Do We Still Need Him?

By Josh Tyrangiel

If you want to scare a music critic, whisper these four words in his ear: new Paul McCartney album. In the 35 years since the Beatles broke up, McCartney has made 19 albums. Some have been good. Many have not. McCartney admits that he writes and records with varying degrees of seriousness, and the throngs who will pay any price to watch Sir Paul beep-beep his way through Drive My Car (he was the top-grossing live act in the world as recently as 2002) wouldn't think of holding that against him--nor would they think of declaring any of his recent work his best.

Luckily, the 20th Paul McCartney album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, out Sept. 13, makes matters easy. It took two years to record, in part because McCartney plays almost all the instruments on it (including drums, harmonium and flugelhorn) and in part because he actually cared. Chaos and Creation is adventurous, melodic and emotionally complicated--the first album in his post-Fab Four catalog that really matters. If it is not as dark or as brilliant as Time Out of Mind, Bob Dylan's "Hey, I can still do this!" album, it belongs on a shelf nearby. "Since the Beatles, I've approached making records every which way," says McCartney. "A lot of times it's a real casual thing. Do a few tracks a day, have a bit of fun. Normally I kind of say, 'I'd like to make a good album.' This time there was motivation, determination. 'I'm going to make a good album. I'm going to, and that's that.'"

The urgency behind McCartney's renewed ambition is not hard to figure out. Sitting in the Manhattan town house that serves as his office, he praises an "old black drummer," then stops mid-sentence. "I say 'old black drummer,' and it's terrifying, actually. He's about my age [James Gadson, 64]. Excuse me. I'm still coming to grips with the fact that I'm an old white cat." McCartney is 63. With his hair dyed forest-floor brown, he looks younger, "but numbers don't lie, man." He has already buried a wife of almost 30 years and a songwriting partner, and George Harrison's 2001 death from cancer shook him again. "George and I met as kids on the school bus," says McCartney. "It's surprising when one of your friends who you've known that long just ups and goes--'No, no, we hadn't said it all yet. I need more time.' It's a very weird feeling, and it spills over to all aspects of your life. You want to get moving, to say things that haven't been said."

When McCartney sorted through his emotions and decided that he wanted to say some of those unsaid things on a new record, he did what he always does--call George Martin. Martin has retired from producing, but he remains the artistic Svengali in McCartney's life, and in a shrewd bit of psychology, he suggested Nigel Godrich as a possible producer. Godrich is almost 30 years younger than McCartney, and his work with Radiohead (OK Computer) and Beck (Sea Change) has earned him a reputation as the most innovative producer in rock. He is also known for expressing his opinions with the sweetness of barbed wire. "I met with him and said I'd do it," recalls Godrich. "But I said I didn't love a lot of his solo stuff and that we'd have to do this my way. I was absolutely s_______ myself as I said this--it is Paul McCartney. But I think the penny dropped there and then to him that he wanted to get out of his comfort zone." Says McCartney: "It appealed to me. When you've done as much as I've done, it's nice that people are impressed, but it can work against you. You want real hard opinions."

Almost immediately, Godrich started dispensing them. McCartney brought in a sprawling series of demos he had recorded at home; Godrich listened and announced that he would work only on the songs that interested him. "No '50s rock-'n'-roll pastiche numbers," says Godrich. "He's a jolly old soul, but I thought maybe just for once we could steer him away from those things." After a week of recording, Godrich told McCartney that his regular band had to sit this one out. "In any tense moment, he'd look over at those guys and say, 'What do you think?' It was too easy for him to deflect getting put on the spot. I could only cope with it by isolating him."

McCartney understood that Godrich was trying to play the role of iconoclast to the complacent icon, and he was willing to go along with it, to a point. "There were a few times I thought, I could sack this guy," says McCartney. "I've produced more records than he's even looked at in a shop." Instead he convinced Godrich that he didn't need to be confrontational to get his point across, and gradually a positive form of creative tension emerged. "When I write, there are times--not always--when I hear John [Lennon] in my head," says McCartney. "I'll think, O.K., what would we have done here?, and I can hear him gripe or approve. And one of the good things about working with Nigel is that he became more of a co-worker rather than a grownup producer. His opinion mattered to me in a way that made me want to impress him."

Chaos and Creation is full of the melodies that have always been McCartney's trademark--the single, Fine Line, grabs you by the ear in four bars--but for the most part, they've been stripped of cuteness and nostalgia. What strikes you first is that the sad songs are really sad. At the Mercy gets past the sentimental and into the startling fact that genuine love can leave you powerless and insecure. Riding to Vanity Fair, a trippy ballad about rejected friendship, is the most misanthropic thing the composer of Ob-La-Di has ever recorded. He insists it's not directed at anyone in particular, and the lyrics--"You're not aware/ Of what you put me through/ But now the feeling's gone"--don't offer up any autobiographical clues, but it seethes with bitterness. The trick to these very tough tunes is that they're essentially untethered from anything like a formal chorus. They don't try to resolve themselves; they just drift into provocative emotional territory and linger for a while. Chaos and Creation has its share of bright moments too--the arena-ready Follow Me, the joyously goofy Promise to You Girl--but the album feels like a catalog of all McCartney's emotions, not just the easy ones.

McCartney knows that he didn't rise to his place in the pop firmament by pushing the envelope. "I'm not a rebel," he says. "In actual fact, I'm pretty straight, and I don't mind at all that people see me that way." Still, he seems to have turned a musical corner. When he thinks about the U.S. tour he will launch Sept. 16 in Miami, he says, "It'll be great not to be out there with a crap album, singing songs I don't care much about." And if audiences still mostly pine for another roundelay of Hey Jude? "They'll get that too, but you have to move forward as well as go back. As they say, the show must go on!" And now there's a compelling reason to tune in.