christopher james | Poems and prattle

June 4, 2026

Stop making sense – a review of Poems In the Key of Aardvark by Bob Mee

Sitting down with a copy of Bob Mee’s magnificent Poems In the Key of Aardvark is like tackling a giant trifle with a tiny teaspoon. There’s a lot if it. Gobbled at once, you’ll be sick from here to Christmas. But take your time and you’ll be amply rewarded.

It’s a full fifteen years since Bob’s last outing: The Maker of Glass Eyes, and there’s a sense of making up for lost time – both in the urgency and sheer volume of this new collection.

Some of this work is familiar from the blogosphere, where early versions were first aired. But for me, the poems are more impressive on the page, where print rewards the courage of their convictions.

Poems in the Key of Aardvark — Bob Mee’s new poetry collection – hopeful fables for a world gone wrong

When you have a writer as prolific and effortlessly inventive as Bob, it’s easy to miss lines – and sometimes whole poems – that truly resonate and sing.

The trouble is, he can do everything. His trick is accessibility; he’ll draw you in with a casual invitation; sometimes a throwaway line, then lead you somewhere totally unexpected. There are some pieces that owe a debt to the Mersey Beat poets (with a side helping of black humour) as in I Don’t Need Looking After’s ruminations of aging: ‘I lost my mind/I put it here somewhere/I know I did.’

Poems often begin with the mundane detail, as in Pigeons: ‘My father waits at the door to his pigeon loft.’ But then the fun begins (and I have abridged for brevity):

‘The first bird brings him a degree in ornithology… The second bird back bring wild samphire from the banks of the Solent… The third bird back bring him a confused nun with a watering can. The rest of the birds bring him darkness.’

The invention is breathtaking and here we find Bob literally taking off on a flight of fancy. He can move you with an unexpected image or turn of phrase, make you laugh and then pull the rug out from under you. There’s nearly always an unsettling undercurrent.

There’s a sense too of Bob chasing his own imagination, wondering where an idea might lead. A character – like the nun – will escape from his pen and at once come alive with agency of her own: ‘She sits by the fire and rolls a cigarette/”What’s happened to my watering can,” says the nun.’

There’s a dreamlike quality to it. But there’s something else – an oblique insight into the father too. This loft of pigeons seems to represent the chaotic workings of his mind.

If Poems In the Key of Aardvark was your desert island compendium, you could do much worse. It’s a world tour of Bob’s imagination and the world itself. And almost as big. A lifetime’s memories are woven through these poems, but a lifetime’s craft too.

Bob is often at his best when unfettered by the constraints of line length or rhyme (the freewheeling Bob Mee, if you will). But he’s equally adept when working with more controlled forms.

Eiffel 1912 is one of the collection’s most disciplined pieces, recounting Franz Reichelt’s ill-fated leap from the Parisian landmark with a homemade parachute. It’s arranged in tight quatrains, with deft use of enjambement:

It was his confidence that drew the crowd

and the cameras of course – the lure of history

is hard to resist, especially on a Saturday

And so he stood and ate a pear.

The conversational tone, and the bathos of the lines that follow the ‘lure of history’ is Bob at his best. He has a comedian’s timing, coupled with a poet’s eye for detail. The action slows then speeds up as if we’re watching a news reel. It builds inexorably towards its bleak punchline: Reichelt ‘bent his knees… and flew/Or believed he did.’ The formality of the poem works as a counterpoint to Reichelt’s hairbrained and entirely unfounded self-belief.

This feels like one of the many poems here that would have fared well if Bob had sent it to a magazine or competition. The fact that it’s tucked away on page 175 tells you everything about Bob’s prolific output – and the sense that he doesn’t have the time to wait three months to hear the fate of a poem he probably forgot he wrote. The world of poetry moves at a glacial pace, and quite simply, Bob, doesn’t.

Other poems seem like fables from nameless Eastern European states. The Shopkeeper and His Wife is a case in point. It begins: ‘At the only shop on Scorpion Street there is nothing for sale’. These poems have a strange logic of their own, and Kafka-esque atmospheres. ‘Every morning, his wife joins him and plays the spoons.’ There is a curious (but somehow attractive) sense of detachment as if it is a poem in translation. There are seldom explanations; these poems merely point to the futility or ridiculous nature of our condition. While constantly questioning, Bob’s tone rarely feels cynical. Despair is tempered with kindness.

Poems about writers and writers abound. Ginsberg in Lower Manhattan is a skilful and tender vignette: ‘The ghost of Ginsberg – balding, heavy, oversized glasses,/beads over a neat shirt and tie.’ This is deftly drawn, and the portrait is made more vivid still by the inclusion of odd detail: ‘He has a line of what might be honey in his grey beard.’ There is a regret and a lack of closure here that might hint at Bob’s too. ‘He drinks too much coffee/always has.’ Later we learn: ‘Eternity troubles him even more than it did when he was alive.’ But on the whole, the complaints of the dead are much like those of the living: ‘He would like a little more warmth and companionship, but that’s about it.’

Do these poems occasionally lapse into prose? That’s to miss the point. These pieces are artfully contrived; if they sometimes feel prosy, that’s because the poem demands the natural rhythms of speech or a bystander’s banal remark to create its own reality. If there are any doubters of Bob’s powers, they need only turn to ‘Fresno with Martha’ (and what a title too, by the way). It begins with haiku-like economy:

In Fresno

under a filthy sky

Martha said: ‘This is destiny.’

Already it evokes a mythic America; a Lynchian dystopia. Fresno becomes a sump for all the ills of the world: ‘In Fresno they knew the planet was shrinking/They could hear the Pacific Ocean seeping into the city sewers.’

The poem is peopled by the desperate and the lost: ‘In Fresco the mayor was building an ark.’ These poems know no bounds and no borders. In a world divided by language, religion and politics, in his collection humanity is united by a common sense of bewilderment at the futility of their existence.

But there are more life affirming moments too. Some of my favourite pieces here are the love poems, like First Holiday.

And behind me you sleep/In our-zipped together sleeping bags/And we aren’t in pain.

The language is measured and plainly spoken. Bob, for now, is content to put the world, its chaos and unsolvable riddles to one side:

And the bells ring for mass

or for the end or beginning

of something we know nothing of

In the sequence, Poems Before Dawn, there is a quiet and calmness that works like a balm for the tired mind:

It’s getting light.

The streetlights go off.

A crow picks at something soft and wet

by an overflowing drain.

I go to the kitchen.

Make coffee.

Poems in The Key of Aardvark is a clear-eyed response to an unfathomable universe. By turns, comic, absurd, tender and outrageous, it matches the intensity of our always-on world with an energy and vitality all its own. When you close the book – either in exhaustion or elation – you wonder at the fecundity of its author’s invention and the audacity of his imaginative leaps. But you will also be left with the nagging suspicion the party is still going on without you.

You can imagine the cast of this compendium – the nuns, shopkeepers, gamblers and lovers – clinking glasses, linking arms then doing a conga through the house, out the back door and away to the horizon.

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December 31, 2025

Botched takes, petty spats and frequent genius: Review of Anthology 4 by The Beatles

I wasn’t entirely sure I needed to own Anthology 4.

But of course, being a Beatles nut, I knew it was inevitable.

Like plenty of others, I was hoping for something unheard and genuinely remarkable: the legendary avant-garde sound montage, Carnival of Light for one thing, would have been wonderful (except perhaps it isn’t). A patched-together version of Lennon’s Madman, the prototype for Mean Mr Mustard, or an electric version of George’s White Album cast off, Sour Milk Sea, also would have been great. The 27-minute version of Helter-Skelter might have been epic, but possibly, even for a Fab obsessive, all too much.

So, what are we left with? Well, it’s a stack of thirty-six songs we’ve heard in one form or another before. But these are, after all, not just any songs. They’re some of the greatest ever written and we get to stand over their composers’ shoulders while they’re being recorded.

The best way to listen to this collection is to think of yourself as one of the engineers in the control room – Geoff Emerick or Norman Smith perhaps, who were privy to the botched takes, off the cuff remarks, petty spats and intimate asides like the one we hear at the start of This Boy, with it’s tricky harmonies and challenging vocal, from Paul: ‘Don’t be nervous, John,’ to which he replied unconvincingly: ‘I’m not nervous.’ There’s a world in those few lines – an insight into the incredible closeness and unspoken affection they’d developed since that fateful, auspicious meeting at the Woolton Village fete in July 1957.

Anthology 4 is studded with such gems; moments that so perfectly capture their idiosyncrasies. Take George’s deadpan order for his lunch, seconds before launching into his marvelous While My Guitar Gently Weeps: ‘I’ll have a cheese, Marmite and lettuce sandwich and a coffee.’ We’re then treated to a slightly more cautious version of the song, with a speculative guitar part from Clapton, who’s located the right sound and feel, but not yet quite found the right notes. It eventually breaks down with George attempting a falsetto delivery.

‘Hold it, Harry,’ says Paul, who’s playing piano, calling things to a halt.

