Posted 4/29/2013 by cal
I used to concoct dream setlists for my favorite bands all the time; not sure why I stopped, but with Paul McCartney--i.e., the greatest artist in pop music history so far--playing Miller Park in July, I couldn’t help geeking out. This playlist does not necessarily support the outrageous claim I just made, but it does demonstrate that as of his latest album of original material, 2008’s
Electric Arguments, he was
still writing amazing songs completely different from anything he’d done before. I would’ve made a very different playlist if I
really wanted to make a case for his total dominance throughout the past five decades, but you don’t get a full sense of the character without his cringe-inducing cheese. (Let’s assume that the author of “Silly Love Songs” is at peace with his sentimental tendencies.) McCartney has written quite a few awful songs, and stubbornly recorded them and played them live over and over, but nobody else ever hit 70 years of age still writing and performing pop music at such a high level. So, here’s what a live show made up of all my favorite McCartney songs would look like. Except I excluded “Oh! Darling” because God knows he couldn’t possibly sing that nowadays. Absurd, yes, and perhaps a BIT lengthy, but only four more songs than at
Wrigley two years ago...
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