M is for McCartney, The Album

Ok, here’s the bottom line: McCartney, the 1970 solo album by Paul McCartney, with a few vocal contributions from Linda McCartney, is the album that broke up the Beatles. Period. No, it wasn’t Yoko, at least not entirely. While Paul McCartney may not be solely responsible for the break-up of the Beatles, he is the one who finally pulled the plug by breeching contract. There are a few interviews in which John Lennon admitted that Paul just did the inevitable. Each of the four were going their own ways artistically and otherwise at that point.

If you want to get into the Beatles solo work, McCartney, George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass (1970), and Imagine by John Lennon (1971) is where you’d want to start. In particular McCartney and All Things Must Pass contain a lot of material left over from the Beatles. A few songs on McCartney were snippets of songs created during the Beatles years that Paul decided to flesh out himself.

McCartney in particular fascinates me for two reasons: 1.) Paul McCartney played every sing instrument on the album himself. His wife Linda contributed only a few vocals on the album. 2.) If you have yet to discover Wings, McCartney helps bridge the gap between the two bands. In essence, Wings became Paul and Linda in the end, with an ever-changing line-up. This is where it began.

There is a song or two in particular I’ll be discussing further in a future non-Beatles-related post. The album is that important. People ate it up too. It went double platinum. You can listen to the entire thing below. Oh, and by the way, Linda McCartney took the album cover photo – along with the album liner photo of Paul and their daughter Mary.