‘I was trying to do a Smokey (Robinson) but I aren’t Smokey.’ It’s charming, self-effacing, rather endearing stuff. You can’t help but warm to the guitarist, who’s often typecast as relentlessly dour.

The star of the show in terms of sheer buffoonery is John, by a country mile. His Goonish commentary runs throughout the collection. As anyone who’s seen Get Back will know, he’s responsible for a constant stream of verbal inventiveness, wise cracks, impersonations, surreal interjections, casual put downs (‘Paul will want to play drums, with his strong left arm’) and old-fashioned grumbles. Occasionally, he goes too far: annoyed by George’s out of tune contributions to Baby You’re a Rich Man, he excoriates: ‘That guitar’s a curse, man.’ Along with his clear apathy evidenced here on a take of I Need You, there are the seeds being sewn of the sort of snideness and disrespect that led to George walking out of the Get Back sessions and temporarily quitting the band in 1969.

Occasionally, you get an eerie sense that John is not only playing to the gallery, but also to posterity – as if he knows, that one day we might be listening to these out takes decades on. ‘Lonnie’s (Donegan) is going to regret not singing this one,’ he says about an early run through of Paul’s skiffly, ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face,’ one of the stand outs.

Listening to Anthology 4 (and certainly after watching the Get Back docuseries) you sometimes find yourself wondering how the Beatles ever managed to complete a track without some hitch. Usually, the culprit is Lennon. At the best of times, he appears to have only the loosest grasp of the lyrics, even on songs he’s written himself – which, for example, gives us ‘Thas Boy’ instead of ‘This Boy.’

On Paul’s I Saw Her Standing There, Take 2, he’ll all over the place, mixing up pronouns, falling behind, waiting for Paul to sing and remind him of the line, with the curious result that his harmonies have a slight delay. It’s ramshackle, but again, strangely charming. The take itself is otherwise tight and rolls on regardless. Of course, they must have played the song countless times on stage, when such trifles as getting the words right counted for less. Having said that, the lyrics aren’t exactly Keats; there’s a certain sloppiness to Lennon’s approach that’s less forgivable even if it was just muddled absent mindedness.

Meanwhile, it takes a few false starts for John to find the right notes, for instance on his brilliant piano riff on Hey Bulldog, presented here as an instrumental – almost as insistent and compelling as the finished song. It’s genuinely riveting stuff.

However, this is not to write John off as the weak link. Elsewhere on this collection, he’s cast as fixer-in-chief, coaching George with his harmony on Tell Me Why, clearly impatient to get a complete take. There’s another brilliant moment when Paul is improvising Can You Take Me Back (Take 1), only a snippet of which would be released on the White Album. John realises it’s better than their usual improv, and keeps the song going by quickly supplying Paul with a crucial line: ‘I ‘aint happy here, honey, can you take me back?’ Although previously released on the White Album box set, it’s a welcome addition, and certainly deserves its second airing.

This brings us to a familiar complaint about Anthology 4, which is that it recycles outtakes available elsewhere. Most notable of these is the exceptional Got To Get You Into My Life (second version) first heard on the Revolver box set, which although lacking the brass section is one of the tightest performances here. There’s 100% more of George and John’s crunchy, fuzztone overdriven guitar, which, in this guise, is more in keeping with other nuggets from Revolver, like Dr Robert and And Your Bird Can Sing. What’s fascinating is that the brass melody parts where clearly inspired by George’s original lead guitar lines.

On Take 17 of Helter-Skelter, you can hear a song taking shape. This time, George’s lead guitar part, which is yet to fully emerge, are clearly inspired by Paul’s insistent bass and deranged, but still tuneful whooping.

In terms of something genuinely new, the closest we get to that is the lovely version of Good Night (Take 10) where we find John coaxing Ringo into a tender rendition of this slight but affecting lullaby. There’s a delicate arpeggio electric guitar part, and some charmingly imperfect harmonies that give this take a markedly different feel to the rather leaden version that eventually appears on the White Album.

There’s also a tantalising glimpse at an alternate universe where Nowhere Man is recast as a sped-up Byrdsian jangle. We only have the opening vocal intro and then George’s Roger McGuinn-like arpeggios picked out on his Rickenbacker. It would have been great to have a complete take of this, but they clearly decided not to proceed in this direction, recognising that that there were wearing their influences perhaps a little too conspicuously on their sleeves.

Anthology 4 throws into even sharper relief the step they took from the rather pedestrian Help LP to the altogether more sonically interesting Rubber Soul, and thenceforth to Revolver.

The key question remains whether any of what we hear on Anthology 4 is essential. Of course, the definitive versions (and other alternative versions) are already out there. But given The Beatles’ huge significance and towering influence over pop music and culture, the question is almost facile. To my mind, these recordings are essential as Shakespeare’s First Folio. To disregard them is like saying that Coleridge’s or Shelley’s rough jottings aren’t worth keeping. These are the equivalent – and the effect of listening to Anthology 4 is like watching Beethoven as he worked at his manuscript – only with more giggling.

I thoroughly enjoyed the tryptic of instrumentals from 1967: I Am The Walrus, She’s Leaving Home and Fool on the Hill. All offer a look under the bonnet of these excellent songs and reveal complex arrangements that make them compelling in their own right. The strident recorder section on Fool on the Hill is particularly good, as are the woozy strings on Walrus and plucked violins and harp flourishes on Mike Leander’s orchestral arrangement on Leaving Home. All show the seismic leap the Beatles made from 65 to 67 – recorded merely a year after they were still playing stale oldies like Rock and Roll Music on stage. Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 26) also feels an important historical document, further exploring the evolution of what surely must be one of the most important songs of the decade. It underscores how vital George Martin was to the mix, and this song in particular: the swooping strings and daring brass bursts are loaded with drama and brimming with confidence.

Of course, there’s the ever-present danger of hyperbole – but we’re talking about The Beatles here. They only really exist in superlatives. There are some truly jaw dropping moments in this set – not least when we hear the work in progress on Lennon’s tender ballad, Julia, which somehow manages to be about his mother and Yoko. Lennon’s vulnerability is clear as he dithers between strumming and fingerpicking the song, admitting it’s hard to sing and pick at the same time. He makes the right decision in the end, and the extra effort is well worth it.

Ringo’s piano sketch for Octopus’s Garden is equally delightful, even more so for its composer’s humble introduction. ‘Have you heard the Octopus one?’ he asks George and Get Back producer, Glynn Johns. He plays through the first verse and confesses ‘That’s all I’ve got.’ George is immediately on the case, helping shape it into the classic it’s become.

As for anything superior to what we’ve already heard, there are perhaps only two contenders. The version of Money here is tighter, purer and more raucous than the sanitised version with piano on With The Beatles. The harmonised backing vocals are beautifully compressed. It’s closer to their true powerhouse sound patented in Hamburg. And to my ears, Got To Get You Into My Life (Second Version) with its addictive guitar lines and superb vocal from Paul would have been my choice for Revolver. I also enjoyed the spirited version of Tell Me Why here – which is delivered with real gusto when they finally get it right. Baby You’re a Rich Man is bristling with excitement, notwithstanding George’s uncertainty. There’s also a lovely alternative rooftop performance of Don’t Let Me Down from January 1969, which feels both looser and more soulful than the more familiar version. It’s also a reminder of how well this was played and recorded considering they were singing in the open air, and with frozen fingers.

There are some disappointments – Paul doesn’t appear to commit to his vocal in You Never Give Me Your Money (Take 36) and appears in truculent mood. It serves more as a dry run for the benefit of George’s miraculous guitar parts. Here Comes The Sun without its colourful Moog embellishments comes across as curiously lumpen. John sounds astonishingly bored on Every Little Thing. A sped-up version of I Need You is also rather ordinary without its volume control guitar effects.

This brings us to the trio of post 1970 Beatles tunes. Free As a Bird is still the pick of the bunch, largely on account of it being the best song, with a scorching slide guitar part from George and gorgeous backing vocals from him and Paul. The AI cleaned up Lennon vocal is a definite improvement on its 90s incarnation. We also get the enigmatic switching of ‘life’ for ‘love’ in George’s line: ‘Whatever happened to the love that we once knew?’ providing an interesting commentary at their largely acrimonious post Beatles interactions.

As for Real Love, I’m afraid the critical reports about the Lennon vocal are on point. Whatever treatment has been used has only served to add an alien wobble to John’s voice on this otherwise affecting song and performance. Now and Then is still as excellent as it was when we heard it in 2023, particularly the slide guitar and vocal bridge artfully constructed by Paul and Giles Martin.

What have we learnt from this new instalment? Largely its cemented long held views that Paul was the most versatile, arguably the best singer in the group and the most disciplined when it came to recording. His contributions are consistently strong – his high harmonies on George’s Love You To are as an important addition as his guitar solo is on Taxman. Anthology 4 also highlights John’s contradictions, both as the biggest joker, but also the most left-field thinker and composer. He has a restless presence in the studio that adds an edge to things. George’s patience is certainly tested time and again here, but Anthology 4 shows his progress as a musician: his guitar lines become increasingly fluid as the decade progresses, leading to his transition to becoming a masterful slide guitarist from the seventies onwards. But we’ve learned more about John and George’s vulnerability, when bringing personal songs to the studio. Ringo’s drumming is both more imaginative and unusual than most would give him credit for.

