Ram’s Resurgence

Absolutely spot on. This really was a crime, a mob attack, perpetrated on McCartney’s reputation by a bunch of music critics (Christgau, Jann Wenner) who were in league with Lennon and thought they were somehow doing his dirty work by tearing apart McCartney’s work.

It’s bizarre that it took 40 years for people to finally come around to this album. Just last week, in a review of Eddie Vedder’s new album, Pitchfork mentioned McCartney’s Ram and called it a “proto-indie masterpiece.”

The kind of intense criticism McCartney received has got to have affected him as an artist. I wonder how different his career might have been, in what other directions he might have gone, had he received any critical plaudits for this record. At some level, it’s got to shake your confidence even if you’re the type (like McCartney) who likes to pretend it didn’t and you just soldiered on.

Anyway, better late than never. I really really hope that when he reissues Ram he does it up BIG, with generous bonus material, with both the mono and stereo versions, and maybe even throw in the Percy Thrillington version.

Lou.

Christgau criticizing someone for being pretentious–ha ha ha ha ha.

I’ve always been a McCartney nay-sayer because I’m a bit pretentious. As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to like McCartney & Ram. Thx for the entertaining Ram plug!

Lou, you bring up a really interesting point: once he’d been slammed by critics, over and over, Paul almost certainly felt more and more uncertain about what to do. McCartney’s creative mechanism is other-focused–“what will they like?” Not to say that he doesn’t express himself, he certainly does, but audience approval is essential for him, and when he felt the lack of that–especially after getting more approval than any other artist in the history of pop music–the confusion, depression, and uncertainty he felt must’ve been considerable.

Nancy: oh yeah, McCartney was slinging mud, too, but I think we can agree that he wasn’t in Lennon’s league when it came to vituperation–what did he call it? Something like “going up against the rapier champion of Chatham”? I’m misremembering it.

There’s an 1984 Playboy interview where McCartney talks about all this stuff: http://www.music.indiana.edu/som/courses/rock/paulint.html

IMO: The difference between the comments Paul made and the ones John (and George, to some degree) made is that Paul never once demeaned John’s music or criticized his songwriting abilities.

Paul talked about John “preaching practices” (which was true) and about how John took his lucky break and broke it in two and Paul said he enjoyed being with his family more than his old bandmates. But Paul never once stooped to the depths that John did — publicly attacking Paul’s songs, directly and publicly dismissing Paul’s music and his songwriting, suggesting publicly that he’d been the serious songwriter and Paul the lightweight. And John continued to demean Paul as a songwriter even as recently as 1980 saying The Long and Winding Road had been Paul’s last gasp, which is garbage and deeply ironic seeing as John was the one with a serious case of writer’s block for five years.

If John had merely called Paul controlling and bossy, or said he was impossible to work with because he had to have his own way all the time, that would have been fair game. And I’m sure John said all those things at one point or another! But it was when John sought to harm Paul’s reputation as a Beatle and as a songwriter — and influenced music critics to go on the attack — that I find pretty inexcusable.

I’m blathering on here. But my point is that John did a lot of damage to Paul in public in ways that Paul never did to John (for whatever reason). Just think of the nasty comments Paul could have made about John’s failed album, Sometime in New York. But Paul didn’t — thank goodness. And with hindsight, while John’s comments about Paul continue to hurt Paul’s reputation to this day, those comments have also hurt John’s reputation. The lyrics to How Do You Sleep is a jerk move, by any definition. So John did some damage to his own rep in the process.

I think it was in Peter Doggett’s book that I read him or someone say that you don’t keep “taking the piss” out of someone (like John did repeatedly to Paul) unless you view them as some sort of authority figure. But I’m betting that knowing that wouldn’t make Paul feel better, given how much he seemed to need/crave approval (as Michael pointed out). And yes, I think it did some serious and lasting damage to Paul as a musician and song writer — although I think in the last 10-12 years he’s got his mojo back. I’m in the camp that thinks Chaos and Creation (2005) was a great album, as was 2008’s Electric Arguments.

Sorry for babbling. Ram on!

