Ram

Paul McCartney's a very emotionally reserved man, happier with sentimentality in his work than true emotion. Frequently his real feelings are merely hinted in seemingly innocuous nonsense e.g. on Abbey Road, "You never give me your money, you only give me your funny paper..." is about the beginnings of The Beatles legal wranglings with each other.  

So, McCartney must have been in considerable crisis to have telegraphed his feelings so directly as he did on the cover of 1971's Ram, his second solo album. You see, on the cover he's holding a ram by the horns, which is, I presume McCartney-speak for "...I'm going to take the bull by the horns". Turn the cover over and there's a photo of two f***ing beetles. Enough said.

And McCartney's response to Lennon's epoch-destroying John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band with it's war cry of "...I don't believe in Beatles...I just believe in me..." on God, was telegraphed in the first seconds of Ram's opening track, Too Many People:

  "...Piece of cake..."

says our Paul, who will carry on making music regardless of angry John...

     "...Too many people going underground
      Too many reaching for a piece of cake
      Too many people pulled and pushed around
      Too many waiting for their lucky break

      That was your first mistake
      You took your lucky break and broke it in two
      Now what can be done for you
      You broke it in two..."

                                  Too Many People

Miaow, plate of milk for Mr. McCartney, please! And yet, the attack aside, Too Many People is so representative of Ram that it's not funny. Sonically, it's dramatic and gorgeous at the same time. Lyrically, it's frustrating in its seemingly intentional lack of focus...and then, two thirds of the way through the song, it degenerates into a silly jam.

3 Legs, the next track is, frustratingly, just a dreadful abomination...but it's followed by...Ram On, simple, repetitive, ukelele-based...with a gorgeous melody and a whistled outro. Who else but McCartney would have the audacity...and could make it work?

Then comes Dear Boy, again attacking Lennon...and once more, outrageously, effortlessly memorable with superbly arranged backing vocals. Lennon must have gone deep red when he heard it, because it attacks with such seeming innocence. 

The sonic delights continue with the Number 1 hit single, Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, a Post-Pepper smorgasbord with words that could have been written by a 7 year old...and the album just keeps going on in that direction.

"...The butter wouldn't melt, so I put it in the pie...", indeed. 

At the time, Ram frustrated me because it was overflowing with great ideas that seemed to be going nowhere. Little did I realise that McCartney would spend most of his career doing that very thing again and again.

So what about the rest of the Ram?

Well, the best of the rest is the bizarre rave-up, Monkberry Moon Delight which could be about anything...but methinks it's another letter to Lennon, this time about Apple business problems and Northern Songs, the Lennon-McCartney back-catalogue:

Here's my "Paul Is Dead"-type of silly conjecture:

• "...So I sat in my attic..." Paul's farm in Scotland (the top of the UK)
• "...A piano up my nose..." upset about music
• "...And the wind played a dreadful concerto..." the news from Apple wasn't good
• "...The horrible sound of tomato..." ditto
• "...Catch up Super-Fury, don't get left behind..." addressing Lennon's notorious anger  and that he needs to pay more attention to business problems
• "...Would I leave my pajamas to Billy Budapest?..." which translates as the possibility of losing "everything" to media impresario Sir Lew Grade (a jew, as in Hungarian jew, hence Budapest. Get it?) who had bought the rights to Northern Songs, the Lennon-McCartney back catalogue from Dick James Music 

blah-blah-blah.

The other standout track is the sumptuous closer, The Back Seat Of My Car, which would have to be the best tune that Brian Wilson never wrote. Mind you, it has sone of the most pathetic, lazy lyrics you could imagine but the sound is absolutely glorious! 

I drag Ram out every now and then if I need some pleasant noise... and it is, sometimes, very pleasant indeed. As is my frequent gripe on the late Beatle albums, I just wish McCartney had dumped one of the filler tracks and included the global hit single Another Day, the first track from the sessions, which was released early in 1971. That's a beauty, as is the b-side, Oh Woman Oh Why. Damn!

*McCartney was to make a 1973 TV-special for Sir Lew as some kind of a sweetener but Grade eventually sold Northern Songs to Michael Jackson in the early 1980s when McCartney & Ono wouldn't front with enough of the green stuff.

For more info, see:

• wikipedia Ram