I did end up owning Anthology 4, of course. And I commend it not only Beatles nuts, but anyone curious about the creative process and fancies being in the room while genius is at work.

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July 3, 2025

New energies spark: A review of It Was Never About The Kingfisher by Helen Kay

There’s much to admire in Helen Kay’s accomplished, playful and moving collection, It Was Never About the Kingfisher. Like the enigmatic, mercurial bird missing in its title, it defies easy categorisation. Everyday life is transformed through the prism of Helen’s poetry into something strange and often wondrous. The mundane can become unexpectedly beautiful. There’s a determination to eschew the easy poetic image and delve deeper to find a different, perhaps truer kind of beauty.

One of the most moving pieces here is Scrabble, recounting the poet and her father’s evening ritual: ‘Every night Dad and I clicked the tiles slick/as casino chips.’ With ‘Mum, out cold,’ upstairs, this was their way negotiating a way through, as well as bridging the distance between father and daughter. She explains: ‘Winning/did not matter; it was our way of talking.’ Throughout this collection, language itself is a balm against the confusion, boredom and disappointment of the world. The poem is densely woven, the linked imagery binding it together, just as ‘My pen knitted/Lines of scores, filling the evening’s blank page.’

So many of the poems are filled with seemingly mundane, often grubby, domestic detail – cigarette stubs, ‘claggy tea’ or ‘half a melon in the fridge.’ While not typical poetic fare, Kay transforms these details into something other, like ‘a bleached/coral reef of uncooked stripe.’

She is at her best as an observer, seeing the unusual in the ordinary. In ‘Her joiners,’ she imagines that these tradesmen ‘grow in pubs.’ She watches as they ‘stub their fingers with hammers/letting beery blood mark out their lines.’ This poem has a strange dance all of its own, arranged in its light-footed quatrains. There’s a sly wit at work here too – ampersands (‘&s’) are sprinkled throughout, increasing in number as the poem and the men’s work progresses, joining together the sentences and eventually the poem itself, in the same way her subjects carry out their own work. Her metaphors illuminate the dark corners of the house; the joiners ‘know all the pipes & wires, the veins/of her home.’

The poet seems to acknowledge that much of the world is ugly, rough edged, and unpoetic. That’s the starting point for Love Poem, which begins abruptly: ‘Your ringtone woke me early.’ The call brings not greetings, but a brutal anecdote: ‘You rang to say… How a young male sparrowhawk shot/Up the river to where the blackbird sang,/Killed it, let it thud on the grass.’

There’s an echo of Ted Hughes in this violent, vignette; of brutality as well as beauty in nature. Meanwhile the skilful use of vowel sounds is redolent of Heaney. The long, openness of ‘sang’ is curtailed with the abrupt, unequivocable ‘thud.’

All of Helen’s poems follow their own logic and adhere closely to the rules dictated by their theme. Charge Nurse is a superbly executed case in point. It begins with one of the collections best images: ‘She weaves through a diamond mine/of London lights to park in her own space./Her car gasps to be hooked to its drip.’

Medical language is laced through the poem: the car is a ‘capsule.’ Returning home, as her front door opens, it ‘feeds her a tube of light.’ Yet there’s another parallel theme that also run through the poem – the electricity and energy implied by ‘charge’ of her title. On the one hand it’s a pure word game, punning on ‘charge.’ Yet Kay uses this conceit to convey then energies of the city, and the nurse’s own life force, showing the interconnectedness of things; between the planet and ourselves, and between people: ‘as she has earthed the shocks of the sick.’

Just like in Kay’s own poetry: ‘New energies spark.’ There’s even a third level – the latent energy in language itself: The car ‘is left to charge – the word conducts/meaning from Latin, carrus, cart.’ This is clever, engaging stuff.

Cemetery Dog Walk shows the same deft handling and thoughtful use of form. The poem is arranged like a series of graves. The headstones are ‘lichen bearded’ but the poem leaves little room for reverence, especially when the dog ‘cocks/its profanely balletic leg.’ The timing is impeccable, and the mix of humour, darkness and familiarity is intoxicating.

It Was Never About The Kingfisher has just been shortlisted for the International Rubery Award, and it’s easy to see why. Helen Kay is operating at an incredible high level, fully alive to all of life’s possibilities, while being acutely aware of its pitfalls and disappointments too. This collection isn’t one of them.

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May 22, 2025

Green shoots: Review of Late Spring by Innocents Abroad

A lifelong fan of the Byrdsian jangle, as essayed down the years by such esteemed practitioners as Big Star, Cosmic Rough Riders, and most famously REM, I found Late Spring by the Innocents Abroad a welcome treat. Returning from exile, they have amassed a stack of excellent songs and play them with unabashed joy.

It kicks off in fine style with the power pop confection that is King of Luxembourg. Replete with what used to be described as ‘tooth decaying harmonies,’ it’s a genuinely great tune. It also somehow manages to pull off every trick in the book from the spirited count in and litany of girls’ names, to the pining middle eight and rollicking drums.

If that opener is too contrived for some (not for me, I should add), Late Spring settles into its groove with Parramatta Eel, which is a beautifully mature piece of writing. Its major/minor transitions and descending bass lines/ascending vocals leave it poised between celebration and regret. The addictive ‘In my head,’ refrain, got into my head and didn’t leave.

Patience Blackburn is a thumping piece of pop whimsy, with an intriguingly wistful Celtic feel. The drunken choirboy backing vocals have a haunting, playful quality that elevate the song, while the bridge takes it to another, altogether stranger place, before returning to familiar shores.

The most obvious REM homage here is Pelham 1-2-3, but it’s a great one. If it were added to a reissue of Murmur, no one would bat an eyelid (except to be grateful). The vocals have softer feel compared with Michael Stipe’s more abrasive delivery and are certainly more clearly enunciated. The lark ascends with this fabulous tune.

Dandelion Clock continues in a similar vein, which is no bad thing. The verses are laced with a gentle lyricism, steeped in nature, riffing on the passage of time, with plenty of elusive imagery. Perhaps the long play out slightly outstays its welcome.

Childhood memories of playing on the beach at Largs makes The Largs Hum resonate for me, even if that has little to do with its narrative. The lyrics are packed with ominous, elliptical allusions to borderlands and crop failure. Some country-fied harmonica finds its way into the song and adds a rustic commentary to the two guitars/bass/drum formula. The band is at its tightest on this track, totally locked in sync.

Cave Canem makes the most of its devilish riff, and has the faintest hint of REM’s Texarkana before heading into territory of its own. The vocals are reliably excellent again but it’s the ‘storm warning’ vocals/counter melody that takes this into the top tier.

While perhaps slighter than some of the other songs here, Apricot is a tight, superbly produced thing with pads of harmonies, moody arpeggios and harmonies that swoop in like starlings.

Astrud’s House has a slightly hippy-ish air, sweetened by charming backing vocals reminiscent of Natalie Merchant, plus a loopy refrain worthy of Donovan or Cat Stevens: ‘What was meant to be/Has already happened.’

It takes a while to get there, but Late Spring finally finds the Door Into Summer. It’s worth the wait – with the sun-drenched vocals, faint whiff of west country cider and Fairport Convention. The chorus has an ‘echo of a pennywhistle band/and the laughter from a distant caravan.’ It would be a worthy encore at Cropredy and gives some late oomph to the second side of this fine LP.

Mariana II (Late night piano version) with its plaintive keyboard line and beguiling melody, is a 1983 time-capsule. It feels like a great lost Danny Wilson or Spandau song. It’s a simply a lovely way to play out this superb album.

Stunningly played, beautifully sung, and immaculately produced with Victor Hilderbrand, Late Spring is also a masterclass in classic songcraft. It’s a spirited, soulful journey to Athens, Georgia, but via more familiar Lear-like, British landscapes of heaths and moors. While Innocents Abroad wear their influences on their sleeve, they somehow transcend these to plough a furrow all of their own. Let’s hope to hear some of these tunes live soon. Roll on the summer.

Late Spring by Innocents Abroad is available on Bandcamp

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January 11, 2025

A splendid time: Review of Paul McCartney at the O2 London, 19 December 2024

Already, the ‘na nas’ are filling the arena.

It’s still forty minutes until showtime but the audience is in celebratory mode. A DJ is playing a mix of sixties, Fabs and deep-cut Paul tunes.

Filing in, we’re handed a piece of cardboard with a giant red heart printed on one side; the other is black with instructions on how to turn it into a megaphone to bellow the immortal coda to Hey Jude. There’s the air of a children’s party about it all.

