Album Review: Paul McCartney – Give My Regards to Broad Street

Paul McCartney – Give My Regards to Broad Street

July 15, 2021

ALBUM REVIEW

OVERALL (OUT OF 10):  7

So we’re supposed to believe Paul McCartney has some unreleased “Eleanor Rigby”s up his sleeve?

Now, in an interview with Uncut for their September issue, McCartney has suggested he has countless more songs like ‘Eleanor Rigby‘, which featured on The Beatles LP Revolver, but they will remain in his archives.

“I’ve still got a few that I haven’t released,” he said. “Because I don’t think they’re that good.” While we’d imagine his standards are pretty high, one must still respect the authentic artistry McCartney uses.

“It’s quite a fun thing to do,” McCartney continued, “to just dream up a name of a character and try and write the story of that character and then make it fit with another character. ‘Eleanor Rigby’, I did it with just the few. Father McKenzie and Eleanor.”   

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/paul-mccartney-says-hes-holding-back-songs-like-eleanor-rigby/

I think we should take Paul at his word that they aren’t that good.  It’s not like “Jenny Wren” or “Mr. Bellamy” were great songs or anything, and those are “character” songs he actually released.  I totally believe him when he says the unreleased ones are garbage.  As a matter of fact, I would say it has been roughly 37 years since Paul released a “character” song on a studio album that was any good.  And that song, was, in fact, “Eleanor Rigby”.

37 years you say?  I know what you are thinking.  Wait, that doesn’t add up, “Eleanor Rigby” was released in 1966.  Learn to do maths you stupid Brutally Honest Reviews guy.  But in actuality, I am not at all wrong, it is just that the world has largely forgotten that McCartney released a studio version of “Eleanor Rigby” on the generally despised soundtrack to his generally despised 1984 movie Give My Regards to Broad Street.  Which album is the subject of our discussion today.

Given how hard I always am on Paul McCartney, you are probably expecting this to be a bloodbath.  But, believe it or not, I am actually writing today in defense of 1984’s Give My Regards to Broad Street (the album, not the movie.  The movie is utterly indefensible.).  Fans and critics alike disparage the album, and it has been conspicuously absent in McCartney’s Archive Collection re-releases, which leads me to think Paul himself would like to forget the whole episode. The fact that McCartney’s next album after that was Press to Play does help take a little heat off Broad Street, being generally regarded as the worst of the worst McCartney albums, but on the whole Broad Street is widely considered a huge misstep.  As a matter of fact, I think you’d be hard pressed to find a single other positive review of Give My Regards out there.  This may well be the only time you ever see anyone stick up for the album, and I’m actually a little befuddled that of all the billions of people on this planet who could do the sticking up, it’s me doing it.  But I can hardly help myself writing a glowing review of Give My Regards to Torpedoing What Was Left of McCartney’s Musical Relevancy in 1984.

Not that I am blind to the album’s flaws – it probably wasn’t a good idea to re-record some of the Beatles’s greatest songs.  Most of them were perfection to begin with, chances of improving them are slim to none, chances of looking like an idiot for trying are almost 100%.  And I will agree that is how it mostly played out on this album (with a couple of notable exceptions I am going to mention here in a minute).  By far and away the greatest offender is the ghastly rendering of “The Long and Winding Road” – McCartney has released some truly terrible live versions, but this studio remake outdoes them all.   From the moment that smooth-FM-ready-sax blows its first note in the intro, you are transported to the nearest dentist’s chair or elevator, as McCartney does his damnedest to lounge lizard the hell out of what was once an earnest, emotional song.  Love it or hate it, you have to admit in its original incarnation McCartney sang “The Long and Winding Road” like he meant it. But on this version it’s like he took Lennon’s “the sound you make is Muzak in my ears” taunt from “How Do You Sleep?” to heart, because that is exactly what McCartney did with “The Long and Winding Road” on Broad Street.  Muzak. But back to that vocal – notice how tossed off, how emotionally uncommitted, how un-invested it is.  Almost like the song doesn’t mean anything to him.  For being such a big baby about how he thinks Phil Spector ruined the song on Let It Be, what Paul did to it on Broad Street is 100 times worse, and in my estimation he needs to shut the hell up about the Spectorization on the original version after what he did to the song.  As a matter of fact, it may be the worst moment on any McCartney studio album ever – sure, he has had way stupider songs on his albums (“Tiny Bubble”, “Fuh You”, “Bip Bop”, geez, I could do this all day), but actually I think it is even worse when he takes a good song and stupidizes it.  Why am I even sticking up for an album with something this awful on it? Full point off the rubric score for the production on this song – I don’t care how good the production is on some of the other songs, I can’t justify any points for production on the album when something like this has been allowed on it.

