Maybe Paul really is dead…. Courtesy of the thankfully inimitable Bane. Being born after the “Paul is dead” hooplah, I’d never given the matter a moment’s thought, but speaking as someone who has written a few songs professionally, I have wondered about the qualitative difference between the melodies flowing through the early Beatles music and the rather leaden tunes of post-Beatles McCartney-written songs. When Douglas Adams referred to Paul McCartney as a phenomenal songwriter* – I was first reading Hitchhikers when the Wings were still active and I really didn’t know much Beatles’ music – I had no idea how on Earth he could possibly write that.
*in describing the sweetly xenophobic songs sung by the people of Krikkit