10 Songs That Prove Paul McCartney’s Solo Career Is Better Than You Think
6. The Pound Is Sinking
Macca was arguably too careful not to make records that sound like The Beatles. It took a late-Eighties collaboration with Elvis Costello to re-embrace some more Beatlesque bass sounds and chord progressions.
As Costello wrote in his autobiography, “half the world’s songwriters gleefully plundered The Beatles’ musical vocabulary. I didn’t see why Paul should have to go out of his way to avoid it.”
Its admirable that Paul wanted to find his own sound and not rest on his laurels as a former Beatle but it’s also tantalising to wonder what might have been if he hadn’t kept himself so carefully in check.
Perhaps we would have more songs like The Pound Is Sinking. An album track from Tug of War that sounds a lot like the guitar pop of early Beatles, particularly the giddy rush of the bridge. The song marries that pop Beatlemania energy to the lyrical whimsy of Thr Beatles’ later years.
McCartney manages to produce a charming song that recalls his former band without paling by comparison.