Paul McCartney has his own “ideal”.

Recently I have been listening the songs by John Lennon. So that I wrote two entries about Paul and John.
(id:yagian:20101217:1292538339, id:yagian:20101219:1292711184)
Inamoto made track back about comparison between Paul and John to my entry. (id:yinamoto:20101217)
On the basis of these entries I would like to write about lyrics by Paul and John.
It is thought that lyrics by John have a deep message and Paul does not place importance on lyrics.
Basically I agree with that. John wrote lyrics with deeper message after he get married with Ono Yoko and the Beatles broke up. The typical cases are “Imagine” and “Give Peace a Chance”.


On the other hand Paul does not care about meanings of lyrics. For example "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" has rustic melody and lyrics about a man who kill a woman with silver hammer. The matter of these lyrics is strange and it has no special message. A big gap between melody and lyrics might be joke by Paul


“Love ” by John and “Hello Goodbye” by Paul both have lyrics made by very simple words, but they are very different. It seems that the lyrics of “Love” have deep message and the lyrics of “Hello Goodbye” are just wordplay.


Their Christmas songs are very contrasting. "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" by John has a message of peace, but a message of "Wonderful Christmastime" by Paul is just enjoying Christmas.


A key phrase of "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" might be "War is Over, if you want it, war is over now" and a key phrase of "Wonderful Christmastime" might be "Simply having wonderful Christmastime".
"Wonderful Christmastime" was made after "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" was made, so that Paul conscious of John’s song. When Paul would make his Christmas song, there was a Christmas song with a message of antiwar which was recognized as a classic song. He intentionally sang “Simply having wonderful Christmastime”.
It could not to be described as ideal, but I can recognize his attitude. For that matter Paul might have an ideal that he prohibits himself to tell a high ideal. I sympathize with this Paul’s “ideal”.

A postscript

I like the lyrics of "Penny Lane", because I can put Paul’s nostalgia for his hometown and childhood on my own.