Make it through the opening tracks -- which are by no means bad, just far less than he's already proven himself capable of -- and a surprisingly rocking, inventive Cute One emerges in portraits like the suicide study "Mr. Bellamy," wry career summaries like "Vintage Clothes" and "That Was Me," and real oddities like "House Of Wax." ("Lightning hits the house of wax / Women scream and run around / To dance upon the battleground / Like wild demented horses.")
As the CD spins on, Paul morphs from the likeable Oprah guest we've all come to tolerate into, ironically, a studied Beatlesque pop-rocker restlessly bending formula this way and that for its own sake. The new McCartney isn't resting very comfortably on his laurels, and that's good news for the rest of us: rather than impatiently waiting for him to match his ever present past, you start to feel like this 65-year-old is moving, however erratically, into his final pose for Godhood. The suite that starts around "Vintage Clothes," for example, ends more or less with "The End Of The End," half a promise for a beautiful afterlife, half instructions for his own funeral. Yet, it the middle of this stately piece, he starts whistling. Now THAT's McCartney.
Tracklisting
- Dance Tonight 2:54
- Ever Present Past 2:57
- See Your Sunshine 3:20
- Only Mama Knows 4:17
- You Tell Me 3:15
- Mr. Bellamy 3:39
- Gratitude 3:19
- Vintage Clothes 2:22
- That Was Me 2:38
- Feet in the Clouds 3:24
- House of Wax 4:59
- The End of the End 2:57
- Nod Your Head 1:58