The 02, with its Colosseum-like, vertiginous seating is rapidly filling. The grins on people’s faces say it all: the fathers with their sons, the pairs of friends; the young hipster couples eager to capture a cultural moment. Every generation is represented. But mostly people are here to celebrate a life-long love of the Fab Four, and one in particular. The miraculous song machine that is Paul McCartney.

It’s a collective celebration for sure, but there’s also something deeply personal about each our own connections with Paul. For some, RAM and Venus and Mars LPs will be deeply cherished artefacts; they’ll know that the B-side of 1985’s Spies Like Us was ‘My Carnival’ (recorded in New Orleans in the mid-70s). Others will know The Frog Chorus and Let it Be. But Paul has enough songs to keep everyone happy.

Already it’s obvious the sound is going to be fantastic. We hear George’s heavily distorted guitar intro to Revolution, then Paul’s throat-shredding scream, and finally John’s iconic voice. It’s as if The Beatles are playing the 02: a strange and wonderful idea. Delightfully, the DJ also plays Paul’s Smile Away, the joyfully throwaway glam rocker from RAM. There’s also a brilliant reworking of Early Days from Paul’s ‘New’ album, replete with twinkling electronica. I hope this gets released somewhere.

Paul’s team has put together a scrolling pop-up montage of Paul’s career. It’s in the form of a seemingly never-ending skyscraper, peppered with cut-out Pauls against day-glow colours. Most of us have already guessed that when we reach the toppermost, we’ll see John, Paul, George and Ringo playing the roof of the Apple building in January 1969. It’s beautifully done, and also quite moving too. Paul seems to get older as the building grows taller – moving closer to heaven perhaps, and reminding us of Paul’s advanced years – 83 next birthday.

Suddenly, there’s a hubbub somewhere near the front of the arena. A thousand smart phones are trained on someone who’s just arrived in the crowd. The place is full of celebrities, so it could be anyone, but we’re all craning our necks to get a glimpse of this one in particular. There’s a rumour Paul is having a walkabout in the crowd.

But before we know it, we’re off. And there he is: the man who’s been such a luminous part of our lives – and delivered so much joy. He’s in his trademark, collarless, white shirt (a nod to the Beatle’s besuited era) and smart dark suit, and of course, there’s the famous Hofner bass. Undeniably, being in the same room is an emotionally charged moment – it is for me anyway. My brain is going firecrackers – mainly with disbelief and elation.

But it’s straight down to business. The band, well-drilled after 20 years with Paul, launches into a frothy Hard Day’s Night. It’s bright and light on its feet. Best of all, Paul’s vocals are superb – he takes John’s verses in his stride, then hits that incredible high ‘When I’m home…’ section. This bodes well for the rest of the show. I wonder whether it’s a bit of vocal trickery with the backing vocals masking deficiencies, but not a bit of it.

A pair of Wings rockers follow; Junior’s Farm and Letting Go show off the band’s chops and harmonies, although McCartney’s vocals are a little shakier in these mid-range numbers. Curiously, it’s his high-power belting range that seems in best order – which he uses to full effect on Drive My Car and especially on the horn-propelled Got to Get You Into My Life, which gets the huge crowd on its feet.

There’s an amusing moment when the three-piece horn section appears, slightly randomly, on a side balcony. The video screen shows them doing their synchronised moves, and, purely by accident it seems, a sheepish-looking James May is sitting directly in front on them. He’s on screen for enough time for the audience to appreciate his bemused look.

The recent-ish Come On to Me certainly doesn’t disgrace itself in such esteemed company – and Abe’s powerhouse drums and vocals make him Paul’s indispensable second banana tonight – and second best ever drummer. (Joe English, from the 1976 Wings line-up, was probably his third best, with Denny Seiwell, from 1971-1972, a close fourth). This band has been with Paul more than twice as long as The Beatles, but they still sound fresh. Clearly the thrill of playing with a real-life Beatle never palls. There’s also a bit of an end of term vibe tonight, with plenty of smiles, semi-ironic rock star posturing and general larking about.

I have a slight blind spot when it comes to Let Me Roll It – with its stinging guitar riff, played by Paul. To me it feels slightly generic blues, but Paul clearly loves it. It’s featured in almost every tour since the 70s. I think he likes the fact the tough sound belies his cutesy image. He keeps the Gibson on for Getting Better, chopping out its staccato intro riff and it’s another ‘pinch me’ moment. Is this really the man who conceived Sgt Pepper? Yes, it is!

Let ‘Em In and Valentine, don’t make as much of an impression, although a glimpse of Denny with his matching band drum strapped to his chest from the Wings Over America tour recall a lost friend and loyal lieutenant– although Denny doesn’t get a name check tonight (nor Linda), although when we see her in the film clip of the Band on the Run cover session, it’s another moving moment. My Valentine is dedicated to Nancy, who’s here tonight, along with other family.

The set list is mammoth, but it fails to drag. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five, with its barrelling piano and dramatic flourishes, proves its enduring appeal – reawakened perhaps by the thunderous version on One Hand Clapping.

Then comes Maybe I’m Amazed. It’s the jewel in the crown – but a nervous moment for all, given its impossibly high notes. As far back as the 1990 tour, Paul has struggled with it to some extent. But tonight, he absolutely nails it – it’s a soaring majestic thing and Paul sounds incredible. The guitar solo is searingly good too, and of course we get it again for good measure at the end. There are tears. Lots of them.

Next up is a five-song set of acoustic numbers played in a folksy round. Abe comes down from his riser to busk with the others. I’ve Just Seen a Face brings back memories of its place on the 1976 tour in a similar spot and is lovely. In Spite of All the Danger – tonight’s oldest song from the Quarrymen’s first acetate and one of Paul first compositions (a rare co-write with George Harrison!) is another unexpected highlight. It’s ‘ah, ah, ah’ refrain is echoed back to Paul endlessly. It shows the kid had an ear for a tune right from the get-go. Dance Tonight is already sounding like a greatest hit (personally I’d love to see Paul produce a 1989- 2020 compilation, to follow up 1987’s All the Best.’)

Blackbird is prefaced by a lengthy preamble citing the laudable stance The Beatles took in Jacksonville, refusing to play to a white only audience. Eventually the authorities backed down and all were welcomed, making this The Beatles contribution towards ending segregation in the States. Someone whoops at an inappropriate moment, interrupting Paul’s flow. ‘What, are you from Jacksonville or something?’ he asks, possibly slightly annoyed.

Paul is lifted high above the crowd by some pneumatic stage magic, and he plays both Blackbird and the tribute to John, Here Today beautifully, although his voice is most exposed in these moments.

We’re now treated to an unrelenting run of bangers – beginning with a fantastic version of Now and Then, John’s 1977 tune reimaged by Paul, George and Ringo in 1995 and 2024. Peter Jackson’s film plays in the background, and the slide guitar (as Ringo has said) ‘brings the emotion.’ Dutifully we hold up our cardboard hearts and Paul looks genuinely moved.

Lady Madonna is played slower than usual and is all the more powerful for that. A montage of female role models flashes up – from Mother Theresa to Greta Thunberg. Jet is gobsmackingly good – it’s truly jet propelled tonight and Paul again delivers a superb, age-defying vocal. Being for the Benefit of Mt Kite is remarkable, principally to see Paul causally deliver its incredible bassline, while singing John’s dizzying lyrics.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da is a joyous sing along – perhaps reminding some audience members of the last scenes in the Richard Curtis film Yesterday. What struck me tonight is how robust these songs are – so brilliantly constructed and composed, they are almost tangible things.

Wonderful Christmas time, while very far from my favourite McCartney tune, nonetheless brings a treacly dose of festive joy, especially with a superb children’s choir and artificial snow dumped on the centre rows.

Then comes the first of several truly heart-stopping moments. Paul tells the story of his lost original Hamberg Hofner bass guitar, only recently discovered in an attic and returned to him. He straps it on for its first public performance in over 50 years. As if that isn’t enough, on comes Ronnie Wood to help him out. It’s a fantastic, galloping version – and of course we all have in our heads that unforgettable scene from the Get Back documentary when we saw the song being hammered into life on Paul’s bass (while George yawned!)

We’re in something approaching delirium now, but in fact, we’ve barely begun. Let it Be prompts a twinkling constellation of phone lights and features a brilliantly played Leslie-soaked guitar solo. To me, Live and Let Die feels over familiar, but it’s clearly obligatory and is enlivened by a mistimed explosion that makes Paul smile. The pyrotechnics seemed overdone for an indoor venue however, and Paul is seen ringing his ears afterwards. Is it possible for it to be too over the top? Perhaps.

Hey Jude brings that unique collective joy that only it can bring – perhaps even more so, following last summer’s Jude Bellingham-dominated Euros. The ‘Na Na Horns’ come out in force and it’s very fun and a bit silly. Soggy cardboard is returned to seats.

But Paul has saved the best to last. I’ve Got a Feeling is announced, and Paul explains how much he loves this moment as it ‘means I gets to sing with John again.’ Sure enough, Get Back-era John appears on the rooftop and magically, John and Paul duet, assisted by Peter Jackson’s AI wizardry. It’s a strangely beautifully moment hearing and seeing the 29-year-old John sing with 82-year-old Paul – and yet they still feels like brothers.

