Sir Paul McCartney is the cheerleader this world needs more than ever today.

by Hans Ebert

It’s as if he knows that time is ticking ticking ticking into the future and he doesn’t want to waste a minute of his time not making new things happen while reminding people of everything he has done- not that we need much reminding.

Everything Paul McCartney has done lives with us, and maybe lives for us forever.

There’s much to learn from his creative output over the last couple of years. Like the importance of doing and being instead of carrying on around more empty spaces.

Over the past couple of years, Paul McCartney has had another ticket to ride. A new one. He’s been no day tripper. Instead, he’s being inviting us into his world the best ways he could.

Maybe he thought he had missed something. It’s why there had been so much of everything during his Rockdown period- “McCartney 111” on which it was all Paul and Paul doing everything Paul does so well all by himself when it comes to producing music.

He’s given interviews where he’s opened up as much as he could and which his three best friends would have approved. He’s never crossed that line. Some things are better left unsaid.

He had other musicians and artists rework his “McCartney 111” originals on “McCartney 111 Imagined”.

Here was an invitation to enter yet another aspect and facet of his world.

Some might have enjoyed it, others maybe not, but he did it and there’s nothing wrong in doing what one wants to do and say what’s on your mind. It’s called honesty- with yourself and others. And living your life with no excuses. Maybe we should all do this more often.

For those who wanted memories, there have been Paul McCartney commemorative stamps, collectibles, and all kinds of memorabilia.

Before any of this, he was testing the water and maybe working out how deep he should dive into everything with the children’s book “Hey, Grandude”.

While “McCartney 111” was being taken further with “McCartney 111 Imagined”, there was the book “Linda McCartney’s Family Kitchen”.

He’s never forgotten Linda. She’s there in his greatest love songs. It’s where there’s nothing to hide as real love put to song has no secrets. One wonders how he might have grieved when he lost her. How he grieves today.

All those paperback writers write and think they’ve figured things out. No one has and no one will. Just take everything that’s happened for whatever it was meant to be. We each have our own thoughts about all of these.

There’s been the six part documentary “McCartney 321” with Producer Rick Rubin. One never gets tired of hearing the same stories as they make us feel good. They inspire. There’s a childlike joy in eavesdropping into his creative process where you want some of this to touch you. To make you feel how you would feel if you were him. But you never will be him and that’s okay, too.

Scheduled for release at the end of the year is Director Peter Jackson’s definitively definitive version of “Get Back”.

Guess this “Paul Is Back” journey through time first started to fall into place with him joining Rihanna and Kanye West for “FourFiveSeconds”. That was a brilliant track. Still is.

There was then his appearance on “Carpool Karaoke”. Forget the driver. He was a fan like so many of us. That visit to his old neighbourhood made many of us get back to very different times in our lives- a time when music could change the world by inspiring it- and us.

That episode of “Carpool Karaoke” was a long and winding road that led us home. It also helped take us on another round of magical mystery tours where we saw the Fool On The Hill, met that band on the run that had come out of being Rammed, and helped us remember that in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

It was then the deep fake him and Beck coming together on “Find My Way”. His bass lines on “Fixing A Hole” and “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” aside, along with songs and his vocals on “For No One”, “Maybe I’m Amazed”, “Blackbird” etc, “Find My Way” was something different- and creepily fascinating.

One could perhaps see Bowie going “deep fake” and this being accepted, but Paul? doesn’t matter.

Paul McCartney is Sir Paul McCartney. He’s done it all. Probably seen it all, too.

At 79, he can do whatever else he wants to do, because he can. And we’ll continue to love him and support and respect everything he does.

He makes this world a better, happier and more interesting place.

Sir Paul McCartney is the cheerleader this world needs more than ever today.

#paulmccartney #artist #creativity

Love and marriage and the Whys and Wherefores

by Hans Ebert

Trying to remember what was and how and why it happened, and when things began to change, very often takes you through some strange and interesting twists and turns through life.

Right now, piecing together my journey so far has me questioning much- about friendships, career moves, love, marriage and what really matters.

Everyone is different, and for me, it’s about arriving at an honesty I can accept and understand and which leads to a happiness not felt before.

There’s such an importance attached to this these days and which didn’t exist before.

Like I said, we’re all different. We each have our own secrets, truths and lies and working on decisions about how we wish to live our lives.

Over the past two years, I have become more reflective. I guess that’s the right word. Reflective. It’s not withdrawing from life around me, but just being more selective. I tend to tune out a lot more to what’s being said and what’s not being said. Boredom happens way too often. It has to do with those I am with and this “circle of life” keeps getting smaller.

There’s a “Why bother?” attitude as there’s usually some bullsh*t factor attached somewhere.

Guess there always has been. But when there’s so much bs, one swims along merrily with the rest of the fishes.

This new reflection about life happens because of my preoccupation with love, and whether this love is in inverted commas, or if it’s always been just another word for something else.

I’m not pouring cold water on love. Not at all. If I am in love with anything, it’s with the pursuit of romance.

What I am trying to understand is what love is and how it works- for me- and if it ever has worked.

This might seem pretty harsh coming from someone who was married for over twenty years and has a daughter with a woman who swept me off my feet the moment I first set eyes on her.

If, however, love is meant to last forever, what I am questioning is why our marriage didn’t go the distance and why the three people involved in this relationship no longer slow dance to Annie Lennox singing “Why”.

And when stream of consciousness writing flows from mind to heart and onto paper, there’s that person or thought or memory inside of me that wonders why I just mentioned “Why”.

I know what you’re thinking: Jeez, he’s a barrel of laughs. Whatever...

It makes me wonder how in these times of those finding “wellness”, we should be exploring what love’s got to do with it and knowing what this “it” is.

My parents were married for pretty much forever. Were they in love or was it about companionship and staying together because that’s how it’s meant to be?

They never accepted that the wife of mine they knew, and how she and I had gone our separate ways.

To them, one marries and lives happily ever after.

This is not to question the sanctity of marriage, but, then again, I guess, it is because it didn’t work for me and I wonder how many other “me’s” are out there.

I have friends who are married and have affairs and go back to their other halves believing that this is Okay. Maybe. Gawd knows, I did that until there was the realisation that this isn’t how it’s meant to be.

Tinder, online dating sites are where some I know take refuge, or, as Dylan put it, take shelter from the storm. They see nothing wrong with this. They’ve asked me to try it. I can’t. It’s not for me. There’s something wrong about this.

This side trip is especially wrong when I hear a song like “Maybe I’m Amazed” and all the love songs Paul McCartney wrote for his wife Linda. I wonder whether now that he’s remarried, where the late Linda “fits” into his heart and life. He must still carry her with him.

It makes me wonder why certain songs, especially about lost love affect us in such beautifully painful ways.

Is it the perennial romantic and Personal Jesus in some of us?

I meet women- married women with children- and there’s a ‘look’ that says it all. But because of this thing called “marriage”, very real feelings are either numbed or deleted. That chance to be in love are not allowed in and not allowed to happen.

But when you put your head down on that pillow and are alone with your thoughts...

There’s something here. Something to all this mentioned above that needs work.

Podcasts and Clubhouses can wait or continue. But the question of love versus “love” is, at least to me, still to be explored with greater honesty in order to bring about greater clarity... and greater happiness.

Just saying.

#love #annielennox #paulmccartney #loveandmarriage #hansebert