Take These Broken Wings

I've been reading Man on the Run, by Tom Doyle, which is a detailed look at Paul McCartney in the 1970s. The question could be posed, how much more could an obsessive fan like me possibly learn? A boyfriend once asked, "Are you really reading another book about the Beatles? Don't you know everything there is to know yet?" The answer was, and still is, "No." There's quite a bit left to learn, apparently.

Man on the Run takes readers from the ugly, angry last days of the Beatles through the dissolution of the final incarnation of Wings. It's a great read for me since I missed the original tide of Beatlemania, becoming infatuated with Macca about the time Venus & Mars was released. I remember what huge news the Wings Over America tour was. The first opportunity to see Paul in concert since the Beatles' 1966 Candlestick Park show! But it was an opportunity I missed, as my father didn’t care who he was, or how long it had been since he'd toured, there was no way I was going to L.A. to a (expletive deleted) rock concert. Oh, the thirteen-year-old angst...  

Journalist Doyle (lucky enough to interview Paul several times) deftly illustrates just how devastating the end of the Beatles was for Paul and how lost he was, at 27, suddenly without the thing that had driven him since the age of 15. What a gig to lose, no? And I thought the end of Tower was rough. Having retreated to the farm in Scotland, Paul shut out everything but Linda and the kids and turned to whiskey and other substances to numb the intense feelings of worthlessness he was drowning in. Who was he if not Beatle Paul? Would he ever work again? How could he think about working when he could barely get out of bed? It was Linda, hated by fans for daring to marry the last single Beatle, and later dogged by the press for her role in Wings, who recognized that her husband was in serious trouble and she was frightened beyond belief.

The reality is that Linda not only saved Paul, but it was her love, support and encouragement that made him try to, and eventually believe, that there was in fact life after the Beatles. Thanks to her, Paul put down the bottle and picked up a guitar. Linda was harshly criticized after joining Wings (at her husband's insistence), dealing with everything from fans deriding her to Paul's contemporaries like Mick Jagger wondering why Macca would "put his old lady in the band." Linda stoically dealt with public and private criticism (from the other members of Wings), but the truth is, without her, Wings would never have happened.

After a rocky beginning, Wings eventually took flight, and in a big way. The Wings Over America tour broke records and put Paul back into the spotlight he was accustomed to, though he had seriously doubted his ability to get there. Doyle captures the doubt that lingered behind the "cute one's" smile. The man who dreamed Yesterday (he woke up with the melody nearly complete in his head) and is responsible for countless timeless classics spent many a tortured moment wondering if he still had it or if he was past his prime.

Perhaps it's part of Paul's everyman appeal that he seems never to have forgotten his working class roots, nor does he take anything for granted, including his other-worldly ability to crank out hits. There's a line in Alligator, a song on his latest studio album, NEW, "Everybody else busy doing better than me," that means just what it sounds like: Macca’s ever-present worry about measuring up. The 70s were a bit of a rollercoaster for Paul, bringing him loss, uncertainty, unexpected hits, painful misses and embarrassing busts, but two things never wavered: His love for Linda and his need to keep making music. Lucky for us he's still going strong 40 years later, with no plans to slow down. After taking the world by storm barely out of his teens, then having to start over, he did learn to fly.