Lou

I remember hearing John say in an interview — on David Frost, perhaps? — that he later came to realize that his character-assassination songs (“How Do You Sleep?”, “Steel and Glass”) were really all about himself. Sort of a convenient revelation, I guess, but it also sounds true to me. I can see some of the venom in “How Do You Sleep?” coming from a place of personal insecurity — particularly the anxiety about one’s best creative work being in the past. (Also, “Jump when your mama tells you anything” — who is THAT about?)

Love this post, by the way. I’m the Beatlefan in our relationship, but it was my husband (far more of a pop snob) who decided we ought to own Ram, and brought it along on a recent car trip. He loves it. Score one for Paul! But I can imagine critics’ feeling betrayed by all the nonsense lyrics and “bip bop” vocalizing where they’d come to expect real substance. They must have been annoyed that Paul was not taking himself and his obligation to be Important as seriously as he they felt he ought to.

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Nice threads here!
Once way back when, in the early to mid ’70s I fell victim to the crap that the Lennon-Ono camp was dishing out, as mentioned above. Years later, with the help of some acquired wisdom I managed to develop a more pragmatic take on John and Paul.
Interestingly, Paul’s solo stuff (well, ok SOME of it) has aged a lot better than most of John’s. I realized what each of them brought to the Beatles table, and how crucial their collaboration was to maintaining the high quality output that The Beatles will always be known for. Without those checks and balances you can see how separately, John and Paul fell victim to their own foibles. In a number of cases there were great kernels at the core of a number of John’s songs – but buried by lack of compositional editing, dirge-like tempos, mediocre arrangements and performances. Many of Paul’s songs had great hooks, were arranged and performed impeccably, were suitably economical -but frequently they were missing that kernel. Neither of them were there to coax ideas or performances out of each other. Even after John and Paul stopped writing together their influence upon each other was strong.
Somehow I always manage to separate The Beatles from John and Paul. The Beatles’ corpse twitched on for one or two solo albums, but after that, I’ve always felt that John and Paul – and George’s output became mediocre. None of them alone were the Beatles, despite many of us wanting (and expecting) them to be.

…..Maybe no one of the people who comment play music…i’m sure!

Great post! I’ve long been a fan of not only “Ram,” but also “McCartney,” and even — I say shamelessly — “Wild Life.” McCartney’s artistic voice in these early solo years were of unrestrained playfulness and creativity. On “Ram,” the “we believe that we can’t be wrong” chanting at the end of “Back Seat of My Car” is said to have been a stab and John and Yoko’s proselytizing, but it functions as a celebration of the youthful creative risk-taking that makes McCartney’s early solo albums so interesting and endearing.

There was one very interesting thread on a music forum which dealt with the Ram album and someone described how even the Monkberry Moon Delight’s lyrics might be personal.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=239010&highlight=mccartney+ram&page=33

J.R., we are clearly not going to agree about the musical and lyrical quality of “Ram.” That’s personal taste.

I do think you’re giving George Martin too much credit. He was the perfect producer for the Beatles, and his work with them is flawless, in my opinion. But that perfection didn’t carry over into his work with others, including his work with McCartney. “Tug of War,” which Martin produced, is not as good as “Ram.” (As for Martin’s work beyond the Beatles, consider that he produced the soundtrack of the Bee Gees/Peter Framptom fiasco “Sgt. Pepper’s” film.)

I also concur with Michael’s point that comparing anyone (including solo Beatles) to the Beatles at full flood is folly. The solo work is divisive because each Beatle went off in his own direction and the work shows the strength and weaknesses of their individual personalities much more clearly.

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Sorry about the deleted comments — having trouble posting from my phone.

Anyway, J.R., I disagree with “Rolling Stone” about “Tug of War.” Case in point: “Ebony and Ivory.” Strongly agree with the anti-racist sentiment, big fan of Stevie Wonder, loathe this song.

We’ll just have to agree to differ.

