Paul McCartney's snarky response to critics of his 'schmaltzy' love songs
Sir Paul McCartney defended himself against critics of what has often been deemed his “schmaltzy” songwriting about love, in the latest episode of a podcast about his lyrics.
McCartney: A Life in Lyrics explores what inspires the legendary Beatles artist, in conversation with the poet Paul Muldoon.
All this singing about love over the years, Muldoon noted in an episode released on Wednesday 6 March, has made some “harder boiled” music fans and critics “dismissive”, as they accuse McCartney of being “sentimental”, “schmaltzy” and “lacking in sophistication”.
The “Can’t Buy Me Love” singer, 81, was ready with a rather derisive response to those critics, remarking: “I think a lot of people who are cynical about it, haven’t been lucky enough to feel it. You often wonder what the critic who damns it looks like, what his or her life looks like.
“I often want to get a photograph of them and go, ‘Oh it’s him, of course, I’m not listening to him.’ Because you kind of outlive them, anyway. They come and go.”
It was then suggested by Muldoon that, while some critics were tired of the subject of love in McCartney’s songs, others were specifically disdainful of his “over-earnest” attempts to conjure up “the sound of love… schmaltz and musical grandeur”, in the style of many classic love songs.
McCartney revealed that he wrote “Silly Love Songs” with his band Wings as a sort of riposte to those critics, after coming close to accepting their cynical worldview. It was released in 1976, the same year the band, the lineup for which included his late wife Linda McCartney, embarked on their Wings Over the World tour.
“I was being accused of just writing silly love songs, and was in danger of starting to buy into this idea that you should just be a bit tougher, and more worldly,” he said.
Source: Roisin O'Connor/independent.co.uk
