TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (14)

By: Ingrid Schorr
May 11, 2023

One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of heartthrobs from our adolescences). Series edited by Heather Quinlan.

PAUL McCARTNEY

Did you know there’s a blog called “Paul McCartney needs to calm the fuck down”?

That wasn’t me.

Have you seen the MacLennon fan art of Japanese girls in wigs and mustaches kissing softly?

That wasn’t me either.

The 16-year-old German girl who commented on an Instagram fan account, “Paul I want to smash a sweet potato up your ass”…

I would never!

But I wish I could express my devotion and fascination that vividly, Paul. Your magnificent bitchface, your vaudeville enthusiasm, even your greasy hot daddy Wings look, have captivated me since I was 12 and bought the single of “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.”

Seeking more Paul a couple of years later, I sent away for Body Count, the sexy memoir by Francie Schwartz, the American who occupied his time for a few weeks in 1969. Her description of Paul as a “pampered, powdered Medici prince” made a little sense, but “the ephemeral thing [they] substituted for lovemaking” completely flummoxed me. I went back to gazing at the portrait of Paul that came with the White Album.

I sought out the movies. Sassy Hard Day’s Night Paul, luscious stoned Help! Paul, whatever he was doing in Magical Mystery Tour and Give My Regards to Broad Street Paul: He’s a terrible, terrible actor, but he’s undeniably a snack on screen.

The documentary Let It Be revealed a bit of the unscripted Paul, notably his ability to annoy the crap out of George Harrison. And finally, two years ago, Peter Jackson’s Get Back, the documentary about Let It Be, fully opened the door to Paul’s McBeardy charisma.

(“The beard suits you,” says George at one point, the one positive comment he makes in the eight-hour film.)

Get Back Paul is stunning. As anxious and driven as he is during the often contentious rehearsing and recording, he glows. He’s hyperactive and hypercreative. He’s bossy and impatient, unable to articulate to his bandmates how to play the music that is completely formed in his mind.

He’s newly in love with Linda, who sits on the sidelines, quiet and beautiful, unaware that in a couple of years she’ll be playing keyboards in Wings.

But look at John. Yoko is by his side, but his eyes are on Paul. If John cracks a joke and Paul smiles, John spins it out to keep him laughing. John shouts out a suggestion when Paul is ad libbing lyrics, and Paul tucks it into the next verse. Their harmony on “Two of Us,” as close as conjoined twins. It’s this bond that finally illuminated what makes Paul such a heartthrob. Here are these two creative geniuses, completely alive in each other’s presence. They might have called it competition, but it’s love, a love that should have lasted years.

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TEEN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (14)

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