Late to the party but… Ram seems to have gone from being shredded more than what was appropriate, to being vastly overrated. It has a few good songs on it. Overall it kind of leaves me cold. I don’t know why. It sounds snidey in tone if not in actual fact, even though the most obvious John slam, Too Many People, is wonderful IMO. He should have been more obvious on the rest of the tracks (“I don’t get the gist of your letter” on Monkberry was a start). There are snatches of interesting music, while Linda’s singing… well, let’s just say I’m glad it improved with time. It certainly couldn’t get worse than what’s on display on this particular album. Weirdo John letting Yoko wail away on his albums is to be expected, but Perfectionist Paul? Some have said they used their wives as weapons in their fued, but it was the listeners who felt the brunt. Ram was described in a discography book I read of the Beatles and post-Beatles, written sometime in 1979, as being like a hollow chocolate egg. Sounds about right. Any Paul fan who says it’s better than Band on the Run are just saying that to sound cool, methinks. But yeah, perspective. Many years and forgettable albums later, and Ram doesn’t sound so bad to critics after all. P.S. I hope Anonymous has calmed down by now as the anger is palpable. He/she should know that Paul was the first to pick a fight with John on record (for all posterity), rather than in an interview like John, which he told Wenner not to publish in book form for all posterity (he did anyway, and lost John as a friend). P.S.S. John deserved to be the object of grievance in Dear Boy more than Linda’s ex-husband did. What did the poor guy do to deserve that? Was he mean to Linda? He never saw that love was there? I call BS. He should thank him for not knowing what he had found and divorcing Linda. And letting Paul adopt his daughter, for crying out loud. Nah, it’s probably about John, in coded language like the rest of Ram. They said that John was paranoid about the FBI too, until it was revealed that they did keep a file on him and tap his phones. Sorry for RAMbling, but why leave Ringo out of this conspiracy against Paul? His opinion of Ram was worse than the critics, who put their integrity on the line to say something was lousy when it wasn’t, just because Paul sued the Beatles: “I don’t think there’s one tune on the last one Ram… I just feel he’s wasted his time, it’s just the way I feel… he seems to be going strange.” Did Ringo have a change of heart too?

Careful about dissing anything from my favorite wings album. You can excuse my salamander, a wiggly fish that slips away, lyric in a song on a late punk sounding wings album by NOT comparing it to a Victorian style concept rock song from over a decade earlier. It’s the same way you can NOT compare John oh, yoko lyrics or most ANYTHING he wrote on STINYC album, whatever gets you through the night to the best lyrics he wrote in rubber soul or even I’ll cry instead. You can nit compare a fifties rock n roll or jazz lyric to a late sixties lyric, different decades and styles. Those are different decades, different styles and the lyricists has different goals.

There were different styles to those decades. God save me from “concept music” Eleanor rigby pretentious stuff and “heavy lyrics” in 79 when salamder lyric written….on egg album a GREAT get down to basics late seventies punk phase is the year punk began to hit America at CBGB club in NYC. There were a few seventies prog rock groups left, but MOST folks were very tired of pretentious lyrics in 79. You have to TRUST me on that, as 79 was fading disco, black r n b, British punk and emerging new wave and mellow AM music. Folks were plain burnt out on that heavy sixties lyrics crap and early seventies had Elton, ELO and ELP and Bowie and cooper with their glitter performance act with their laborious concept albums. Mid seventies became disco to dance off the tension partly. Then came punk as folks so tired of disco had a big bonfire of disco records at end of seventies cuz whole stations even in my area of tge south went solid disco. Mercifully, new style of new wave and mtv came in.

Thank GOD, one of The Beatles like Macca did something punk like egg and wrote punk style lyrics like salamander……you must have missed god save the Queen, she ain’t no human being, the Sex Pistols. Thank GOD macca also got those black artists on SEGREGATED mtv by his duets and did black r n b style. How could we go on a lot about Beatles being so experimental and varied otherwise, standing for causes yet cringe at this? How do we sleep, to paraphrase John? .Thank GOD macca did syth McCartney II that later influenced house music and more recently gozilla anf others. Old dude STILL in last twenty years did the great fireman, electric argument, reef and earlier great sway New Age music.

As someone from Birmingham, AL,in the sixties who remembers Wallace and the church bombing that killed young girls, I’m very proud of ebony and ivory and you might be surprised to see how the public loves it and sees it as a solution song to world race relations today, like give peace a chance. Ironically, I just watched ebony and ivory video today. I read a great many very positive comments from around the world about it. It NEVER embarrassed me and I don’t find such songs corny, no more than I would a national anthem or a religious hymn corny.

