The Wrong And Winding Road

A cd was slipped into my hand on Friday night. Result: casual narcissism. Music I'm currently listening to - Myself.

Old people, and anyone who bought the album "1", will know that The Long And Winding Road was the Beatles' last ever number one record, hitting top spot in the US in 1970 despite not doing anything in the UK. It's almost certainly the only ever hit single to be inspired by the B842. And it was also one of the six reasons Paul McCartney gave to the court when splitting the band up as a legal entity.

Songs are quite precious to their writers. If someone takes your song and meddles with it, it's a bit like, say, having your new born baby taken away by the nurse and painted green.

Jake and Dinos Chapman
Insult to Injury, 2003
Series of "rectified" prints from Francisco Goya's Los Desastres de la Guerra etchings

McCartney wrote the song as a deliberately stripped-down piano ballad. The original recorded version featured some inept bass from Lennon, who by all accounts was a particularly bad bass player. And that was it. Voice, piano, bass. Imagine his reaction, then, on finding that before releasing the song, producer Phil Spector had added 18 violins, four violas, four cellos, three trumpets, three trombones, two guitars, and a choir of 14 women.

Now this is where I can empathise.

Someone has taken my minimalist piano ballad and added a bloody accordion.