Macca

Listened to the great man's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard on getting home from work yesterday and wondered why I don't do so far more often. What a brilliant collection of songs, brilliantly performed. I suppose it was the fact it was Valentine's Day and Mr McCartney is possibly the greatest romantic tunesmith of my time that led to me giving the CD air-time, and I'm very glad I did. Which leads me to ask myself why I so often under-rate him, not, I hasten to add, in his persona as a Beatle, but in terms of the post-Fab Four solo work. I've not even listened to it all.

I think the answer lies in the fact that, through no fault of his own, he's not John Lennon. So you don't get the cutting edge brilliance and audacity of Instant Karma, Cold Turkey, et al. And you don't get that perfect voice. But - I now remind myself - you get the consistent loveliness of My Love, Let Me Roll It, et al and the second greatest voice in Rock 'n' Roll. (What were the odds they'd sing in the same band? Another proof, if you needed one, of the existence of the Almighty.)

I ended up down-loading Flowers in the Dirt last night from i-Tunes, an album I once possessed on cassette, and playing it very late at night just to confirm my faded half-memories of the wonderfulness therein. And I rather suspect there's going to be a lot more down-loading to follow.