Now comes the impossible dream. Almost casually, Paul welcomes Ringo to the stage. There’s blow-the-roof-off jubilation. The two Beatles embrace. Instantly, we realise what was causing the hysteria in the seats before the show began. But Ringo seems non-plussed. ‘Great show, Paul,’ he tells him, in his trade mark deadpan tones, but seems genuinely impressed. (‘Get on your kit, our kid,’ Paul jokes in response). Abe continues to drum alongside him, perhaps to take the pressure off Ringo, but Mr Starkey seems as relaxed and youthful as ever as Sgt Pepper (Reprise) begins, and we hear that delightful swing again. Helter Skelter – perhaps the first time Ringo’s played on it since 1968 – is blisteringly good – an all-out heavy metal thrash. Again, Paul’s vocals are outstanding. At the end, Ringo approaches the mike to say goodbye – but misses a golden opportunity to scream: ‘I got blisters on my fingers!’ We forgive him.

We’re now vaguely aware that we’re part of history. In 1976 the Beatles were offered £30 million to reform. But tonight, somehow, it feels like we’ve that reunion. This has felt more like a Beatles celebration than any other Paul show I’ve seen. He’s finally reconciled with his past. But he won’t let us go just yet. We’re treated to his magnus opus: the glorious medley from the end of Abbey Road, ending with the epic guitar solo marathon of The End, the drum solo, played by Abe (and quality checked, no doubt, by its creator). Then there are immortal words: ‘The love you take is equal to the love you make.’ It feels almost as indelible as the Hallelujah chorus.

But the dream is over. Paul has triumphed. We join the queue for the Jubilee Line feeling slightly stunned, as if we’ve been part of something miraculous. We have.

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November 10, 2024

Guitars and stripes

Review of Paper Tigers, by State of the Union

Brooks Williams and Boo Hewerdine, the guitar-toting troubadours behind State of the Union, are masters of melodic mischief. They write like dreamers, sing like angels and play like demons. Their new album, Paper Tigers, is a yet more proof of their prodigious talents and is a songwriting masterclass.

I had the good fortune to catch them at The Portland Arms in Cambridge back in the summer when they were headlining a one-off show ahead of the Ely Folk Festival. Even in those early, sometimes charmingly ramshackle renditions, the new songs gleamed like a magpie’s stolen silver. This tantalising preview only made the wait for Paper Tigers, their toothsome fourth outing, all the more painful. From the cheeky instrumental ‘Taste of the Onion’ (a delicious spoonerism of ‘State of the Union’) to the lilting title track, this is surely a contender for album of the year.

As with their previous albums, these songs appear to have fallen through some crack in the space/time continuum. They have more in common with the popular songs of the nineteen twenties and thirties than 2024. ‘Why Does the Nightingale Sing?’ is a heart-meltingly gorgeous piece of song writing that Nat King Cole would have snaffled as a follow up to Unforgettable (which they covered on their third LP). It appeared in lockdown as a single, hinting at the album’s long gestation. Its haunting cadences were a welcome balm in those troubled times.

Jonesin’ Over You is a deceptive opener – a lovesick lament delivered with typical State of the Union sleight of hand: downbeat lyrics to a cheerful sounding melody. But before the first line’s delivered, it’s clear we’re in the hands of masters; the changes and harmonies are dizzyingly clever, and the rhyming is daring: ‘It’s the worst it’s ever been/All that booze and nicotine…’ There’s nothing trite or hackneyed here. Even at their most forlorn, there’s an undercurrent of humour that never feels far from the surface.

The album is a tombola of love songs, laments and Pythonesque flights of fancy. Saint-Louis Du-Ha! Ha! is one such piece of whimsy – Big Rock Candy Mountain meets the Stepford Wives. Ostensibly it’s about a semi-mythical town in America where the people grin all day. ‘Nobody’s blue in Saint-Louis Du-Ha! Ha!/The law says you are merry all the while/The cops are always glad/No one’s ever sad…’ It continues in this rich vein and doesn’t run out of steam. The pace rarely rising above a bluesy shuffle, but the changes, harmonies and thumb picked basslines are as infectious as the measles.

The writing’s smart, original and economical. They seize on odd words and phrases, which become catalysts for songs. Horsefeathers, with its duelling guitar intro, is a sly dig at the cheats and liars, with horsefeathers a euphemism for horsesh*t (or nonsense). It’s also the title of a 1932 Marx Brothers film, which feels like the song’s contemporary. ‘I’m so tired of all your schemes/Nothing’s ever as it seems…’ Brooks and Boo trade lines and licks throughout, making it a conversation piece – and the madcap rhymes makes it all the more fun.

An honourable mention goes to Butterfly Wings, which takes flight with a timeless melody, and harmonies worthy of the Everly Brothers which send it to the stars. If only Don and Phil had heard it; they would have recorded it in a trice. (By the way, seek out their cover of Paul McCartney’s ‘On the Wings of a Nightingale’, which he wrote for them – it’s also brilliant). I also have a soft spot for the Hesitation Waltz – another wistful melody set to a stately rhythm, and an amusing counterpoint to the Hesitation Blues, which Brooks likes to cover.

On the subject of McCartney, (who would surely approve of this tuneful collection) perhaps Paper Tiger’s only misstep is the cover of Lonesome Town. McCartney’s own rendition, delivered an octave higher on his Run Devil Run album as a tribute to his late wife, is superior.

That’s All Folks is perhaps the album’s standout: an hilariously deadpan goodbye note to a lover. Boo wonders how he’s going to break it to her. The answer comes in the form of a Loony Tunes-style send-off: ‘That’s all folks, that’s all you get/Goodnight Vienna and with regret…’ Of course it’s all delivered with clipped aplomb and the comic timing is impeccable.

‘If I Was Your Guardian Angel’ is the low key closer: part prayer, part love song. If I was your Guardian Angel/I’d watch over you as you dream…’ sings Boo persuasively. It’s a brilliant conceit and as sweet as it’s brief.

I’m treasuring my signed and numbered CD, with its vibrant cover art. While I usually go jogging on these dark nights listening to The Pixies and The Cure, I find myself repeatedly drawn to State of the Union’s compulsive tunes; they’re the folksongs of friendly ghosts.

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May 2, 2024

Astonishing dreams

Review of The Adjustments by Claire Dyer (Two Rivers Press)

There are many ways to tackle a new poetry collection, especially one as richly filled and intricately layered as The Adjustments, by Claire Dyer, a prodigiously gifted poet. One way is to swoop on it like a magpie, stealing away with pairs of gleaming couplets or vivid images, and there are plenty of these to be had:

Still winter and three daisies have appeared/

like unexpected guests on the lawn

This striking opening to Non Sequitur shows the poet’s keen eye for detail, seeing an otherness in nature; it evokes a silence, sense of expectation and even a slight sense of menace.

The same poem gives us this astonishing line:

That was when I still believed

in snowflakes, love and fairy tales.

As the poem’s title suggests, linear sense is not always the first consideration. Like thoughts, dreams, and life itself, our minds – and this collection – succumb to distractions and diversions.

Another way in is to listen to the poems; even feel them, before fully absorbing their sense. Lines like: ‘the gunfire of acorns dropping’ and ‘this summer of hairdryer heat’ have a relatable immediacy that requires little interpretation.

The most obvious (although not always the best) route however, is is to jump in at page one. The stylish, sexy, opener, The Last of Them Takes All Night to Arrive is a daytime fantasy; an unexpected assignation with a cowboy – seemingly a whole night late for a party, who arrives ‘around six next morning.’ It’s full of authentic detail, and alluring Americana. The cowboy in his ‘jeans, check shirt,/cowboy boots’ has his ‘feet up on the dash.’ It would have the faint whiff of a Diet Coke ad if it wasn’t for the carefully constructed atmosphere – which is playfully erotic, and the masterful effects:

There is a rodeo of birdsong

and his engine ticks as it cools.

This is a man who takes his time. The first thing he does is sleep for four hours: ‘He gets out at ten and she lets him in.’ It’s full of double entendre, but its sensuous close in their parting kiss is delicious: ‘his lips soft/like velvet, eyes shining like the sun.’

There are wonderful connections and enjambments throughout this collection – often between poems as well as within them; images of birds, gardens, homes, water and flowers recur, almost in a pattern across the book, although always with a different sense and nuance. Images evoked in one poem, float into others and take on new meanings.

At the heart of the collection are poems of grief and loss. A sequence about the poet’s late father and his own long goodbye has a powerful cumulative effect, but the individual poems strike home too.

