Birthday Blues No.1 #7 - Wings - Mull of Kintyre
There are two schools of thought about Paul McCartney. The first, and by some distance the most widely acknowledged, is that as one of the most important songwriters of the 20th century, a former Beatle no less, he should be afforded some grace and kindness when reflecting on the less significant of his works.
The other, espoused by my friend Hairy Dennis, is that,
because he was one of the main conspirators of 9/11 and also responsible for
The Frog Chorus, his time in the Fab Four need not concern us and that Macca
should be treated as cultural vermin.
Obviously, Hairy Dennis doesn’t exist. I’ve invented him as
a means of disguising the fact I didn’t know how to start this piece. We can’t
all be Joan Didion, capturing the heat and wind of the Californian mountains to
introduce a piece about a suburban murder whilst simultaneously illustrating the gap between the emerging counter-culture and the equivalent lie of the American Dream. Where would we be then, eh? We
wouldn’t have a Frog Chorus would we? No.
Anyway, I am seven and Paul McCartney is number one with
Mull of Kintyre. When I hear this song I’m taken instantly back to the video.
Paul and Linda sat on some pretend hillock with the other bloke from Wings,
some dry ice is pumped in to make it seem more side-of-a-loch and then I think
the Scots Guards come marching round the corner armed with bagpipes, kilts and
the Christmas number one of 1977.
The mid 70s were heavily Scottish. As if to make up for the
fact Sean Connery was no longer Bond the charts became filled with Rod Stewart
and the Bay City Rollers. Rod was fucking massive. He had a song called Sailing
which was the soundtrack to some sort of bollocks about a ferry. Lena Zavaroni was a thing. Billy Connolly had
a number 1. Scotland qualified for two World Cups and trashed Wembley after humiliating England on the pitch. Supergran and Trainspotting were some way
off.
Anyway, I was 7. I had a party. The last one I’d have till I
was 18. I got some sort of Space 1999 gun thing which you needed the lights off
to see the puny “laser” in all its majesty. I was still in love with my
teacher, a love which dampened when she returned from the Easter break with a
married name, the fucking heartless bitch. Whatever hopes I had had of sitting
next to her on some sort of tartan blanket on a mull whilst a load of kilts
bagpiped past were now like the mist in the video.
Mull of Kintyre went on to sell millions. It’s catchy enough
and, now I’m in my autumn years, doesn’t distress me in quite the way it would
have the seven year old me, wanting more from my number ones than a gentle sing
along melody. Later this year, I would experience bereavement for the first
time with the death of my beloved grandmother but I’ll write about that next time.
Current Ranking of Birthday no. 1 – 5
Final Ranking of Birthday no. 1 – N/A
What Should Have Been Number 1 instead that week - Chic - Dance, Dance, Dance
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