"New"

I'm exceedingly late to the ball, but I still wanted to opine...

The already-standard take on Macca's gleaming and sunny new single really does hit the mark: for a song entitled "New", there's no small amount of the past on display. The feel and flow of the verses recall "Got to Get You into My Life" and "Penny Lane"; the bouyant rhythm bears the fingerprints of "Getting Better"; and the surprise coda - a barbershop quartet contraption with a hint of the Beach Boys - comes from the playbook of "Hello, Goodbye". "New" is a masterful lesson in Beatles-esque from one of the originators.

If anything's "new", it's 1) the producer, Mark Ronson, who applies a spotless pop polish to the harpsichord-driven arrangement, and 2) the source of Paul's inspiration, Nancy Shevell, who wed the ex-Beatle in October of 2011. When Macca sings, "We can do what we want / We can live as we choose," you can't help but take his youthful enthusiasms at face value. An unparalleled talent, a towering cultural icon, and a happily married man, Paul runs on joie de vivre. "New" is just another victory lap.

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Paul's forthcoming album, New, is due out on 10/15. The track listing is here.