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Paul McCartney

From A Lover To A Friend

Label: EMI Records

jwisbey by Joe Wisbey October 19th, 2001

Which one is gonna be? Which Paul McCartney are we gonna get? The genius one? The one who wrote "Eleanor Rigby" or "She's Leaving Home"?? Or the nasty Wings-infested one??, "Mull Of Kintrye and all that??

Well pretty much the former, with a dash of the latter added in for the sake of it. "From A Lover To A Friend" is a most intriguing song. Nothing at all like the Capital FM friendliness of his previous "Flaming Pie" album. This is a dreamy, hypnotic and pretty darn uncommercial record. Almost certainly about his relationship with "model" Heather Mills, "From A Lover To A Friend" is NOT a melody ladened, acoustic strumming, Jeff Lynne patented, Radio 2 A-Listed shite that McCartney can so easily produce.

"From A Lover To A Friend" is many things, but an easy listen is not one of them. A haunting piano intro eventually evolves into a psychedelic, spooky love song. A devastating McCartney vocal later, it ends. It's not, as you can see, an easy to describe.

So, while Elton John can produce such 'Elton by numbers' bilge as "I Want Love", McCartney proves that form is temporary, class is permanent.

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