Paul McCartney's Granny Music Should Be Looked Upon In A More Positive Light

Are you tired of Paul McCartney being treated as a musical wimp? The people who dislike his "granny music" - as John Lennon once called it - get stuck on an extremely small sample of the legend's tremendously huge catalog with The Beatles, Wings and as a solo artist.

McCartney's granny songs didn't sound the least bit off-putting to me, possibly because - as I've mentioned here before - I grew up listening to my mother's big band records. I've always believed it was wrong that one of the most important men who helped shape rock music in the 60s was criticized for having broader tastes, and since when is writing melodies a crime?

McCartney was greatly influenced by his father. Jim McCartney led his own jazz band and Paul liked what he heard. His first instrument was a trumpet given to him by his dad, but the future star traded it in for a guitar so he could sing while playing. It turned out to be a very smart move on his part.

Here's my take on a few of the Liverpool bassist's songs that in the eyes of many proved that McCartney wasn't a true rock 'n roller. A future post will prove them wrong.

"When I'm 64" - The Beatles, from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

When I first brought home the landmark LP that gave the world "When I'm 64" my mother - a product of the greatest generation - instantly enjoyed it, and it wasn't the first Beatles song she liked. When she initially heard "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party" a couple of years earlier she was astonished at the maturity of the lyrics and the countrified sound of the group's deep track.

My father-in-law's taste and mine almost never converged. He loved opera, classical - especially the waltzes of Johann Strauss - and John Phillip Sousa's marches. He also liked "When I'm 64." In fact, this rock music hater loved it so much that the first time he heard it - played in a live, all-instrumental setting featuring two clarinets and a bass clarinet - he refused to believe a Beatle wrote it. He was convinced McCartney plagiarized it from someone else. I believe he was just embarrassed to admit he liked a song by the biggest rock band in the world.

I was surprised when I learned that McCartney wrote this ditty when he was just a teenager. It indicated he was more mature than his Teddy Boy image would allow many observers to believe.

"Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" - The Beatles, from The Beatles (aka The White Album) (1968)
All three of the other Beatles hated the sessions for this unique track because the perfectionist McCartney drove his bandmates nuts by forcing them to play way too many takes of it before he was satisfied with the finished product.

McCartney should be proud of "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da." It's one of pop music's early Jamaican influenced tracks to make its way into the mainstream. While it doesn't fit into the same old-style jazz sub-genre that his other "wimpy" songs do, haters classify it as a granny tune because of its happy, upbeat melody and story line. Despite his extreme disdain for the track, John Lennon played the exuberant piano introduction that helped make the song the classic it is today.

The Desmond character in the song's lyrics is a reference to Desmond Dekker and the Aces who had a top ten, early reggae hit in 1968 with "Israelites."

"Honey Pie" - The Beatles, also from The White Album (1968)
"Honey Pie" was definitely influenced by the old English music halls that featured entertainment often found in the early 20th Century, American, vaudeville shows. 1968 was the year of Tiny Tim's top twenty hit "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" that he played on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In that same year. McCartney's impression of the ukulele playing, oddball singer didn't help his reputation, but the 1930s, big band, light jazz arrangement was right up my alley. George Martin wrote a chart that included five saxophones and two clarinets to create a variation of the Glenn Miller Orchestra's reed sound.

To add to the old-time feel of the song the introduction includes the composer singing through a megaphone and includes the sound of a well-worn 78 RPM record complete with all of the clicks and pops that were common on breakable records made of shellac in the days before high fidelity recording. Even more than "When I'm 64" did, this track captures that bygone era perfectly.

"Maxwell's Silver Hammer" - The Beatles, from Abbey Road (1969)
This oft-hated song received its own separate article here several years ago when I wrote that McCartney's very dark lyrics should permanently remove it from the granny music list. It doesn't seem like the haters got the joke.

"You Gave Me an Answer" - Wings, from Venus and Mars (1975)

This brief 2:15 ditty makes "Honey Pie" sound almost alternative by comparison. McCartney uses studio technology to make it sound like Rudy Vallee is singing the whole song through a megaphone. He used a string section, clarinets and a bassoon to create the oldest sounding and perhaps the campiest song he ever wrote. It's another tune with an upbeat vibe. He dedicated it to Fred Astaire whenever Wings played it live.

"English Tea" - Paul McCartney, from Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
This track is different than the majority of the legend's granny tunes. It's not an old-time jazz or big band production. Instead, it's just McCartney's voice and piano with a small string section backing him up. This gives the song a classical feel, but it's bouncy lead vocal and melody are what earns it a place in this list.

The lyrics are very British, and the great one even uses the word "twee" in the song. It's a term mostly used by speakers of the King's English, and it means excessively quaint. Perhaps the star was describing the song itself.