“Yesterday”, “Good Day Sunshine”, and “Eleanor Rigby” all suffer from the same “I’m not feeling super into this song today but what the hell I’m Paul Freakin’ McCartney” vocal treatment.  I mean really, listen to the original version of “Yesterday” where he sounds maybe at least a little broken up about it, compared to the Broad Street version where he sings like he is showing off one of his greatest compositions in a failed attempt to shore up his lame movie and it doesn’t mean much more than that to him.  “I believe in yesterday” – but I don’t believe in this pathetic attempt to pimp out one of his greatest songs to try and generate interest in his movie.  The original “Good Day Sunshine” was bursting with sunny enthusiasm – this version sounds laid back, as though Paul wasn’t least bit excited about pulling out an old gem and trying to polish it up.  He doesn’t sound like he means it – its more “Eh, Whatever Sunshine, Who Cares?” than “Good Day Sunshine”.   Same with “Eleanor Rigby” – there was some real pathos in the “Ah, look at all the lonely people” sections of the original, Paul sings it far too casually this time around.  Actually, that is a great word to describe his vocals on these remakes:  casual.  Too damn casual for some of the greatest songs ever written.  Geez, Paul ,why the hell did you even drag them out of retirement if you couldn’t muster enough emotion to sing them like you felt anything about them?

Well, so far I haven’t done a very good job of sticking up for the album like I said I would.  But you know, I’ve gotta be honest, the album has a couple of issues.  Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention the pointless remake of “Ballroom Dancing” – for whatever reason Paul figured that what his movie really needed – in 1984 no less – was a big ballroom dancing scene (because you know, Paul’s gonna Paul, it’s what he does).  I mean, the remake of “Ballroom Dancing” sounds a lot looser than the original, the “tough” section in the middle is grittier, the horns have a lot more punch – so yeah, it’s actually a considerable improvement on a considerably unimpressive song, I will give it that.  Not so much for “So Bad” – the arrangement on this one is pretty bland compared to the Pipes of Peace version, the Broad Street version doesn’t have much going for it.  Kind of a weird choice to include it too, the original version had just been released as a single the year earlier and went nowhere on the charts.  I do love the melody, but the lyrics are so bland and clichéd that I have a tough time recommending the song, and the instrumentation on this version is just electric piano cheese whiz.

So yeah, there are some real down sides to Broad Street.  But I’m also going to argue that it has its merits, ones that have been largely overlooked by critics and fans alike.  I find myself in the really weird position of defending a Paul McCartney album every other critic in the world has trashed, when it is usually the other way around, but here we go…

I’m going to make my hottest hot take first.  There are two Beatles remakes on this album that are better than the originals.  There, I said it.  I know it’s blasphemy, I know I will lose what remaining credibility I might have in the eyes of some of you, but I said it, and I stand by it.  I know there is an immutable law decreed before the heavens and earth were conceived that no cover of a Beatles song ever improves on the original, but that law was already rendered null and void with John Denver’s take on “Mother Nature’s Son” (now hang with me, I know it sounds crazy.  But Denver took what was a pretty torporous, slow moving sloth of a song and gave it a much needed kick in the butt to help it achieve its full potential.  He took a boring-and-solemn-as-a-hymn-in-church song and gave it an infectious energy that is the sole example I can think of when anyone outside of the Beatles did a cover of a Beatles song that bested the original.  The Beatles almost never got an arrangement wrong, but they blew it with “Mother Nature’s Son”.  At least Paul did, John was probably in the next studio over making sound collages and Ringo was probably at home having his White Album hissy fit.)  

