Category Archives: television

All hail Macca’s 1973 James Paul McCartney TV special!

Recorded during February and March 1973 and produced for ITV in the UK and ABC in the States, the James Paul McCartney TV special originally aired in the US on Monday, April 16, 1973. Someone has finally put this on youtube in its entirety and it is actually not that bad. The songs performed range from among Paul’s best (“Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Heart of the Country” and, um, “C-Moon”–yeah, I like that one) to among his absolute worst (“Mary Had a Little Lamb“). Watching it is a good way to kill an hour even if you’re only in it to gasp at the various hairdos and fashion missteps (how could McCartney go from being one of the most fantastically dressed people on the planet circa 1968 to dressing like the fullblown dipshit that he did a few years later?) but there are also some really surreal for prime time television moments the likes of which would never fly today (see the oddball interpretation of “Admiral Halsey”–oh, and, dare I say it, Linda looks kind of hot in the opening of that one too).

More with-it critics were predictably unimpressed with Melody Maker saying “McCartney has always had an ear and an eye for full-blown romanticism, and nothing wrong with that, but here he too often lets it get out and hand and it becomes overblown and silly.” When asked to comment, Lennon was surprisingly kind, “I liked parts of Paul’s TV special, especially the intro. The bit filmed in Liverpool made me squirm a bit. But Paul’s a pro. He always has been.”

I think that this is an outtake from the show. Paul singing “Heart of the Country.”