In 2023 a Swedish influencer named Saskia Court asked her Instagram followers to question the men in their lives about how often they thought about the Roman empire. And it turned out that lots of those men thought about Rome quite often - some several times a week, some of them daily.
While it’s true that recently I did write about the Roman Empire in a widely ignored piece comparing Rome’s tacky hijacking of Grecian antiquity to the contemporary American empire’s buy-out of English football, universities, and country houses, there’s something I think about more often.
Paul McCartney.
I have an early memory of asking my Mum to call-in to a radio vote to choose a favourite Beatles song. I voted for Strawberry Fields. I was five. There has been no let-up since. The Beatles are not a band; Paul McCartney is not a singer and songwriter. He is given, a structural part of existence. Not as important as a parent, probably, but more important than any aunt or uncle. Not as important as the sun or the ocean, probably, but certainly more important than the colosseum, for example.
It’s not about if he and The Beatles are any good, it’s not like that. You don’t ask if trees are any good, they’re just there. The best way I can express it is that Paul McCartney and The Beatles are like football or roast potatoes. Weaved into the fabric.
McCartney v Death
There’s one aspect of McCartney I think about more often than any other.
These days, I think about Paul McCartney’s death maybe three, four, five times a week. Maybe more. It’s such a troubling prospect that I’ve started to develop a plan for when it happens, so I’ll have some basic grooves to follow when the shock hits. Clearly, I’ll take time off work. I won’t be able to function. I’ll retreat in seclusion. Nobody needs to see it.
The next part of the plan is tricky. You’d think it would be listen to the music. Start with Maybe I’m Amazed, or Silly Love Songs, Blackbird, Temporary Secretary - listen to the bassline in Taxman. Really wallow. Helter Skelter, Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsay, Jet.
Next, maybe read all the think pieces, all the papers, all the coverage. Listen to the solemn broadcasts. Gorge on grief.
McCartney v Windsor
In fact, I don’t imagine I’ll do any of that. It will be a while before I can play the music. And certainly I won’t be able to consume any media. When the late queen of England died, soon as I heard, I turned off the TV and radio, didn’t read a paper, go online, say the word queen to anybody, join in with any chat.
It’ll be like that with McCartney. I won’t be able to engage.
With thingy Windsor I couldn’t engage because of the oleaginous, ashen-faced toadying that I knew was coming. The peculiarly English sanctimonious deference, whimsical and self-serious simultaneously. The propaganda. The abasement. The Witchelling.
As the cortege makes its way down The Mall we give thanks for her majesty’s noble blahblah.
As Chuck D said of Elvis, he was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me. Swap Elvis for whatshername Windsor in that lyric.
I’m getting off topic. A bit. Can’t help it. Strong feelings.
The death of McCartney will be like the death of the queen in that it’ll occasion me having a media blackout, for self-protection. But it’ll be the opposite of that too, given McCartney’s prominence is spectacularly earned, not bestowed, assumed and expected via chancy inheritance customs.
McCartney is not just more important in my mind than the Roman Empire, he’s provably more significant than the queen.
