41 James & Alice

In which McCartney junior turns to a family favourite.

“The ‘Blackberry Train’ title comes from a dream I had” - James McCartney.

Imagine having to follow in the footsteps of the world’s most successful song-writer.

Well, it’s clearly an impossible task, and that’s probably why Paul’s son’s trajectory has been so fraught and sporadic. And why he’s been so media-shy!

But there’s good work to explore, even if it suffers by comparison with an impossibly high bar.

The Blackberry Train, 2016, is an album with a surreal dream title that echoes dad’s habit of coming up with songs in his sleep. But that’s more or less where the parallels stop - the record contains no ‘Yesterday’ or ‘Let It Be’ (two of Paul’s dreamed songs).

However it does contain a strong and direct Carrollian homage and I suspect that isn’t coincidental.

‘Alice’ is not, to these ears, an ear-worm. Personally while I love some of the lyrical allusions, I find the scansion a little bit predictable, though I think the Steve Albinj production has merit, giving a soft voice a slightly harder edge, woven-in grittier guitars and slightly psychedelic soundscapes.

You can hear a live snippet here :

So what’s it all about?

McCartney says of the song: “I guess Alice is kind of referencing Alice In Wonderland. It’s just a fun song and a bit trippy, in a way’.

So much for helping us make sense of it, then!! Thanks James.

So ‘Alice’ as I read it, is a problematic relationship song, a reflection on identity, loss and more. Quite sardonic in spite of the chipper exterior. More ‘I’m looking through you’ than ‘PS I love you’, I guess.

Let’s take a look:

She’s got everything she said
She’s got my opinions
She’s got her own point of view
She took it away from you
She’s got it all packed away

But that’s not enough
That’s not enough
That’s not enough

Alice in Wonderland
Strolling down rabbit-holes
Mad-hatter catapult
Stone white Queen of Hearts
Poisoned-pool of tears

Frost on the ground
Daisy chain crown
Drink-me, eat-me

Alice

While McCartney says it’s a fun and trippy song, I can’t read it that way. This other person who’s ’got everything’ yet ‘took it all away from you’ doesn’t sound like a harmonious partner. On the contrary.

And then there’s the Wonderland chorus: I read this as calm Alice ‘strolling down rabbit holes’ (not falling but strolling), opposed with a cold hearted Queen of Hearts and ‘poisoned pool of tears’, with the mad hatter as catalyst (or catapult) for a painful pivot, relationship as madness.

I don’t want to speculate, nor do I love the idea of assigning art to biography. Let’s say the protagonist is simply imagined, nothing to do with James himself, and you’re still left with a feeling of frustration and ambiguity. A portrait of a manipulative, exploitative character.

The piece I’m curious about and will offer up - given my work on this blog - is the line ‘stone white queen of hearts’. James says “I was at home in St John’s Wood when I wrote it.” I have to assume ‘at home’ is the family home on Cavendish Ave, but I’m guessing so perhaps someone can set me right, but either way I can’t help think about Paul’s statues.

To heighten the dream theme and the uneasy mood, Alice is preceded by ‘Fantasy’, a kind of perverted ‘Let It Be’ where a figure standing at a window looking at him makes him nervous, but he tells himself ‘it’s a fantasy’. Unlike Mother Mary, the visitor is the source of anxiety and McCartney self soothes!

And ‘Alice is followed by ‘Ring a Ring O’ Roses’, another uncheerful ditty based on the Black Death nursery rhyme in which he daydreams, floats down rivers and wonders whether he’s frittering his time away.

https://spotify.link/DPVawozvPXb

Perhaps we’ll look at other Beatles children in due course.

See you soon!