All You Need Is Love

The Beatles, All You Need Is Love, 1967, Italian 7” vinyl single

Paul McCartney has recently completed a concert tour of South America and Europe. I read a review last week of one of two concerts he played in Manchester. The show was a 3 hour career spanning set encompassing Beatles, Wings, later solo material, and even early Quarrymen songs. McCartney’s voice was praised - so perhaps his wobbly performance at the 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony was an outlier, an off night, we all have off nights. One song was singled out as a highlight of the evening, a song that still makes me catch my breath when I hear it, the beauty of its simplicity undiminished with time: Maybe I’m Amazed.

The tour wound up in London last Thursday where, I read yesterday, he was joined on stage for an encore with the Beatles (second) drummer Ringo Starr. I can’t bring myself to look at photos / videos of this rare event. One of either Macca holding his thumbs aloft or Ringo with his trademark two fingers peace sign I can just about handle, but pictured together would send me over the edge. Fair play though. With a duet from beyond the grave with John, dear George was the only one of the Fab Four not present. All those years ago.

I’ve long since believed that the continued popularity of the Beatles - a band who last recorded together in 1969 - isn’t so much down to the love of their music but a love of a more innocent era now gone. An era that for an increasing number of people is not even a memory. A love of an imagined memory of a time now long gone. Again, fair play, and guilty as charged. All you need is love. ❤️