Paul McCartney

McCartney III (2020)

 

 1. Long Tailed Winter Bird
 2. Find My Way
 3. Pretty Ways
 4. Women and Wives
 5. Lavatory Lil
 6. Deep Deep Feeling
 7. Slidin'
 8. The Kiss of Venus
 9. Seize the Day
 10.Deep Down
 11.Winter Bird / When Winter Comes
  
  
  

Released at the end of 2020, McCartney III arrived under circumstances not even Paul McCartney could have predicted. Recorded in lockdown and issued as the world sat uneasily indoors, the album completed a trilogy of sorts — following in the homespun footsteps of McCartney (1970) and McCartney II (1980), both similarly self-contained efforts where Paul played (almost) every instrument himself. On paper, a remarkable feat. In practice, the results have always been a mixed bag.

That McCartney remains musically agile enough in his late seventies to write, perform, and record an entire album alone is impressive by any standard. But technical virtuosity doesn’t always translate into artistic triumph. And as with its predecessors, McCartney III often feels more like a series of studio sketches than a fully realised album.

The McCartney solo aesthetic has long been defined by spontaneity — a refusal to over-polish, and a preference for the immediate. While this can produce charming, off-the-cuff moments, it can just as easily result in half-formed ideas. McCartney III is no exception. There are certainly melodies here — hooks that dig in and choruses that linger — but much of the material seems content to settle for “good enough” when it might, with more attention, have become something far more lasting.

There are highlights. Find My Way is a jaunty, infectious opener, and The Kiss of Venus offers a delicate acoustic interlude that feels pleasantly vintage. But the album’s centerpiece, Deep Deep Feeling, is a misstep of epic length — eight and a half minutes of self-indulgent meandering that borders on the unlistenable. Its presence drags the entire record down by sheer weight alone.

As a whole, the album teeters on the fence between enjoyable curiosity and frustrating missed opportunity. For every decent track, there’s another that feels like filler. There’s nothing here to embarrass, but little to astonish either. For some, this raw, unfiltered McCartney is precisely what they value: the immediacy, the charm, the sense that the tape has barely stopped rolling. And it’s true — his devoted fanbase often embraces these stripped-down projects with surprising enthusiasm.

But for those holding out hope for a late-career masterpiece, McCartney III is unlikely to satisfy. It’s a pleasant enough diversion — an interesting document of an artist who refuses to sit still — but as an album, it rarely rises above its own modest ambitions.