We got the news this week that Sir Paul is cutting back on
his public schedule, finally acting his age.
Over the last few years, he’s run around like – to coin a
phrase – a spring chicken.
Still, this is an alarming report because we realize that he
is reaching the age when the next bit of news could be heart breaking.
This is a man who wrote “When I’m 64” when he was 14 years old
and became something of an anthem in our lives as we aged as well.
Hank used to sing it as a mantra for a future he predicted
for the four of us, him, me, Hank and Garrick. Hank was taken by one of the
Beatles images as Renaissance men, putting our faces where their faces were,
Hank and Pauly having the most talent of the four of us.
But ultimately, when we reached our 40s, Hank envisioned the
four of us sitting as old men in rocking chairs on a porch somewhere, a vision
that ended abruptly with Hank’s untimely (but not expected death) in 1995 (a
few days prior to the release of new Beatles recordings from the BBC).
The four of us, however, were not “the band” (the history of
which I’ve written in notebooks and will likely post as some point now that
most of the members of the band have passed on), only Pauly was, a very
talented, very Lennon-like character, whose recordings I treasure.
The four of us – Pauly, Hank Garrick and I – did a number of
our own projects of which only a handful of tapes remain. Jane, Pauly’s long
time romance, has promised to send me the reel to reel recording we made in the
summer of 1972 and sent to her in San Francisco, played only once when she received
it, and then on a machine in a local headshop for an unsuspecting public.
Most of our recordings were done drunk or drugged out, with
the exception of “Dead Horses,” on which Pauly and Rick performed one of my early
songs.
Everything we did was inspired by the Beatles and ironically
echoes some of the Beatle mythology. The band started in Nick Romeo’s basement
in 1966. He was a rich kid whose parents bought him an amazing amount of band equipment.
Everybody gravitated to that basement and eventually evolved in the band –
which in various formations – performed its last gig in Cedar Grove in 2004.
As with my hopes for the Beatles and a reunion (that died with
Lennon) in 1980, I continued to hope for some resurgence of the band, but
unlike with the Beatles, the last performance in 2004 actually brought back
many of the original members of the 1966 version.
The news about Sir Paul only makes me ache all the more for
Pauly, who passed away in early 2020 (from a heart attack not COVID), at a time
when he was still writing original songs and sending them via the internet to
his long-time guitarist to polish off.
Pauly and I recorded a lot together during the 1970s and
1980s, but never as polished as what he did after that.
The same cannot be said of Sir Paul. While I think he only occasionally
achieved Beatle-like quality in his later work, he carried on – and more than
once I convinced the band to play some of Sir Paul’s work, the recordings of
which I still have.
The problem with Sir Paul’s announcement is that it only
stirs up fears of my own mortality, at a time when I am desperate to transition
from guitar player to musician the way most of my friends have before me.
What is the old saying: Better late than sorry.
I sincerely hope Sir Paul remains with us for many years to
come, and perhaps his slowing down will keep him thriving.
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