My Father Thinks of His Father As He Lies Dying (the title alone is heart breaking) begins from the point of view of a sparrow outside the window, looking in at the daughter at her father’s side: ‘both slowly dying’ (we’re all heading in the same direction) but ‘Dad is nearer his end/than I am mine.’ Look at the skillful line ending here – typical of Claire’s deft touch. The poet allows us into her most intimate thoughts – contemplating the fragility of life (like the sparrow, and the father, we’re all on the edge of vanishing) while time starts to collapse in on her father, who says his own father ‘should be getting in from work/sometime soon’. And yet there’s hope, and the possibility of renewal too, as the poem ends with a lyrical flourish:

The sparrow lifting/

into this spring sky – skitter of feathers, promise of song.

There is an experimental spirit at play in this collection – there are versions and mirrors of several poems, as if they refuse to be fixed to the page. One sequence I enjoyed in particular was The Woman Who Became a Field (I, II and III) which are mischievously arranged out of order and hidden like four leaf clovers throughout the book.

In the first of these (and the last to appear) there is a beautiful sense of the woman becoming part of (or returning to) nature giving herself completely to the landscape: ‘…she spreads herself thin under a paperwhite sky – under the red kites’ cries’. The internal rhyme, deeply felt connection and sensory openness distinguishes these are some of the finest nature writing I’ve read this year. Watch as:

…she reaches out a hand to gather

the day’s heat from the dry stones of the wall.

There’s a powerful sense of transformation at work – both in the people and the language of these poems, articulated in the second poem of this sequence: ‘because now, the late sun’s colours have made her something other.’

Claire is also blessed with a lively wit, tempering the more sober moments. Some poems I simply enjoyed for their accomplished, brilliantly vivid execution: The Frog Collectors is a childhood memory of collecting frogs ‘from the neighbourhood drains’. Claire is at her best evoking a scene with a handful of well chosen words:

Playing out after tea – soil as dry as face powder,

leaves the colour of limes – we collected frogs

The creatures themselves are garishly depicted, with the exaggerated fascination of child, but with the precision language of the adult poet; they have ‘seersucker skin’ and ‘onyx eyes’. There is a wonderful moment when, last thing at night, the child plants ‘a kiss/to each fragile, marbled head’ – with hopes perhaps of awaking the prince. Instead, she wakes to:

…catastrophe, all frog promises broken; footprints

the size of fingernails already drying on the concrete floor

A companion piece is Angel Delight – another instantly recognisable snapshot (or taste) of childhood, where the poet looks back and sees herself ‘at the end of the hopscotch drive’ waiting for ‘Clive Washbourne to arrive – and he appears, mock heroically, very much like the cowboy in the first poem:

Here he is: blaze of yellow tank top

yellow bike

These images, in Polaroid colour, bring her childhood ‘surging back/like butterscotch on her tongue.’ Look at the brilliant echo of ‘hopscotch’ and ‘butterscotch’ at the beginning and end of the poem, framing the poem – and suggesting how our brains trigger these electrically vivid memories:

There’s so much to savour and enjoy in The Adjustments, from the broad humour of The day I went swimming with Theresa May, to the luminous magic of Flare, about a 91-year-old’s return to the sea. But the real power of these poems is in their poise and grace, and in the dazzling interplay between them. It’s a collection as unexpectedly moving, disturbing and hopeful as our own thoughts and inner lives.

The Adjustments is available from Two Rivers Press (£11.99)

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October 30, 2023

Now and Then: A potted history of the Beatles’ final songs

As Beatlemania once again reaches fever pitch with the release of Now and Then, the Beatles’ final song together, Chris James looks at the numerous contenders for the Fab Four’s last hurrah.

The End, as we know now, wasn’t the end.

In fact, it wasn’t even the last track on the last record from the Beatles in the 60s: Abbey Road. That honour went to Paul’s throwaway ditty ‘Her Majesty’, which in fact he did throw away before it was rescued from the cutting room floor by a tape operator called John Kurlander, understandably jittery about binning anything by the Fab Four.

Yet Her Majesty wasn’t the final word. Far from it.

Let it Be, with its funereal black cover, was released after Abbey Road in 1970, (although recorded before) meaning there was a whole LP of final songs beyond The End.

The final song on the Let it Be album was Get Back, an unadorned, fresh-sounding rocker (complete with terrific guitar solo from John) bringing the Beatles back full circle to their rock and roll roots. A fitting finale, you might think. Except it wasn’t to be. The actual last song they worked on together (or at least George, Ringo and Paul) was I Me Mine, which needed tidying up before adding to the LP.

The 1970s

Then along came the Hey Jude compilation album later in 1970, a ragtag collection of odds, sods and pearls, pulling together A-sides, B-sides and besides, that had somehow slipped through the clutches of record executives, too busy to notice while fileting perfectly good albums to make less good ones. In their excitement they’d forgotten to swipe these. Making up for lost time, they put this enjoyable but slightly nonsensical compilation together.

The Hey Jude LP ended not with the iconic refrain of its title track, but with the sprightly Ballad of John and Yoko. A breezily busked diary song, it was recorded between Let it Be and Abbey Road and distinguished in that it featured only John and Paul. It gallops along to Paul’s spirited and really rather fine drumming (don’t tell Ringo!) while John noodles with obvious glee, let loose once again on lead guitar.

Again, what a beautiful way to end things: John and Paul, the original partnership, rocking it up for one last hurrah. Then it really was over. Paul fell out with everyone. Lawyers were instructed. Insults (and bricks) were hurled.

John and George formed the next incarnation of ‘The Two-tles’ in 1971 for Lennon’s Imagine album. Like schoolboys smoking behind the bike shed, they collaborated on John’s rather mean-spirited dig at Paul: ‘How Do You Sleep?’ It’s a great sounding track with some career-best playing from George, and an emphatic bass part from Beatles’ alumni Klaus Voormann, but it makes for uneasy listening. John later tried to reinterpret what he meant in the song, but he didn’t sound convincing.

All four Beatles then reunited, after a fashion, to rally behind Ringo on his eponymous 1973 LP. Above-par songs like I’m the Greatest from John, Six O’Clock from Paul and the superb Photograph co-written with George meant that fans could enjoy all the talents once again on one piece of plastic if not on the same song. These too, were all final songs of sorts.

Another contender is the Long and Winding Road. Most would agree this sounds exactly what a Beatles final song should be: a rueful, elegiac look back at their shared history. It finally got its chance to be the final song as the final track on the Beatles’ ‘Blue’ compilation album, also issued in 1973.

Then, for a few years, things went quiet. Then got incredibly loud.

Live at Hollywood Bowl, recorded in 1964-5, but not released until 1977 is essentially an album’s worth of screaming with some songs indistinctly heard in the background. The unresolved seventh chord and Paul’s last shriek on Long Tall Sally then, was the final curtain. It was how they’d often finish their live sets, and so again, with nothing more to give, it was a suitably exuberant, and fitting way to bow out. You can see them now, taking their polite bow while the fans tore the seats from beneath themselves.

Cut to Eric Clapton’s garden on May 19^th, 1979. Celebrating the guitarist’s marriage to Pattie Boyd (yes, George’s ex-wife and the same muse who inspired both Something and Layla) George, Paul and Ringo found themselves part of an impromptu, allegedly drunken, Beatles reunion, missing only John. They stumbled through Get Back and Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, before finishing with a pub band bash at Lawdy Miss Crawdy. It was an ignominious note, and poor final song, to end things on.

The 1980s

The senselessness of John’s murder in December 1980 prompted the unthinkable: all three remaining Beatles finally reunited (and sober) on record for George’s tribute to John: All Those Years Ago. It was pleasant enough, but perhaps not the final word people were looking for. For this reason, perhaps that’s why George recorded the superior When We Was Fab (with Ringo on drums) for his masterful 1987 Cloud 9 album.

But with John gone, so too went the prospect of a genuine reunion and new songs. (Paul had already been admonished by John for turning up unannounced at his New York apartment with a guitar, perhaps hoping to rekindle the magic).

So long then, Beatles. Except there were still more final songs to come. Lots more.

The 1990s

The 90s ushered in the Anthology series: three double albums’ worth of giggly outtakes of classic songs, alongside some genuine gold, like McCartney’s demo of Come and Get It, as well as take-it-or-leave-it numbers like the lacklustre If You’ve Got Troubles or the dipsy What’s the New Mary Jane. More last Beatles songs.

Sensing the need to step in and stop this final song madness, re-enter George Martin, their peerless original producer. He declared, once and for all, that there was nothing left in the barrel to scrape.

But hold on! Alongside this alternative history of The Beatles, we were treated to some sparkly ‘new’ recordings: Free as a Bird and Real Love. Lovingly rebuilt around some wobbly song-writing demo tapes John recorded in the 1970s, gifted by Yoko to McCartney), these were transmogrified into bright, tuneful records with cavernous drums, sunshine harmonies and searing slide guitars from George. They didn’t sound like the records the Beatles made in the 60s. For one thing, George didn’t really play slide guitar in the 60s. (The lovely Hawaiian flavoured slide on For You Blue was played by John).

Instead, they sounded like records the Beatles might have made if they’d followed the long and winding road into the 90s and chosen ELO supremo Jeff Lynne as their producer. As the mastermind behind Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and George Harrison’s late eighties career revivals (and great pal of George) Jeff was the right man in the right place with the right sunglasses. And he played a blinder.