Say, say, say was number one one r n b black style hit and Paul was only Beatle varied enough to do r n b black style, which he touched on in goodnight tonight song. I watched a lot of mtv and these songs reached a lot of folks and may have changed their prejudices about race. Neither am I embarrassed about freedom song as Paul sat on a plane five hours in no fly grounding on 9/11, and then got off got a cop who wasn’t supposed to do it to show him ground zero of attack. Paul was not a mind reader and could not predict future US abuses over that attack, but he struggled hard to round up folks to organize that, to play and was ridiculed and dissed by some. There’s a good documentary video of all the trouble he had doing this and how badly he was treated. He probably wasn’t thinking and he shouldn’t have promoted his new album but probably more familiar with playing and singing that material as brand new so played that, but I read he asked Clapton I think or Townsend what to play at very last and Townshend told him freedom again.

Paul was not even American, but struggled to do this and was ridiculed then and now for it. He also did NOT have to stick his neck out to get those black singers on MTV as that decade changed and he was competing with singers half his age. MtV then had mellow AND new wave stuff then. Had solo macca done nothing but ebony and ivory, a good song, that emphasized racial harmony solo I’d be proud of the him. His first duet Jackson wrote off thriller two years before big breakthrough of that album led to explosion of Jackson as first big black crossover superstar of a decade. It is sad that Paul sticking his neck out and helping to get these black artists on mtv and writing a racial harmony is ridiculed as corny. I read on one forum that many fans left him, never returned as thought that too UNHIP, some returned many years later when thought his elder statesman icon, legend mantle of cool returned. Had George new something like the NYC 9/11 concert, would have been hailed as another Bangladesh desh. John NEVER wrote a song about race relations that I know of…..but if he’d written ebony and ivory and I it would have been declared another anthem like imagine. If anyone responds that John would have never written anything as bad as ebony and ivory I refer you to the WAY worse and worse selling STINYC. Also, John never wrote a song about racial harmony that I know of but I only listened to STINYC album a few times and may have forgotten if he did.

I promise to quit looking at that how could the man who wrote Eleanor rigby write my salamander line, cuz that always sets me off. LOL. I was a kid in the sixties but grew up in the seventies and my seventies stuff is my sacred cow I guess. LOL. Please forgive if too strident. We all agree to disagree sometimes here. Thanks.
Forgive any typos.

SORRY….my seizure troubles caused me to forget to post about tug of war. Here’s a few thoughts on it….it was a much anticipated album after John died. It had some phenomenal deep cut song gems on it. By the eighties,
Musical styles overall much more mellow. Tug of war was a loose but not a coherent concept album. I can completely explain the very high rolling stone review…..everyone following music realized how needlessly unfair that mag and the entire rock press had been to macca in seventies. There was major guilt about that and all were relieved when he did tug of war and here today songs about John. There was extreme shock several years in eighties that John died, half of Lennon-McCartney dead.

Paul did not receive much reprieve however, as yoko agitated much strife against him, saying stuff like John said no one ever hurt him like Paul. This may belong in the John and Paul were lovers section but Paul responded with how did I hurt him? It’s the way I was raised and the home I came from. Paul was soon treated worse with the survivor hatred well portrayed in the movie ordinary people where father resents the son who survived when favorite son drowned. Paul got increasingly grilled in eighties in the press, the bunch of Saint John villain Paul books appeared, one I’m reading right now by Peter brown, and Paul got increasingly defensive and angry in his eighties interviews which made things worse for him.

I’ll never understand why he gave so many interviews then. It was then with wings gone he got all of the personal and John questions because got no Beatles reunion or wings next project questions. It was then that he began giving stock answers a McCartney interview given a few days before John died is the last in depth, probably really god interview with him, the interview was given to deejays I think then sold as a double or a single album in the early eighties. You could tell he was grieving for John, trying to defend himself and struggling as a middle aged man in a new decade where folks had become younger. The mtv duets helped his career with the younger crowd as they all especially loved Michael.