But where were we again?  Oh, yes, I was blowing my credibility with the contention that a couple of remakes on Broad Street are better than the originals.  And one of those is “Here, There, and Everywhere”.  Yes, I miss the harmonies of the original, but honestly I think Paul’s acoustic treatment suits the song better than the electric guitars on the original.  I don’t mind the horns – after all, this is a George Martin arrangement, so they are tasteful and stately and properly placed in the background where they belong, they don’t take the song over or anything.  And I don’t know what it is, but after having just sung “Yesterday” like he’d had a few bottles of Scotch and didn’t give a damn about anything in the whole world, somehow he manages to muster some actual feeling in his vocal for “Here, There, and Everywhere”. Just listen to when he sings “And if she’s beside me I know I need never care…”.  Maybe it was because he was in a point in his life when getting his heart broken was a distant memory, while Linda really was his “Here, There, and Everywhere” at the time, maybe that’s why he sings that song like he really means it, as opposed to a fairly perfunctory “Yesterday”.

But in my estimation the really successful remake is “For No One”.  Hate me for saying it, but it blows the original out of the water.  The song always had an amazing melody, and some of McCartney’s best lyrics in my estimation.  But the original was pretty stilted – listen to the stiff way McCartney plays the piano, there isn’t a lot of feeling there.  The acoustic guitar and strings are far more emotive in the Broad Street remake than the piano in the original.  And there’s that cool violin part in the last chorus.  Even that marvelous French horn solo is better in the remake.  Yes, for the most part it was a fool’s errand trying to remake Beatles songs for this album, but I regard “For No One” as a real triumph, it unlocked the potential in the song in a way the original couldn’t.  The 1984 version is far more moving and resonant.  Were this version the sole raison d’être for the album, it would be enough for me.

Those aren’t the only songs that were improved in the remaking, though, just the most controversial ones.  No one in particular cares enough about “Silly Love Songs’ to get upset at me saying this, but I really do think the Broad Street version kicks the crap out of the original.  Much was made of McCartney’s cool bass line in the original, but the remake kicks the bass part up a notch (yes, I know that isn’t Paul playing it, but sorry, it just sounds better).  Having less of a ‘70s ambience is a better fit for the song too.  “Wanderlust” is also a major improvement.  Not sure what Paul was going for in his full-throated vocal in the original, but a more subtle touch on the vocals makes a big difference, this isn’t a screamer after all.  Kind of miss the Denny Laine guitar from the original a bit, but I still think this is the better version, even with that goofy “Here There and Everywhere” reprise in the last few seconds.  And I’ve always loved the song anyway – the “Oh where did I go wrong my love…what better time to find a brand new day…” section has some pretty good lines, and all in all this is a more majestic and graceful version than the original from Tug of War.

So there you go, four remakes that are improvements on the original.  Not too bad.  And you know what else isn’t too bad?  The three originals McCartney wrote for the soundtrack, because I guess three new songs was all he had in him in 1984 or something.  The best of the bunch is easily the single, “No More Lonely Nights”, a bona fide hit and McCartney’s last hurrah as a popmeister extraordinaire, and his highest chart placement until “FourFiveSeconds” in 2015.  Actually, it was his last trip to the Top 10 until then excluding “Spies Like Us” the next year, a song I would just as soon forget about and you probably would too.  But personally I think “No More Lonely Nights” is something pretty special.  It’s got a fantastic Paul McCartney melody, emotive vocals from a guy who was far too lackluster in singing many of the other songs on the album, exceptional production, and some incredible guitar work from none other than David Gilmour.  Gilmour’s work was similarly fantastic on “We Got Married” from Flowers in the Dirt, it’s a shame McCartney didn’t ask him to play on his songs more often, Gilmour always brought it when he did.  I don’t think “No More Lonely Nights” gets the credit it deserves – yeah, lyrically it’s a bit of a jumble, with its “I will do what I feel to be right” not really having much to do with its “no more lonely nights”, but actually probably less of a jumble than your typical McCartney lyrics, so there’s that.  But it’s the last time McCartney really ever put out a well-crafted single – just listen to the production, and tell me any single he has released in the 37 years since had that much thought and effort put into the production.  Maybe “Beautiful Night”, but other than that a well-crafted McCartney single has been a rarity (sure, a lot of production work went into the songs on Press to Play, but do I even need to explain why those don’t count?).  Anyway, this is a true McCartney classic, and since he has never done it live it’s hard not to feel like it has been unfairly overlooked. But it’s a great one.

