Two of Them — Paul and Linda McCartney’s Ram

Ram (Archive Collection)

Paul and Linda McCartney

2012

Almost everybody who mattered hated this album when it came out in 1971.  While the single, Uncle Arnold/Admiral Halsey went to number one and the arrangement earned McCartney a Grammy,  most critics panned the album, sometimes harshly.  The other Beatles hated it too.  Ringo Starr famously said that Ram didn’t have one good song on it.

But there were extenuating circumstances.  For starters, McCartney was in the process of suing his former band mates so he could legally quit the Beatles.  As the world watched, the Beatles were breaking up — formally, legally and permanently. Although it had been in the works for years, this was an event as tragic as the Great Depression for music fans.  And here was Paul McCartney, paying lawyers to drive the final nail in the coffin.  He wanted out.  That’s why anything McCartney released from that moment forward would be forever held to a higher standard and ultimately compared to the Beatles.

So, when it came time for McCartney to record another album, he did the only thing he could do.  He deliberately set out to make a record so primitive, rural and frayed around the edges that it simply couldn’t be compared to the exquisitely produced recordings of the Beatles.  In fact, if the Beatles’ brilliant producer, Sir George Martin was in fact a “sir” at the time (and he wasn’t), and dead at the time (which he wasn’t), he would have been turning over in his noble grave when he heard Ram.

It’s not that Ram is lacking in craft and creativity.  It’s packed with more hooks, riffs and ideas than you could possibly hear in one sitting.  In fact, you could listen to it three or four times in a row and hear something new every time.  If anything, it rewards close listening in a way many Beatles’ albums don’t.  The difference is that Paul doesn’t seem to give a shit, lending the music a casual,  tossed off vibe you’d be more likely to hear from the Stones.  It’s not heavy, but it rocks.  On Ram, McCartney sounds like a man running from his past, running from his fans, and running from his fame.

Lyrically however,  McCartney wasn’t keeping such a low profile, landing a few very public punches with Ram.  The biggest haymaker comes in the first cut, Too Many People.  “That was your first mistake.  You took your lucky break and broke it in two.  Now what can be done for you,” he sings to John Lennon.  On 3 Legs,  McCartney seems to telling his old band they can’t make it without him when he sings, “My dog he got 3 legs/but he can’t run.”  But the strangest and perhaps funniest “hidden” message for John and the boys comes in the form of a photograph on the back cover, probably taken by Paul’s wife Linda.  It’s a picture of two beetles.  One of the beetles is screwing the other.  Subtlety never was Paul’s strong suit.

The Paul and Linda McCartney love story has been retold many times since her death in 1998.  I won’t belabor it, but I won’t ignore it either.  Linda McCartney wasn’t a supermodel.  She was never good enough for Paul’s fans.  She certainly wasn’t much of a singer. But listening to this record helps you understand the devotion Paul had for his wife.  When the Beatles ended, she was there. When his former band criticized her husband’s solo work, she was there.  Knowing the critics would hate whatever he released, and needing the confidence to record without John, George and Ringo, she was there.  You can hear her… all too clearly…cheerfully singing along and harmonizing with her husband on Ram; trying to fill the shoes of John Fucking Lennon. This took an amazing degree of guts or confidence or ignorance.  Perhaps it was Linda who taught Paul how to look past the critics and just do your thing.  If that’s true, this and many other fine Paul McCartney records may never have been made without her.

It’s no surprise that Ram has steadily gained acceptance over the years and is now considered to be one of McCartney’s best.  Time really does heal even the deepest wounds.  The Beatles are gone, but it’s no longer Paul’s fault.  Absent the blame for ending the greatest pop band ever, Paul and Linda’s Ram is free to be nothing more than great rock and roll, recorded at a time when emotions and nerves were raw.   It’s amazing and endlessly entertaining.  You know the drill.  Get the recording. Sit between two big speakers.  Crank it up.  And LISTEN.

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