As for tug of war, it began a new era in conventional, non fad music albums for Paul. he tried to get updated with the failed Press album which I liked but was badly incoherent and produced though had some very good songs on it. Macca wasn’t following the decade new wave trend as he later didn’t follow the later grunge trend but I agree that his jam session with the remnants of nirvana besides electric argument and Rihanna 4,5 seconds is his best collaboration but I like what have heard from kisses album. Tug of war album was completely different era than ram and Paul was a completely different age, that era would never have the fresh rawness of ram or wildlife for that matter, because he kept saying in interviews he was forty, had a lot of kids to raise and it was then rather than the outlaw hippie portrayed in man on the run settled into middle age. Also, it’s important that Japan bust broke up wings and eventually Denny left, so he had to start over. From his bootlegs Eighties through nineties, he reserved his musical experimentation for unreleased tracks, even did techno version of broad street, other great techno, did tge failed movie that should have been less expensive made for mtv or vh1 movie butt did tge award winning shirt cartoon Rupert, did new age, nineties various cultural ethnic, swept genres, revived raucous but versions of old rock n roll songs.

No one in eighties would dream of making an album like ram, in concept, structure, themes because eighties videos focused on teen suburbia, fun times and dancing with new wave music. That was the last decade I myself bought contemporary albums as by nineties bought mainly singles I liked, the quintessential eighties was The spies like us all macca fans hate and the video with break dancing is consummate eighties. Techno And syth was consummate eighties and nineties house club music . MTV drove eighties music like radio drove sixties and seventies and singles were still popular in eighties but by end of decade music was album not singles driven. it was as much visual as hearing, new styles in hair and clothing and music then more of a fad than even seventies and most mtv folks didn’t have but one hit.

Stones and macca had to make very big adjustments in eighties. I do want to add, probably driven by john death that tug of war was a number one album and on macca youtubes I still see folks list it in their top five albums. I personally think Martin producted flaming pie is a stronger album due to the consistency of song quality but tug has a few such great gems the songs are in my own top ten solo macca songs. Many artists like Neil young retired, wilburys a hit on mtv and George got number one single. The eighties was a zany eccentric decade but I read here younger folks dissing the macca mullets, then in seventies called the shag and the pink shirts on men. As that was my decade, I’m telling you kids that stuff was COOL. LOL. No you say, looks stupid. Okay, I’m old.

It’s enemy’s hose. I own Blackbird Singing, Paul’s book of poetry and he included that song’s lyrics. I reckon it’s accurate.

I don’t want to hog the comments, but find the discussion of seventies solo, especially solo Paul music very interesting as in that decade he released his most genre varied music on his regular albums. One reason I gravitated to Paul music in the mid seventies was the extreme variety of music styles on his albums and singles. What critics then hated, I found fascinating. John and George music hit a style and seemed to recycle it, but you got every style on a Paul album or b side.

There’s been much derision of bip bop song and lyrics online. As someone with parents from extreme south AL next to Mississippi, I have to tell you all that is black primitive blues roots music and lyrics, like she’s my baby or baby’s request seems to be jazz roots music. I’m not a musician but remember these music genres in the sixties. As a southerner, I was interested that Paul came to south in mid seventies to record in styles of those cities, Nashville and New Orleans. His much later great cover of protest song, all my trials was also sung in southern soul, gospel style. He did great gospel style songs, black spiritual style like call me back again, great Cajun like down to the river. I’ve been looking for blue grass style, but haven’t located it yet.

I was very surprised that the Hoffman forum folks loved, as I always did, Paul’s great vaudeville, twenties and show tune solo songs, you gave me the answer and c moon, very surprisingly loved mary had a little lamb protest song cause give Ireland song banned, but mary song had children singing on it and they all adore my love, which was wings first big break through AM number one hit. These are folks a decade or two younger than me without the boomer or the gen x prejudices. Probably many the youtube lovers of Paul mtv songs were eighties kids, but some seemed older loved the song as a message of hope and how to live.

