ポール・マッカートニー

昨年の12月に息子の嫁が Paul McCartney の『The Lyrics』という本を送ってくれました。ポールが自身の人生と楽曲の歌詞を語ったものです。少年時代の作品からビートルズ時代、ウイングス、ソロ・アルバム、そして最近に至る作品までを網羅していて全部で154曲。歌詞が書かれた状況、歌詞に書かれた人々、歌詞が書かれた背景、歌詞が生まれるきっかけとなった場所、そしてそれらに対して今になって思うことなどが、作品タイトルのアルファベット順に並べられています。


という訳で年末年始はビートルズに立ち返っています。そろそろ指も治ってきてギターが弾けるようになったので、改めてビートルズを聞いています。小学校6年の時に『Hey Jude』がシングル版でリリースされたので購入し、同時に歌詞の内容を知りたくて近所で英会話を習い始めました。当時は英会話なんて見つけるのが大変だった。


『The Long and Winding Road』 も長い間誤解していました。ビートルズの解散時にポールの葛藤を唄ったものだと思っていましたが、実はホワイトアルバムの頃に作った曲なんですね。私のような natural born onchi が絶対に歌ってはいけないスローバラードです。『Yesterday』も同じですね。小学校6年から中学1年にかけてAct Naturally のB面だった『Yesterdai』を一年中聞いていました。

Last December my daughter-in-law sent me a book by Paul McCartney called『The Lyrics』. It is Paul's story of his life and the lyrics to his songs. It covers his work from his boyhood, through his Beatles days, Wings, solo albums, and up to his most recent work, 154 songs in all. The songs are arranged in alphabetical order by the title of the work: the situation in which the lyrics were written, the people to whom the lyrics were written, the context in which the lyrics were written, the places that inspired the lyrics, and his current thoughts on those lyrics.

So the end of the year and the beginning of the New Year are get-back to the Beatles. Now that my fingers are almost recovered and I almost could play the guitar, I am listening to the Beatles again. When I was in the sixth grade of elementary school, “Hey Jude” came out, so I bought it. At the same time, I started learning English conversation in my neighborhood to learn the lyrics. At the time, English conversation school was hard to find in the local city of Japan.

I misunderstood〝The Long and Winding Road” for a long time. I thought it was a song about Paul's struggle when the Beatles broke up, but it was actually written around the time of the White Album. It is a slow ballad that a natural born tone deaf (onchi) like me should never sing. The same goes for “Yesterday. I listened to “Yesterday” all year round, which was the B-side of ”Act Naturally” from 6th grade to 1st grade of my junior high-school.

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