The 2000s

But no sooner than the ghosts had been laid to rest, when the news came in 2003 that the Let it Be LP was being ‘de-Spectorised’ and reissued as Let It Be Naked; this time, without the orchestral treacle and uninvited choir of angels added in 1970 without Paul’s consent.

The new version certainly had a raw quality missing from the original, returning it to the spirit of the ‘live only/no overdubs’ promise they’d made at the start of the project. They also reinstated a criminal omission from Let it Be: John’s Don’t Let Me Down, while quietly shoving also-rans Dig It and Maggie Mae off the end of the bench. But what about the final song?

This time, they went for the hymn-like ‘Let it Be’ as the final dignified statement. A comforting reconciliation with friendly ghosts, a coming to terms with the past, it was a healing song of hope and remembrance and the perfect note to end things on.

But as we well know by now, no final song by the Beatles stays final for long. The Let it Be album was transformed again, this time, by Peter Jackson’s magisterial Get Back docuseries. It charmed and astonished us at every turn, and showed that the Beatles didn’t fight all the time in 1969, just some of the time.

The series ended of course, with the inspired rooftop performance, ending on their third run at Get Back. (They practiced that one a lot as anyone who’s watched all 468 minutes will testify). Considering that their hands were freezing on that cold January day in West London, the performances are miraculously tight and soulful.

John’s pronounced: ‘I’d like to thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition.’ It was the perfect, ironical, good-humoured way to bow out. Or might have been.

The 2020s

Fast forward to June 2023. While chatting amiably to Martha Kearney on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Paul casually drops in that he’s been working on a demo from John, and had been using some new technology to clean it up. It had the unmistakable whiff of another final song.

Rewind to 1994-5

The origins were a second tape handed by Yoko to Paul that year, and actually inscribed by John: ‘For Paul’. It contained the song Grow Old With Me (another beautiful tune, but already issued posthumously on John’s 1984 Milk and Honey LP. Putting this final song to one side, and after completing fellow final songs Free as a Bird and Real Love, the Threetles turned their attentions to the new final song: Now and Then.

Slated to open the third of the Anthology compilations, it was shelved after only an afternoon’s work in 1995. Unimpressed by the quality of the demo, hampered by an obstinate ‘mains hum’ that couldn’t be separated from Lennon’s vocals, George Harrison threw in the towel, declaring the demo ‘F*&cking rubbish’. Not even Jeff Lynne had a magic wand powerful enough to take a bad demo and make it better.

Instead, for the new final song on the last Anthology compilation, they added: ‘A Beginning,’ (see what they did there?) a pleasant but ultimately surplus-to-requirements orchestral excursion from George Martin, which originally pre-ambled Ringo’s Don’t Pass Me By from the White Album.

And so that was that. Except, of course, it wasn’t.

Back to the 2000s

Cue the ecstatic chime of the chord of the century that opens: ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ (The Beatles were very good at opening and closing songs). Love was a show and album from 2006: a dizzying, playful reimagining of The Beatles legacy assembled by Giles Martin, who had inherited all of his father’s taste, talent and charm. Accompanying the Cirque du Soleil spectacular of the same name, this was as good as a Beatles album should be. But what about the final song?

This time they went for ‘All You Need is Love as the final unifying anthem: a manifesto statement: Love is all you need. There it was then. The real final song had been there all the time, quietly waiting its turn. As if to underline the point, there was a mischievous little send-off from John spliced in at the end: ‘This is Johnny Rhythm just saying good night to yous all and God bless yous!’

But the Beatles being the Beatles, would insist on a last coda.

Join us back in 2023

Paul made no secret over the years of his intention to complete Now and Then; to: ‘finish it off one of these days.’ And that’s what he and Ringo did, albeit with the full blessing of Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, helped by the magic ears and knob twiddling of Giles Martin, who’s done so much to restore the Beatles’ recordings to their full glory, updating some of the earlier, more eccentric mixes.

But why has Paul felt the need to open Pandora’s box once again? Surely not for the money or to give the reissued and expanded Red and Blue compilations a sales boost. But perhaps because it was so intensely personal. After all, John’s final words to him in person were: ‘Think about me every now and then, old friend.’ This was Paul fulfilling a promise to a dear friend.

Thanks to sound source separation technology (the magic wand Jeff didn’t have in 1995) they’ve finally been able to clean up the tape John left behind for Paul.

Giles has brought his own considerable powers to the party, along with the magic cauldron of the Beatles’ own recordings. With harmonies borrowed from Because, Eleanor Rigby and Here There and Everywhere for the new recording, there’s a tantalizing prospect in store.

Add to John’s still potent writing powers from 1979, Paul’s unmatched musical invention, Ringo’s inimitable drumming and there’s only one man missing: George. Crucially they’ve made full use of that afternoon’s work he put in during the nineties.

The Beatles have had more final songs than number ones. And they’ve had plenty of those: 20 in all. And they’re deserving of another. But maybe this really is the final word.

Christopher James is an author, collage artist, and poet. He won the 2008 National Poetry Competition. His latest poetry pamphlet is The Storm in the Piano (Maytree Press, 2022)

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June 9, 2023

Uncaged birds trying their wings

Review of Love Leans over the Table, by Rosie Jackson (Two Rivers Press)

Where to begin with this luminous collection from Rosie Jackson? Perhaps with The Boisterous Sobbings of Margery Kempe, which I had the privilege to hear the poet read at the National Poetry Competition prize giving this year. Of all the winning poems, this was perhaps the most arresting; an intense, tour de force that depicts a woman (and mother of fourteen) who has given everything – to faith, to her children and to the world:

If she doesn’t sleep, it’s because God circles

Her quarried pelvis like a buzzard.

She’s burdened with ‘the weight of love’ as if she is carrying all of the world’s belief and devotion. The flood of images and metaphors is almost overwhelming; there are no stanzas; no let up, and it has a breathless depth and density. It’s almost a book in itself. In fact, Rosie revealed at her reading, the poem began as a novel, and the subsequent compression gives the poem a diamond like quality: a forest, crushed into a single gem.

The Woman Who Lives At the Back of the Quaker Meeting House, another vivid pen-portrait, is the spare antithesis to this. The language and form here is sparse, mirroring the woman herself. She ‘crops her hair like spikes on a scrubbing brush.’ The poet admires, perhaps envies her contented, ascetic life, as she:

sits in her doorway to sew a quilt as white

and green as a fields of daisies, does not eat

much; does not fear the company of the dead,

Spends her days uprooting weeds in the graveyard.

She has something money can’t buy – peace. She doesn’t seem to suffer Margaret’s weight of expectation and feeling. The couplets allow space and light through the poem.

Faith, and the poet’s relationship with it (bound up with early revolt her parents’ religious zealousness) is one of the most compelling themes of the book.

Letter to Nietzsche, is a coming-to-terms with her early rejection of God. Where once she made her own god of the man who declared: ‘God is dead,’ she now sees him for the person he was; mortal, uncertain and afraid like the rest of us:

I learned for the first time how very ill

you were: migraines, despair, dementia.

While he made arguments for the darkness of atheism over the light of faith, the very act of denial seems to have crushed him mentally and physically.

The poet speaks movingly of her own journey of self-discovery and realisation. Like so much of this book, there’s beauty, regret and acute self-awareness here:

What a long time it can take to wake up.

I missed fifty years of cherry blossom.

Mocking their faith broke my parents’ hearts.

The ability to see things from all sides (hard learned from time and experience) make these poems empathetic epiphanies. There’s a sort of peace in these meditations that translates to the reader; it gives the collection an astonishingly honest, intimate, and at times, cathartic quality. These are narratives overheard from the confession box; secular prayers of self-realisation.

It’s impossible to give a full sense of the variety and colour of this book in a short review except in glimpses. But be assured, there are few weeds among these wildflowers. Wayside is a vivid memory of childhood:

‘Walking for hours along disused railway

Tracks with my book, my bag of apples,

Striding over black sleepers…’

We can instantly relate to the solitary reverie; the bookish, observant child, already alive to nature, language and the mystery of other people’s lives. There are intimations of the tribulations of life to come: the child marvels at the ‘willow herbs that sprouted/down the edge of cinder tracks’ and reveals: ‘I loved how they took their chance,/how coal dust couldn’t stop them.’ There’s a parallel with the life spirit of the child herself – already resilient and wary of the thousand things that sully our days.

There are laments and sorrows in this book, too, but tempered with love and the consolation of beauty and the prospect of salvation.

John Donne Dreams His Still-Born Son Lives is one of my favourite poems in Rosie’s marvelous book. It’s simultaneously a lament and a resurrection, and spoken in Donne’s voice. He conjures his lost son back into life with exacting detail:

Like all children, you break things – teeth, bones,

Your mother’s heart.

