Americans Hate Tingle: "Mull of Kintyre" was one of Paul McCartney's biggest solo hits, a smash all over the world, except for the U.S.A., where it was ignored note other than a tiny bit of airplay on Adult Contemporary stations. His US label Capitol Records, figuring that your average American would have no idea what the Mull of Kintyre was and thus wouldn't care about the song, promoted the single's B-Side ("Girls' School") instead.
Audience-Alienating Era: McCartney's output during the 1980's is this for a lot of fans and critics. McCartney II got Vindicated by History 30+ years later and Tug of War was widely praised from the outset (though "Ebony and Ivory" is still infamous for how glurgy it is), but the next few albums after that are among McCartney's least popular, owing to a perceived lack of direction and the fact that McCartney spent much of it playing catch-up with the popular zeitgeist. This resulted in a far cry from his culture-rewriting days with The Beatles, which came to a head with the gratuitously synth-heavy Press to Play. This bad streak was ultimately broken in 1989 with Flowers in the Dirt, which was praised as a major improvement over his recent albums and a more than welcome return to form for McCartney.
The moment in the above-mentioned "Mull of Kintyre" when the pipe band kicks in, especially in his more recent concerts, which feature guest appearances by local pipe bands.
Arguably, Macca's unreleased output is as every bit rocking and danceable as his actual released material - just take a listen to "Cage" https://youtu.be/gsvcv7vjt-g - a New Wave track once considered to be amongst the final track listing on Wings' final album (1979's "Back to the Egg"), but was rejected at the last minute, supposedly as it's upbeat and relatively light-hearted sound didn't mesh well with the "serious & heavy" sounding material of the actual record itself.
There exists a metric ton of bootleg McCartney recordings -namely tracks Macca himself - at one point or another - considered for official release before going back and forth on the idea several times, all together shelving what could've been potential big name hits for himself.
Of particular note amongst these bootlegs are Wings' Last Flight - fanmade recordings of Wings' last ever concerts in Glasgow, December 1979, and Cold Cuts - an actual album of Wings & solo McCartney outtakes that Macca himself had intended for release several times throughout the '70s and '80s, before abandoning the project altogether.
Then there's Return to Pepperland. note Supposedly slated for release sometime during 1987 (coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band), Return to Pepperland featured McCartney teaming up with Phil Ramone (famed producer for Billy Joel) to record a slew of new tracks to help coincide with the then-recent "Second Wave of Beatlemania" (all 12 of the original Beatles' albums were released sometime throughout 1987, marking a second age of international popularity and acclaim for the Fab Four). Some of the tracks recorded include "Once Upon a Long Ago" and a heavily drum machine-synth version of "Beautiful Night", originally submitted for the soundtrack to The Princess Bride, but rejected by director Rob Reiner for being "too sentimental"; these were eventually released in one form or another. The former was included as a single issued with McCartney's 1987 compilation album All the Best!, while "Beautiful Night" was rewritten and stripped down of its very heavy late-80s Power Ballad sound, and included on Paul's 1997 album Flaming Pie as a particular standout. The title track ("Return to Pepperland") though a noteworthy standout, is laced with heavy late-80s production standards (much use of synth bass, drum machines, and complex synthesizers). McCartney does make a unique innovation for the composition by indulging in a slight Baroque Pop sound for the track (not unlike his own "Penny Lane" or "Strawberry Fields Forever") by including such instruments as the Mellotron.
Cult Classic: McCartney II is this for a lot of fans. He knocked it off by himself in a month, partly as a way to test his new synthesisers, while Wings was preparing what would be its final tour, and it was released to what had become predictably negative reviews. In the early 2010s was when it began to be hailed as a precursor to a lot of modern indie pop, and it now sounds like one of his freshest, quirkiest and most interesting albums.
Epileptic Trees: Once upon a time, there was a common conspiracy theory saying he actually died in the '60s and a Doppelgänger took his place, an event believed to be alluded to in some of The Beatles' works and album covers. This makes very little sense when you consider that the doppelgänger needs to do a perfect Liverpool accent and play the guitar like he did. And Paul is left-handed. The "Paul Is Dead" conspiracy ultimately fell apart as the decades went on, and Paul himself would repeatedly take jabs at it, most notably with the title and cover for Paul is Live in 1993.
Fair for Its Day: McCartney and Michael Jackson are seen in what resembles blackface for a portion of the video for "Say, Say, Say". Even though it was appropriate for the context of the video (he and Jackson were depicted as performing a minstrel show late in the video, and the video as a whole is a subtle satire of race relations in America), even with that it probably wouldn't fly today.
Paul wrote a lot of songs about financial insecurity—most notably "You Never Give Me Your Money"—that started to hit a lot closer to home after his messy divorce with Heather Mills. Select lines from "If You've Got Trouble" ("I don't think it's funny when you ask for money and things") and "I've Had Enough" ("I earn my money and you take it away") seem especially prophetic.
