometimes). So, like it or not, in addition to reading each and every new Beatles book under the sun (as well as the classics, of which Philip Norman's Shout! is hard to top even today), I find myself drawn, unwillingly, towards the collective literature around Sir Paul, of which Fab is merely the latest, if not the best, of the bunch.
Sounes does that rare thing for a Beatles biographer; he calls Paul out on his shit (see, there's the cursing!) that he produced in the Seventies and Eighties, as well as that stupid-ass mullet that Paul affected for way, way too long (in terms of rock-star hairdos, the mullet is the poor man's permed-up late Eighties 'do). But he also shows that, despite everything, Paul is perhaps the most decent guy in rock music, a man who genuinely loved his late wife Linda (who was, let's face it, a groupie, but one who was in it for the long haul), and was duped by Heather Mills into a marriage that made Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor look tame by comparison. He donates to charities, often without any public notice (except, of course, when you hear about it, through journalists, so maybe he does do it for the public notice after all), and he tries to perserve the legacy of the Beatles despite his insecurity over John's well-publicized canonization as a saint of rock and roll since his death in 1980 (various biographies of John pass muster or fail in terms of how much they stick to the facts about John's various issues, not in glossing over the nastier sides of the man).
After reading Fab, I kinda wanted to give Paul a hug, despite the fact that part of me loathes him and, in my darker moments, I always thought that if any Beatle deserved to be shot, it should be Macca. Nowadays, I can accept that Paul will probably be the last one left standing (Ringo is only a couple of years older, but he looks worn-out, and his All-Star Band tours do nothing for his standing in the eyes of rock and Beatles fans). I can even concede that maybe, if Paul were to ever buy back the rights to the Beatles' catalogue, his wish to change the credits around to "McCartney/Lennon" would probably happen. But I don't think I'll even hold him in the same estimation as I do John because (much like Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, where I discovered the films of the former through the work of the latter and, as I studied their lives, found more in common with Truffaut than I did Godard) Paul is a good gateway Beatle, but he's not the one that you want to say is your favorite, unless you're a former teenage girl stuck in arrested development.
So Sir Paul, while not okay in my book, is a decent enough guy, I guess. I hope his third wife isn't the pariah that Heather Mills was, and I found the story of his life with Linda touching (even if I would never, ever consider becoming a vegetarian. I come from a family of meat-cutters). He might be dopey, even a little creepy with his prenaturally dyed hair, but Paul is still a Beatle, after all. And the motherfucker could write great songs when he wanted to (see, I cursed again!).
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