I want to add ebony and ivory got Stevie a number one song for the third decade in a row and that say, say, say was number one on the r n b charts, making him the first Beatle to do so. Black r n b, as was black funk music with Rick James being the biggest artist, was big then and unlike now, radio was highly segregated….there were white stations playing mainly white music and black stations playing black. I was delighted to find a pure 1980 funk version of coming up song on Wings rehearsal for the tour. The seventies had some great completely different music styles throughout the decade, more than any other besides the sixties in my lifetime.

Many then and now criticize Paul and wings output, but as he was a forever banished outsider to the rock press and old Beatles fan trying to be hip, so the smartest thing the man ever did was reinvent himself to start a group from scratch and appeal to a younger generation. You have to be my age or older to realize that most in wings concert audiences were around my age. I was 19 when I saw them. Wings broke through AM radio but BOTR broke through AM….AND…FM. Am was for singles but FM those days was album oriented.

Paul was the first solo Beatle to be heavily played on FM with BOTR because as I said Ono band and all things must pass big hits with critics and fans but less so with general public and George album was an expensive box set. Even my southern city, had a FM album rock station….many called underground stations then. This helped BOTR go platinum several times. Oh, I think it was let me roll it on band on the run, he song I couldn’t remember the three big wings selling albums each had three great Macca songs later used in WOA tour, call me back, beware my love and let me roll it. It was great to be a macca fan in the seventies because you never knew what all you would get on an album or single.

You had to get some albums or especially macca singles to finally get the great, rocking Soily song, or the screaming oh woman, oh why or, my favorite, mess. I was an unusual wings fan being my age, as I started out a Beatle and solo Beatle fan. While critics greatly disparaged him for not finding his footing, younger fans loved the stuff, the zany, varied wings stuff. Regular press folks amazed Paul able to recreate Beatle mania with younger generation crowding into the then general admissions wings shows. The rock press of course realized he had cleverly slipped past their hegemony of hip declaring fiefdom and quickly called Paul a sell out but all of John’s mid seventies friends and George were desperate for a number one am hit and a number one album which drove the music business then. Each got another one or two but by then Paul had blown past them. Had those been John or George singles or albums, they would have been hailed then.

The most interesting thing to do is to go to his seventies solo YouTube comment sections and ignore the conspiracies nuts and John fanboys but to read comments from folks growing up in seventies or later decades and their current hatred of the way he was mistreated as compared to other solo Beatles or if young to be appalled that had read how bad his seventies stuff was or how he didn’t rock but younger folks now amazed at live promo performances of those seventies songs, especially young guys as note macca and wings could really scream and rock. The then extremes recycled in the rock books haven’t gone over well in contemporary times. Many older folks growing up in seventies have ir their parents had favorite wings albums. Many especially seem to love the mellow and eclectic London Town which really hit overall the mellow sound of non disco 1978 stations.

Unfortunately, these rock critics look like propaganda ministers, as they were that, pushing their vastly superior John and George memes, and Beatles were gods myths, male John vs Paul false dichotomy and effeminate looking musical Paul was vastly inferior to the macho John was the Beatles genius, the cause guru and all of this had now cause folks to further question and doubt history and what is written, unfortunately. I’m sad that this has eroded John and George’s solo music musical legacies from younger commenters I’ve seen but eventually I wondered if it would ever balance out, but seventies John made himself an image and restricted himself to a caricature personally and musically almost whereas George’s music itself was severely stylistically restricted. I too was thinking at the times these memes would go on forever as got recycled throughout the decades, but Macca’s old age, steady musical slogging throughout the decades, and George and John’s early deaths as well as their stylistic restriction choices along the way left their music carved in Stone. There s also the Internet where folks don’t have to have bought the books or the rock mags from then, as can find them online and easily listen to all of the solo music.

Macca’s music changed rapidly in the seventies, but with every decade and he did his own musical side projects, some released and some not, but it’s not just because of heavy touring and his elder statesmen beautiful, more mature music of last twenty years that he is now called a melody master, a tier 1 song writer, and a rare in a century or two musical genius and and a contemporary Mozart, which it is all of the genre sweeping, adventurous styles he dipped into beginning with his first solo album forward. Many of Macca’s musical endeavors and experimentation in styles were dissed throughout the seventies and later decades but they are now, true to the pendulums and extremes of history, seen as a part of the whole…….as many of his commenters on his YouTubes note….genius as work. For those who didn’t remember those decades and other music from them, it is very difficult to evaluate someone by himself without consideration of what all was happening around him. His stuff is a contradiction as he both followed his own music and trends as well. Sometimes leading them, as with electronica McCartney II and singles as only Kraftwerk German group doing this but not to extreme extent of Paul sythn McCartney II and singles.

