Celebrating 80, Paul McCartney in the 21st Century

Paul McCartney has turned 80 years old.  Approximately half of the population in the developed world never reach 80, so getting there is an accomplishment, but what Paul McCartney has done this century, leading up to 80, is a tremendous accomplishment.  Consider, in this century, beginning when he was already 57 years-old, McCartney released:

- Six rock/pop albums, on which he played most of the instruments and wrote or, in few cases, co-wrote all of the songs:

• Driving Rain (2001)
• Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
• Memory Almost Full (2007)
• New (2013)
• Egypt Station (2018)
• III (2020)

- Two electronic albums:

• Twin Freaks (2005), with producer The Freelance Hellraiser
• Electric Arguments (2008), with producer Youth, released as “Firemen”

- One standards album:

• Kisses On the Bottom (2012)

- Three classical albums:

• Liverpool Sound Collage (2000)
• Ecce Cor Meum (2006)
• Ocean’s Kingdom (2011)

- Five live albums:

• Back in the US (2002) with Concert DVD
• Back in the World Live (2003)
• Live in Los Angeles (2007)
• Good Evening New York City (2009) with Concert DVD
• iTunes Live from Capitol Studios (2012) with Concert DVD

- Two Retrospective albums with DVDs:

• Wingspan (2001)
• The McCartney Years (2007)

In all, 12 LPs in 22 years of original recordings plus 5 live LPs and two compilations.  On top of that, he has been involved remasters and new releases from The Beatles including:

• Let It Be... Naked (2003)
• Love (2006)
• On Air: Live At the BBC, Vol. 2 (2013)
• Live At the Hollywood Bowl (2016)
• Get Back (2022)

And then there are vocal performances McCartney did on recordings with other artists (and they’re all good songs, check them out on-line!), such as:

• George Michael – “Heal the Pain,” 2006
• Tony Bennett – “The Very Thought of You,” 2006
• George Benson & Al Jarreau – “Givin’ It Up,” 2006
• Nitin Sawhney – “My Soul,” 2009
• Ringo Starr – “Walk With You,” 2010
• Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers – “Best Love,” 2011
• The Bloody Beatroots – “Out of Sight,” 2013
• Eric Clapton – “All of Me,” 2013
• Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic & Pat Smear – “Cut Me Some Slack,” 2013
• Kanye West – "FourFiveSeconds" and "Only One" 2015
• Hollywood Vampires – "Come and Get It" 2015
• Ringo Starr - "We're On the Road Again" 2017

McCartney also performed on five tribute/film soundtrack albums:

• “Vanilla Sky,” 2001, from the soundtrack to the film Vanilla Sky
• “(I'm Partial to Your) Abracadabra,” 2001, tribute album honoring Ian Dury
• “I Want to Walk You Home,” 2007, tribute album honoring Fats Domino
• “Whole Life,” 2007, tribute album honoring Nelson Mandela, featuring Dave Stewart
• “(I Want To) Come Home,” 2009, from the soundtrack to the film Everybody’s Fine
• “It’s So Easy,” 2011, tribute album honoring Buddy Holly

In addition, McCartney has conducted 14 concert tours as well as performing at the 9/11 concert, the 12-12-12 concert for Hurricane Sandy relief, the 2012 Olympics, Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in
2012, all of which required much organizing and rehearsal. 

Simply put, at a time in his life when most artists are resigned to nostalgia package tours and retirement, Paul McCartney in his 60s and 70s was more productive than almost any other artist on the planet (U2, for example, released just 5 studio albums and 2 live albums in the same span).  

At 80, Paul McCartney clearly has a lot less time in front of him than behind, but enjoy him now because we are not at all likely to see another singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and perform like him in our lifetime.

A Hundred Years of Socialism In America

Since the 1920s, about a century now, socialists and communists have been trying to bring socialism to America. A group that traveled to Moscow in 1924 and returned with glowing reviews of socialism infiltrated FDR's cabinet and produced policies that made the Great Depression last far longer than it should have. Why? Because a desperate population will revolt, and capitalism created the first middle class in world history, making people far to happy and comfortable. But then WWII interfered.

Of course, FDR was the future model for the Democrat party - someone who leaned socialist, loved power, threatened the Supreme Court, created unconstitutional socialist programs and refused to cede power.

FDR passed before WWII ended, but the socialists did not stop. They've been in it for the long haul. They began to infiltrate Hollywood, then the media, then our schools. They've been teaching revisionist history bunk. They've been feeding us lies. They've decimated all things that produce comfort, wealth and good mental health, like family structure and capitalism. They've enacted social programs to create dependency - LBJ admitted this.

By the 90s, the goal was 8 years of Bill Clinton, 8 years of Al Gore, and 8 years of Hillary Clinton, and in 24 years, America as we know it would be gone. But then Bush won in 2000 and despite desperate attempts to cheat and overturn the election, Bush was inaugurated. The 9/11 attacks brought the nation together and flag-waving patriotism was back, much to the disdain of the left.

So Democrats came up with a new plan to bring about socialism - 8 years of Obama and 8 years of Hillary. Obama started the ball rolling, too - a healthcare bill that Congress "had to pass to see what was in it." An explosion of school violence and street violence that has eliminated the Giuliani-led clean-up of urban areas in the 90s. Racial division. "Climate change." Riots.

But the people saw through this and, despite cheating by Democrats and Hillary Clinton, elected Donald Trump as president. Trump got the economy going, began to bring manufacturing back, got Europe to pay more of their "fair share" of our defending their borders, defended our own borders, got ALL Americans a tax cut, putting more money in our pockets and allowing us to live more comfortably, and got us out of the Paris Accord whose entire goal was to redistribute American wealth.

So now Democrats really had to cheat. And they did. Somehow Joe Biden, who campaigned from his basement, received millions more votes than even Obama despite a complete lack of voter enthusiasm for him. Democrats used ballot harvesting to install an absolute puppet in the White House - two of them actually, because the healthy Kamala Harris is actually less intelligent and competent than the senile groper, Biden. The results have been completely predictable. Food shortages for the first time in my lifetime, inflation running rampant, an anemic economy, shrinking retirement accounts - all done to make us poor and less comfortable. Essentially, it's like fattening a turkey before Thanksgiving. Democrats are spreading hatred, poverty, and desperation in an attempt to bring about the socialism they've been trying to bring here for a century.

This November we can save our free lives. Let's not screw this up, America.