Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Happy Birthday, Sir Paul

This post was written yesterday–June 18, 2012–but posted today.
YESTERDAY was Paul McCartney's 70th birthday.
Paul has given enough to this world to make God jealous. However, he never could have done it without John, George & Ringo but you already knew that. McCartney has given enough to this world and continues to do so!
And once upon a time, they said "Paul is dead!"
His 70th birthday inspired Time.com to post an excerpt from an upcoming book entitled Paul McCartney: The Legend Rocks On. Coincidentally, this book was written by TIME MAGAZINE staffers.
I hereby excerpt the excerpt:

A photo with the story shows McCartney, soulful in dark shirt and light tie, -confidently strumming his guitar and singing into a mike while Lennon, seemingly a little less sure of his playing, stares down at his instrument, carefully fingering a chord. Two girls and a boy sit on a bench to the right, paying careful attention. The caption reads: “Three ‘cool cats’ listen to ‘The Quarrymen.’ ” The polite-looking, well-dressed young English people resemble anything but cool cats. The girl on the left, smiling at McCartney, is Cynthia Powell, who will later marry Lennon.

Two comments from this blogger.
1. The quote about John Lennon: "seemingly a little less assured of his playing."
Or is John simply yielding the stage to his bandmate?
Does this mean that whenever a musician is entirely focused on his instrument AND oblivious to the audience, there is a lack of self-assurance?
If John had lacked self-assurance, the girl in the picture identified as Cynthia Powell would never have become Cynthia Powell Lennon.
2. The TIME author criticizes the original caption of the photo–"Three 'cool cats' listen to 'The Quarrymen.'" The author refers to the captive audience as anything but cool cats.
By doing so, the author demonstrates a very high IQ. Unfortunately, that acronym has been put through the looking glass and stands for Ignorance Quotient.
The THREE COOL CATS is a reference to a song covered by the Silver Beatles/Quarrymen and originally recorded by the Coasters. George Harrison sang lead.
In their embryonic stage, the Beatles recorded three songs by the legendary Coasters–all written by Mike Lieber & Jerry Stoller. The other two were included on the Beatles' demo tape for Decca records: Searchin' and Youngblood.

The Coasters are most deservedly enshrined in the Rock&Roll Hall of Fame. Very important to the evolution of the Coasters was a Los Angeles school: Jefferson High. For reasons like that, I am proud to have taught there for twenty years but I have one and only one more thing to say.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PAUL McCARTNEY. I WISH YOU A CORNUCOPIA OF HAPPINESS!

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