Michelle,

I do want to address what you said about John being paranoid about Ram and paranoid about the FBI, which turned out to be right. Forgive me, it I point out that is false equivalency. Just because John was right about the FBI following him does not mean, he was right in assuming dear boy song was about him. I do not agree with his or your notion that the song was about him. I won’t try to unfairly trump you with my age because bought and I listened to it so much then, but I have listened to the song several times recently and do not hear where it is about John.

I hope this doesn’t offend you but to suggest because he was right about one thing does not mean he is right about another. Also, it is unknown, this blog has discussed when John got off heroin or what other drugs he used during the time of comment about ram. I do know that certain drugs can induce or worsen paranoia but don’t know for sure if that was the case about his dear boy comment. I know that by what yoko said, John was obsessed with Paul solo music for references to him and played it repeatedly.

I can see what you are saying generally, but in two incidents you responded to me personally rather than gently reminding people in general of the rules of this thread. I have seen on at least two of the other threads I’ve been on on this site where folks interpret or expound on what others say which though they may disagree and the conversation moved forward because it was all part of the discussion except with the other guy I mentioned and me.

I’ve never gotten the reply button to work on your site but that may be because I’m technically ignorant. The greatest example was maybe one or two people especially but probably more on the John and Paul lovers thread and the other on was on the opinions about Paul’s best solo collaborations. I also just in this thread saw various preferences with no support.

The John and Paul lovers thread is rife with those unsupported comments such as I just think or they look like they were soulmates. That is a very interesting thread but without argument support in many comments though some do have better support. I actually think and have for a long time they had a relationship go sour, but that entire thread is really circumstantial including anything I myself added to it.

Yes, I am a new commenter but am still debating whether or not this is a site where my comments are welcomed. Folks will disagree and you find this on every site of any type, but I’ve seen some unsupported broad brush strokes here go uncorrected by you and I would overlook that completely but have seen you monitor me and another person and let all of others go. I’ve gone back and read as many of your old articles and comments as I can. You seem to have just a few regular blog commenters who seem to be the same folks with the exception of the John and Paul thread. The very comment I responded to that got your reply to me was an unsupported comment.

You run the site and you do but made it very clear to me that you do. Folks have to come up with articles, but they seem very few and not to be updated that frequently probably because you are all very busy working and with families and that kind of stuff takes time. I really enjoy hearing other folks interpretations of events of Beatle and solo music but some of my areas, like maybe collecting, concerts saw may differ from others on this site.

However, I’ve heard a few folks call others’ interpretations of John and Paul were lovers idea as being homophobic on that John and Paul thread and, as you are moderating so closely, I’m very surprised you didn’t jump in on that. I guess that’ us one think that misled me to think the comments sections were more open. If I continue commenting, I don’t feel so free about it. I haven’t read or found your comment rules anywhere. I will say that you aren’t reminding everyone though, twice you have reminded me.

I won’t count your unwillingness to research anything about Chapman as that is up to you but my comment was posted in the conspiracies thread. Way back at the beginning of your thread a commenter posted something in relation to it or the CIA I saw. As far as support for your argument much here that is not actual Beatles history gets into unsupported facts, like your interesting but still unsupported speculation that especially Paul’s father drank heavily and your fascinating but largely unsupported idea that the Beatles all came from substance abuse families and each is the archetype of a child from a home like that.

As so many odd opinions have gone unchallenged here, I thought it was a free forum. I may not stay, but if you don’t want your commenters to be singled out and targeted, ou may need to remind all of your commenters on a central place because I’ve seen a few wild things along unchecked in these comments and folks called homophobic. Thanks for responding. I do enjoy reading all of the comments and have learned a lot on this site.