It was just another Sunday night in the studio. March 31, 1974 to be exact, right in the middle of John Lennon's infamous "lost weekend." Kicked out of the house by Yoko, he was producing Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats and doing a lot of coke. "You want a toot, Steve? A snort? It's going around," he asks Stevie Wonder (!) at the beginning of these sloppy, drug-addled sessions, notable not only because they capture Lennon at his lowest point but because Paul McCartney was sitting in.
Yoink!
Christina is amazng, she got us tickets to go see Paul McCartney play! Woo!
We went on Friday night to Madison Square Garden right after I got out of work. It was really good stuff. He played 80% Beatles songs, which is what people were really there to see. Christina was even so amazing as to get me seats in the center, instead of closer, but off to the side. It was a most excellent concert. His No More Landmines shirt was awesome. I was really surpised given his age that he could hit all of those high notes required for the four part hormonies. I wish there were live brass and string sections there, but I understand the chances of that ever happening again are slim to none. Overall, a really awesome concert.
Paul McCartney stopped between songs every now and then and talked for a bit. Sadly, people in the audience thought that the talking wasn't warranted so they shouted at him their personal requests. To those people I say: shut the fuck up and let the man talk. Once of the things he talked about was that while he was at parties and was much younger he used to play around with a few bars that he thought sounded neat. He played the bars once and said that it turns out there is a lot more to that song, it's by a guy named Bach and it's really reather difficult. He then da-da'ed a bit and laughed. He said he liked it so much, he wrote a song around the few bars, Bluebird. Just goes to show that creative works aren't created in a vacuum.
Another one of Paul McCartney's stories was about NASA's return to flight and how on return, the crew was holding out for clear weather to land. Supplies were low and morale lower still, but on the day when the weather was clear to return, ground controll woke the astronauts up with Good Day Sunshine. The other time I remember NASA playing British rock was when Columbia burnt up. They played The Rolling Stones' Wild Horses, as did several radio stations.