But he goes far beyond this. The fantasy traces another version of reality, where the boy lives. All the senses are at play which makes this dream all the more vivid: the boy likes ‘swimming in icy water’ and when he speaks, Donne can ‘hear my own warm vowels.’ But the vision is temporal, fleeting – as fragile as life itself: ‘Many times in dreams I lose sight of you.’

The poem speaks beyond the poem – to anyone who has loved and lost – or perhaps never had the chance. The heartbreak is made all the more intense by the fact Donne never knew the child at all; he is entirely a creation of Donne’s imagination, necessarily coloured by impressions of himself (you have my long-fingered hands.’) There’s also an amusing, unconscious revealing of Donne’s ego: ‘I fancy your footsteps sound on bare boards/where you tread back and forth, reciting poems.’

But the pay-off is brutal: ‘You’d make a good thief. As you did when you stole/your mother from me.’ But love forgives everything – revealing that his devotion to God pales against the love he has for his lost wife and son.

The poem has all the tenderness and heartbreak of Ben Johnson’s On My First Son (Farewell my child of my right hand and joy/My sin was too much hope of these, lov’d boy.’) But the poem is utterly original and as much a testament to Rosie’s powers of imagination as Donne’s; a magical act of poetic ventriloquism.

This is a truly an exceptional collection; Rosie Jackson is in full control of her language, tone and form. A lifetime’s experience is found within these pages, and it’s matched by a lifetime’s honing of her craft. The poems are so skilfully woven from memory and imagination that the stitches are invisible.

As with all poets, there is perhaps a nervousness giving these poems to the world. But these poems now live lives of their own. To borrow one of Rosie’s own astonishing lines, they are ‘uncaged birds trying their wings.’

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June 17, 2022

Should we be chasing the perfect poem?

I sometimes think of writing as a kind of chase.

Even the written line – especially if it’s handwritten – looks like a dash across the page, as if in a hurry to catch something or be somewhere.

We’re chasing a thought, an idea, or perhaps the mot juste. It could be a phrase, or just sense of something that’s tantalisingly out of reach.

It’s as if you’ve spotted someone ahead you faintly recognise. You try and catch up, yet fail to close the distance. Perhaps this person has something for you; the thing you’ve been searching for.

I often find myself chasing the perfect poem. And at the same time, puzzling over what that might be, or whether I should be chasing it all. Is it a foolish – even infantile notion? Or somehow vital to becoming a better poet?

Invariably, I’ll recognise within a line or two, that it’s not the perfect poem – but press on, in the hope it’s still worth persisting with. We accept a sort of compromise; a certain lowering of expectations, that it’s not our Bridport winning entry but not hack work either.

Often we’ll enter some sort of delusional pact with ourselves. We’ll mute our reader-self, and allow the writer to press ahead, even if if we know it’s pedestrian work. We’ll have the good grace to let them have a go at least.

We know in ourselves we can make it better through revision. By unpacking our tools and chipping away, we work until it passes that invisible threshold of ‘muster’ that makes it a keeper; until it resembles something that cuts our own personal mustard.

Sometimes we won’t go for perfection. Imagine an architect biting on her Ryvita, making sketches for a multi-storey car park. She knows in advance it’s not going to be the Taj Mahal. But at the top of her game, she still might still stumble on a sort of perfect car park. But she’s already adjusted her ambitions before setting off. But at home, that night, she might pour herself a drink, pick up clean sheet of paper and a 2H pencil and start sketching the graceful arcs of a concert hall. In that moment, she’s reaching for something greater. She’s chasing a sort of perfection.

Of course, the idea of perfection in art has been almost universally rubbished (you’ll remember the scene in Dead Poet’s Society when Robin Williams ridicules Mr J. Evans Pritchard PHD’s graph of greatness, as if a perfect poem can be reduced to a mathematical equation: ‘A sonnet by Byron might score high on the vertical but only average on the horizontal…’

‘Excrement. That’s what I think of Mr. J. Evans Pritchard. We’re not laying pipe. We’re talking about poetry. ‘Oh, I like Byron. I give him a 42, but I can’t dance to it…’

The implication is that magic; verve; spirit – whatever you want to call it – a certain visionary quality is what makes the difference, not syllable counting or benchmarking against stated objectives.

Having gained popularity in the 18^th century, the concept of perfection in art lost ground in the 19^th before finally being scrunched up and tossed out of the window by French poet Alfred de Musset who declared: ‘Perfection is no more attainable for us than is infinity.’ But was this a case of sour grapes? Perhaps he realised perfection simply wasn’t within his grasp. Rimbaud dismissed de Musset, saying he ‘closed his eyes before the vision.’ Rimbaud’s implication is that we need to make ourselves receptive to a higher state – like Coleridge downloading Khubla Khan from the muse, channeling his visions of Xanadu.

Today, more pedestrian concepts of technical skill, emotional resonance, and originality persist as barometers of excellence. Yet the idea of a poem’s perfection persists on a subconscious level at least for anyone with a good idea and a word processor.

I once had a dream of holding three or four pages of poems that I’d written. All the poems were quite short – none much longer than a sonnet. I remember my sense of sheer delight with them; they had a luminosity to them. Each had a sort of perfection.

I remember the feeling that they had a sort of lightness, detail and delicacy that set them apart from anything else I’d written. A sort of precious quality. I remember a sense of completeness, as if the chase was over – as if I’d caught up with that person and found – or even retrieved – what I’d been looking for. It was a feeling of relief.

Except I hadn’t written them. None of them existed and I couldn’t remember a word when I woke up. Only the shape and the sense of them. The chase wasn’t over. In fact it had only made the longing more acute. Having glimpsed this perfection, but with complete amnesia as to the words themselves, I was no closer to finding it. One might attribute this psychological ‘chase’ to a creative impulse – the desire to make; the Victorian urge to pile red brick on red brick. An evolutionary trick to keep you working. Keep you trying.

We all have our own ideas of perfection. I think Keith Douglas is close with How to Kill; surely Byron was near to getting Robin Williams to dance with Ozymandias. Both of these poems are touched by a curious magic; each line fits in the memory as perfectly as a sea-smoothed stone sits in the palm of your hand. Sifting through my own work I can see where I’ve achieved what I’ve set out to do – and then somehow gone beyond. And it’s only in these moments of creative liberation, where I’ve taken my hands off the handlebars (and somehow managed not to veer off the path) that I’ve somehow reached somewhere beyond, and transcended my own powers.

Sometimes we’ll have the start of what looks like it could be the perfect poem. Often this is a brilliantly strong idea or first line so good it’s as if its got its own energy source. It’s demanding to be developed, extended and explored. It would be a crime not to do something with it.

You can imagine, Wordsworth when he hit upon: ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud…’ I wonder whether at once he felt his pulse quicken; whether he called Dorothy in from the next room to check he hadn’t pinched it (perhaps she was too loyal to point out it sounded remarkably like a line from her own journal). This might be described as his ‘Yesterday moment’ – when Paul McCartney opened his eyes with that indelible melody in his head.

Wordsworth might have felt a responsibility towards that line – a duty to develop it. The same with Keats’ Ode to Autumn. The bar is set high from the outset. The opening line is a gift to set the poem’s heart beating, but how to sustain that sort of quality? Immediately the poet moves from inspiration to perspiration. The pressure’s on to make the poem as brilliant as the opening line. There’s a risk of trying too hard – or even trying to compete with yourself; ‘the ‘other poet’ – ‘the better poet in you’ – who came up with that line.

I think that’s why I think we should seek out the great poets’ second best poems. Don’t go for Howl; try Ginsberg’s A Supermarket in California instead.

‘Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?’

The pressure’s off here. It’s 1956. He’s on incredible form, but he’s writing what he wants. He’s not having to follow up an opening line of genius like: ‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…’ Instead he’s in the flow state; he’s ‘opened his eyes to the vision’ in Rimbaud’s phrase.

I wonder whether Ginsberg had a moment of self-doubt afterwards, staring at the words on the page; was it little more than an inspired diary entry? It’s imperfections; its sprawl; the stacks of adjectives piled like tins on the shelf, are what make it perfect.

Is it useful to frame writing poetry in this way? To think of it as a Chaplin-esque chase through a crowded city street? Or The Wile. E. Coyote’s futile pursuit of the Road Runner through the canyons with armfuls of TNT?

Whether it is or not, the chase adds a sort of urgency to our writing life; a persistent, questing quality. Even if we never find that perfect poem (read it or write it) the chase spurs us on. Writing is often characterised as a struggle, perhaps even a noble one. And lest we forget, poets are ultimately lost causes. Whatever it is we’re looking for, we can’t help but keep chasing it.

For those too impatient to find out what happens at the end of the chase, let’s seek answers from Kaveh Akbar’s, The Perfect Poem

The perfect poem knows
where it went.

The perfect poem is no bigger
than a bear…

…The perfect poem is light as dust
on a bat’s wing, lonely as a single flea.

Christopher James’ new pamphlet: The Storm in the Piano (Maytree Press), including four first prize winning poems, and three second prize winning poems, is published on 17 June 2022. Signed copies available from the author.

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