Maybe I'm Amazed at Paul McCartney's Latest CD

So many 40th anniversaries are clustered for celebration this year. June 1st, marked 40 years since Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles was released. Mid-June will mark the 40th of the Monterey Pop Festival. The "Summer of Love" also happened 40 years ago. 2007 is proving to be a baby boomer's playground of reminiscence. Baby boom nostalgia fills the air. Paul McCartney's newest CD not only perfumes the air with reminisence, he lives up to his legend.

For the first time in that many years, I find myself listening to a new release from Beatle Paul with emotional reverence. For those of you not around when The Beatles roamed the earth, touring, making records and sprinkling indefinable magic, it is no exageration that everything they did left landmarks in our brainst. Paul McCartney's latest CD, out on the newly formed Starbuck's label, elicits those long-lost sensation of something special in the air. Much in the manner that I remember the first time I heard Yesterday, or Hey Jude or Strawberry Fields Forever, I think I will remember this CD. Memory Almost Full is impressive because Paul McCartney is about to turn 65. In a world sunken in apathy toward soldiers dying in Iraq, ridiculous gas prices, mass murder in Darfur not much has motivational impact on our society. Heck. Few people bother to buy music anymore. Not so much that I want to make Paul richer, but I've always found it symbolic when any Beatle-related material sells. This one will sell. This CD will not push thousands to protest or carry signs as in days of old, but, it is nice to find this small island of genius thrving in an oceon of mediocrity. It is important that Paul McCartney who was once a reservoir of joy and hope can still deliver. All who were young now find themselves suddenly aged can rekindle the old sensibility in Paul's latest CD. In talking about himself as he clearly does, he addresses what we were. What we became. What we didn't become. What was lost. What was won and what matters and really doesn't matter. Furthermore it gives furthere dimension to Abbey Road's ending philosophy: "in the end the love you take is equal to the love you make, this CD revisits from the point of view of a senior.

I thought I was desensitized to reacting to art. This CD in fact joyfully transcends the mediocrity which the music buiiness forces us to swallow. True, Paul McCartney is part of a giant machine, but I'm filled with me realization that I have not witnessed much creativity in several decades from even Paul McCartney himself.

Much critical acclaim was rained on his "Chaos and Creation..." CD,which I disagreed with (in spite of being the die-heard fan I am. I began to question his talent and wondered if it was really all John Lennon's hand. . With the exception of Bob Dylan, it appears seasoned artists lose their ability to produce at the levels that took them to the top in their prime. Because I 'have been mostly disappointed with almost everything Paul has done solo (except McCartney, Tug of War and Band on the Run), I was going to skip listening to his latest release. Thankfully, I accidentally heard one track entitled: "The end of the End." I was moved to tears.

Tears are nothing new to Beatle fans. We lived through their break up. Through John's assassination. Through George's death. Recently there was a little girl in pigtails crying over Sanjaya on American Idol. She reminded me of me when I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. It is difficult to say what produces such emotion. 40 years of memories later, I have not forgot, the effect of the Beatles. Their impact was as personal as it was entertaining. When Paul sings these songs on Memory Almost Full the way he sings them, one feels that he is remembering all that he went through as a Beatle. The computer analogy of the title also reminds us that our memory is almost to the rim as well. Paul's doing this leaves an echo of what those of us who are a part of the generation have gone through as well as the inevitability and acceptance of death.

We've learned many harsh lessons since the idealism of the sixties fizzled the way it did. The journey has been superstar to music freak, it's been friend to friend as well. Paul McCartney, of course, does not fully realize this perspective or his impact on personal lives. The music on this CD is reflective of how aging boomers feel. He once again speaks for us in a way he hasn't in quite a while. He speaks as a part of the giant wave our generation splashed.

The Beatles became a part of our lives. Likewise we became part of their lives by making them so legendary. In hearing Paul so reflective and his voice so versatile and touching, as it does on this CD, one realizes that he went through all the craziness right along with us. Most importantly he has experienced everything after the sixties right along with us as well. There is much pain on this album, even though he tries to eradicate it on the first cut "Dance Tonight." He may have been the famous one, but he has suffered right along with us. This CD captures the pain of loss the pain of aging the pain of terrorism and ineveitable death..

The CD, for me, also captures The Beatles in what might have been. The songs scoop the old creativity in their net . At times you imagine if John and George still alive, harmonizing those back vocals. I think he did that on purpose, because if we miss them, can you imagine how he feels?

On a light note, perhaps Paul has managed to make this great CD because he is once again a bachelor. Nothing more appealing than Paul McCartney unmarried. It's been a long time since Paul McCartney has lived up to his legend. He accomplishes this with Memory Almost Full.