If you consider it to be about Paul and Linda, "Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People" from Venus and Mars is one after Linda's death.
Putting aside the obvious conundrums about Michael Jackson, the video to "Say Say Say" is kind of harsh to watch because of the infectious chemistry he and Paul had in both the song and the video, considering a few years later they would have a bitter falling out over Jackson buying the Beatles catalog. In turn, the playful banter between the two on Jackson's own "The Girl is Mine" can also become difficult to listen to given that their dispute over a fictional girlfriend can just as easily be read by post-feud listeners as a tug-of-war over the Beatles' back-catalog.
"When I'm Sixty Four" is one as well, if you think of it as Paul addressing Linda. Linda never did get to see Paul turn sixty-fournote Linda in fact never did get to turn sixty-four herself, passing away at 56 (nor Heather Mills due to their divorce), as many journalists pointed out in 2006. Heather actually broke up with him just before he turned 64, leading to a lot of Big "NO!" jokes.
Hilarious in Hindsight: A variation. One version of the "Paul Is Dead" theory specifies that he died in a car accident on November 9, 1966. In reality, this is still a significant date in Beatles history, since it's the day John Lennon first met Yoko Ono.
"Temporary Secretary" has become one among not only Macca fans, but the music community as a whole, due to it being often considered one of Paul's absolute worst songs. While the rest of McCartney II has been thoroughly Vindicated by History, "Temporary Secretary" is a common subject of jokes for how hectically disjointed it sounds, to the point where it's a minor Running Gag among the remix group SiIvaGunner (alongside jokes intentionally misnaming the song "Jerry Temporary" after a YouTube comment).
"The moon is right!"ExplanationA common mishearing of the opening line of "Wonderful Christmastime", which in actuality is supposed to say "the mood is right." The fact that the mishearing sounds perfectly in-line with Paul's trademark lyrical eccentricity—it's not any stranger than, say, "The willow turns his back on inclement weather" or "Get you ready for my polygon"—allowed it to rapidly catch on, leading to, among other things, an edit of "Wonderful Christmastime" where every line is replaced with a pitch-shifted copy of "the moon is right" (even altering the line to say "moon" instead of "mood").
"This Paul McCartney guy gonna be huge!" ExplanationWhen McCartney collaborated with Kanye West a lot of the latter's fans were unfamiliar with his work. The result was a lot of sarcastic snark about how lucky "this Paul McCartney guy" was to be given a chance at stardom from such a big name from the media.
Never Live It Down: His 1980 arrest in Tokyo for drug possession is this. To date, this episode of his life is off limits to interviewers and Paul will refuse to answer any questions regarding the incident.
Signature Song: Despite the studio version not ever having been released as a single (the live Wings Over America take was in 1977), "Maybe I'm Amazed" is considered one McCartney's finest love songs and got extensive radio play upon its release. It is still often regarded as McCartney's best post-Beatles song; Rolling Stone even ranked the song #347 on its "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" list in 2011.
So Bad, It's Good: While "Temporary Secretary" is widely considered one of McCartney's worst songs— if not his absolute worst— many describe it as weirdly entertaining as a result of its poor quality. It's perhaps because of this that the song became a subject of Memetic Mutation decades down the road. (And some people just like the song.)
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Flowers in the Dirt is considered this by critics, who felt that the majority of the 80's encompassed an Audience-Alienating Era for McCartney (especially in light of Press to Play) and found Flowers to be an unexpected— but very much welcome— return to form.
McCartney and Ram were largely panned when first released (even Ringo didn't like Ram). These days they are considered among Paul's finest post-Beatles records.
This applies to Paul as a whole after The Beatles broke up. Back in the day, he was less popular than John Lennon and George Harrison critically, yet his albums kept selling. Partly a case of It's Popular, Now It Sucks!. This might also be due to his less serious output, as Paul was unapologetically writing Silly Love Songs while John was doing Protest Songs and George was writing spiritual-themed material—though Paul's trademark whimsy, like releasing a version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" as a single, didn't always help his case either. In later years, this began to wear off, and not only have Paul's musical contributions been revalued upwards— he was the most cosmopolitan Beatle, and the one who first investigated avant-garde art and music— his solo work has been reevaluated too.
His general avoidance of overtly political protest music also kept his work from being dated. It's a rare McCartney song that has the modern listener scratching their head, wondering what it all means or why past audiences thought it was worthwhile. Lennon's music, in contrast, is so steeped in the counterculture of The Vietnam War era that it can be difficult for a modern listener to understand its appeal without having been there. Derided at the time as being lightweight for its lack of political edge, it now finds an audience in successive generations for the same reason.
was and thus wouldn't care about the song, promoted the single's B-Side ("Girls' School") instead.