Disco de Paul McCartney: “Driving Rain”

Ladies and gentlemen, meet James Paul McCartney. Following his nine-year recording stint with the Band Of The Century, he pursued a solo career that yielded two classic albums (Band On The Run and Tug Of War) and three pretty damn good ones (McCartney, Ram, and Venus & Mars). And the rest? For the most part, each new arrival featured two or three tasty avocados on a bed of soggy bean sprouts. Perhaps McCartney was simply trying too hard to fill his own shoes.

The good news on Driving Rain is Paul has finally given up. No endless months of fine-tuning and overdubs. No fancy cover either - just a fuzzy Polaroid with a dashed off, handwritten title. If he feels like celebrating, he lets himself soar - as in the last-minute addition of a supercharged "Freedom" from the Concert For New York. If he wants to jam, he digs in at length. If he's feeling romantic, he lets us know (yeah, now there's a surprise). The entire album has an offhand, thrown together feel to it - like something Macca and a neighborhood band knocked off in their garage last week. Paul hasn't sounded this loose since 1965. It suits him well.

Remember Sgt. Pepper's floating, melodic bass lines? They're back for an encore on Driving Rain, and the title song announces their return in the album's opening seconds. Beatlesque flourishes are here, there, and everywhere - from the White Album-ish "Heather" with its oh-so-British piano and vocal phrasings, to "About You" and "Back In The Sunshine Again," either of which could pass for Abbey Road outtakes. Paul's new backing band is young, talented, and unpretentious. They make even the jams and instrumentals work.

Simply put, Driving Rain is Paul McCartney's best and most consistent effort since 1982's Tug Of War. Whatever demons Macca has been battling since Winging it on his own, remember you read it here first: they've lost, Paul's won. He is more than live. He's finally free. And to celebrate he's unleashed his first monster album in nearly two decades.

It's hard to believe this guy is sixty years old. He can still rock and roll with the best of them! There are a lot of wonderful treats on "Driving Rain," not the least of which is seeing his new sprightliness and cheer following the upswing of his lovelife. The very first track, "Lonely Road," stoutly declares that he's not ready to "walk that lonely road again," and while in someone else's hands we might think that it referred to simply, well, being alone, in McCartney's able hands it carries both overt and subtle references to the 1998 death of Linda, to whom he'd been married for twenty-nine years (an astonishing length of time by any standards, but especially by the standards of rock and roll). With this song, McCartney declares his willingness to go on with his own life.

"From a Lover to a Friend" carries McCartney's signature piano work to new heights and has echoes of so many old McCartney tunes. It's a treat musically, and showcases McCartney's usual ear for delicately revealing lyrics. It's difficult to tell if he's talking to both Linda and Heather here, but that's what seems to be going on. Most revealing, not to mention a fine tune.

On "Tiny Bubble," McCartney almost seems at the beginning of the song to be channeling a Barry White/Stevie Wonder/Funkadelic kind of groove, complete with Hammond organ. Then "Your Way" could easily pass for a Grateful Dead effort in terms of its harmonies and laid-back ease. McCartney is all over the map here and it's exhilarating!

Heather Mills has done something good for Paul McCartney--we'll never know exactly all the details, but good for her for being the inspiration for the lovely "Heather," a gorgeous blend of calmness and joy that is mostly all about piano with just a subtle drum rhythm in the background. It's truly a pretty song, something it's hard to say about most songs these days. Then on "Your Loving Flame," piano comes to the fore again, this time with an almost prayerful intensity. The song is thoughtful, complex, and bears lyrics of an almost naked intensity. Here is a Paul McCartney in the throes of young love, no matter what his age, and it's a splendid thing to hear.

About a minute and a half into the song "About You," the music stops as Paul belts out the line, "When did you teach me to fly thru the air." It's a completely exhilerating moment and symbolizes what the album Driving Rain is all about: dealing with loss (obviously Linda), but recovering, standing up, and getting, in his words, "Back In The Sunshine Again." In my opinion, Driving Rain has more emotion and depth than any solo McCartney album ever. You can feel Paul's pain and anguish in his voice in the bluesy "Lonely Road." The lyrics to "From A Lover To A Friend" are a little vague at some points, but the hook and Macca's delivery are so powerful and emotional that it makes some of the lines irrelevant anyway. Beyond these first two songs, the album becomes less about dealing with loss and more about celebrating life, especially Linda's in the touching, yet universal in meaning tribute song "Magic," with rememberances of when they met and later the memories of their life together "burning so bright." Other favorites for me include the country-flavored "Your Way," "Heather," "Your Loving Flame," "Riding Into Jaipur," and "Rinse The Raindrops," which shows that Paul can still rock with anyone. "Freedom" displays Paul's tough and defiant side. Many years ago the Beatles told people to "free your mind," and in this new anthem Paul is standing up for that right! Driving Rain is fantastic, and Paul McCartney is at the top of his game. Buy this album, put it in the disc player, and go for a drive--a ride in the driving rain! It's a beautiful thing.

Driving Rain is Paul McCartney's first album of new material since 1997's Flaming Pie. In between he released an album of covers Run Devil Run that was recorded shortly after the loss of his wife and soul mate, Linda. That album was the most emotional of his career. While Driving Rain isn't quite as emotional, it still has a certain weight to it. There are some of his classic, light and breezy tunes "Tiny Bubble" and the laconic "Spinning On An Axis". Much like "Lovely Linda" from his first solo album, "Heather" is an ode to the new love of his life Heather Mills. The album's best tracks are laced with an emotional weight. "Lonely Road" has a frenzied edge, "From A Lover To A Friend" has is filled with anxiety and "There Must Have Been Magic" is filled with longing rememberances of the past. "Your Way" has a country flavor and "Rinse The Raindrops" is a ten plus minute workout that shows off some nice cohesion from the spry four piece band Mr. McCartney assembled for the album. Throughout the record, Mr. McCartney plays some of the best bass lines he's played in years and he reminds us that he is, in fact, a true legend.

First of all, don't let the negative reviews here cause you to miss out on Paul's best new album in many years. Some here have said this isn't as strong as "Flaming Pie" but I have to disagree. I prefer to think Paul's new-found creative streak started with that album, and he builds on that fresh spark even more convincingly with this new one, with better quality of songwriting from the first track to the last- this is a more consistent effort than FP. With great tracks like "Driving Rain", "Tiny Bubble", "Heather", "About You", "Your Way" (just to name five) one wonders how does the man still do it? After all these years, it's pretty amazing to still hear Paul writing songs of the caliber found here. I think two reasons: 1. Since Linda's passing, and, more recently, George Harrison's long battle with cancer, Paul has been inspired by the mortality of us all and decided- whether consciously or subconsciously- that it was time to get with the program and create something more inspired than what we've been used to hearing from him for the better part of his solo years. 2- The process of bringing these songs fresh and unheard by the band to the studio, where they learned them more or less on-the-spot, the same way the Beatles worked, combined with the production and eye-to-eye collaboration between Paul and David Kahne.

At any rate, Paul sounds here like he was hungry to create some vital sounds again, and, in my (and many others') opinion, he has succeeded in a big way. Another reviewer here compared this effort with Paul's 1986 "Press to Play" in which Paul made music for himself. I agree with that assessment except "Press to Play" was a tip of the iceberg of what would eventually come with Driving Rain, Paul's best work since "Band on the Run".