The other two original songs on the album weren’t on nearly the same level, but they were actually pretty good.  “Not Such a Bad Boy” is kind of fun, not sure what is up with that lame Dave Edmunds guitar solo, I refuse to believe someone who was in the studio at the time – maybe the tape operator or somebody, anybody really – couldn’t have come up with a better one, but the song itself is catchy enough.  “No Values” is pretty good too, I think the “I like your wife’s smile…in the waters of life…” middle section is actually pretty cool.  If you cut that part out and set it by itself, you’ve got the beginnings of a true classic, as it is it functions as a great diversion in the middle of a just pretty goodish song.

Let’s see, what have I missed?  “Eleanor’s Dream” – yeah, its kind of McCartney being all “hey look at me I could have been a classical composer” pretentious, but I actually like it, McCartney’s melodic gifts lend themselves well to a sort of pseudo-classical idiom, and the song is too short to get boring like some of his other forays into the genre.  There’s a song “Goodnight Princess” on some versions of the album, but you are actually kind of lucky if you have a version of the album that doesn’t.  There’s the odd bits of dialogue from the movie strewn about the album, but those are even less interesting than they might have sounded once you’ve actually had to sit through the movie.  And don’t ever do that. Ever. Under any circumstances.  It is every bit as dreadful as anyone ever said it is.  I get it, after 20 years of everyone telling him how amazing he is Paul thought everything he touched turned to gold and of course he could write a movie if he wanted to.  But he’s no screenwriter, and stuff that must have seemed pretty cool in his head didn’t translate well on screen.  He packs an impossible number of projects into a “typical day in the life of a rock star”, some of the movie is frankly weird (not quirky and fun, just weird), and the threadbare plot revolves around a hostile corporate takeover if he doesn’t find the tapes of his next release, as though a) albums’ release dates don’t get pushed back all the freakin’ time in the biz and b) at that point in his career anyone on the planet would have cared if a Paul McCartney album came out a few months late (or for a lot of people, at all, for that matter).  Possibly the worst rock movie ever made this side of Duran Duran’s Arena or Mariah Carey’s Watch Me Destroy My Film Career with This Terrible Movie.

But along with some real dreck, there are some things to love about the Broad Street album.  Yeah, it’s a mixed bag, but let’s be honest, what McCartney album hasn’t been? (I know some of you are saying Band on the Run  – sorry, I disagree.  But I will give you Ram). 

So in the end, I stand alone against the crowd and say yes, despite its flaws Give My Regards to Broad Street isn’t a bad album, and there are a couple of things on it you really need to hear if you have any regard for Mr. McCartney’s work.  Far from a perfect album, but a justifiable one, and in parts a highly enjoyable one. This album frustrates me in the same ways all of Sir Paul’s work does – so much brilliance scattered amongst so many missed opportunities and so much lousy judgment. But unlike a lot of McCartney’s recent-er albums (recent being the last two decades), there are enough highs on Broad Street that I am willing to overlook the lows.  And in the interests of full disclosure, after I got 1967-1970 as a teenager and it completely blew my mind, the next Beatles-related album I got was this one, and nostalgia is a powerful drug indeed my friends.  The first version of “Good Day Sunshine” I heard was this one, and so I had no idea how much better the original was.  If I am going to be honest, much like that stupid master tape box on the album cover, the Give My Regards to Broad Street album will always have a bit of a glow for me just because I encountered it so early in my discovery of the genius of The Beatles and Paul McCartney.  But even so, I think you can set that aside and it’s still a rewarding – if decidedly uneven – listening experience.