Paul McCartney Found New Romance in Old Songs at Irving Plaza on Valentine's Day
"That was great — and I don't even like that song!" So proclaimed a thirtyish dude last night as Paul McCartney — Sir Paul, Macca, the Cute One, the One Who Once Was the Dead One But Now Blessedly Is One of the Two Still Alive — treated a crowd of 1,000 or so to a stellar, stirring "And I Love Her."
McCartney invested this minor standard with wistful vigor and urgency. "Bright are the stars that shine/ dark is the sky" has accumulated significance over fifty years. Young Paul's stately wisp of a song about romantic timelessness has snuck into the firmament, now as fixed in our lives as stars and sky, but Old Paul's treatment of it sounds far from settled: Savor those new "oooh"s he eases into on a coda.
When he wrote "And I Love Her," he was a boy thrilled that he and his mates could so steadily knock out such sturdy hits. The man he is now seems to find fresh truth in what those kids created, which is a testament to their invention and the man's willingness to let himself reel with the biggest feelings of all. "I know this love of ours will never die" means something very different from a man north of 70, and the feathery quaver in his higher register suggests he does know it.
By Alan Scherstuhl
Source: The Village Voice
