Song Of The Day 1/11/2014: Paul McCartney - "Check My Machine"

B-Sides Week: Your basement studio is going to look a whole lot more cost-effective and productive after you hear this, the B-side of Macca's single "Waterfalls." Not that it's bad, not at all. It's just that it's from the McCartney II era, which is when Paul McCartney tried a bunch of different experiments that seemed, let's just say, markedly un-Beatlesque.

Oh, who am I kidding? This song is stoned. This is more stoned than a Rastafarian listening to Bitches Brew with Stephen Malkmus serving appetizers. This is so stoned, the recording engineer was a bong. This is so stoned, the credits read: "Percy Thrillington: smoke cloud." And to further scuzz up the proceedings, Macca didn't even try to master this song in any way, or clean it up. It's not even demo quality. This sounds like a recording made on a machine Paul might've bought from Guided By Voices after they'd gotten a studio budget. (Excuse the anachronism, I'm on a roll.)

This is, to sum up, why we love Paul McCartney during that whole London Town-Back to the Egg-McCartney II era: It did not jibe with any other strain of his solo history, it amusingly aggravated critics, and we still don't know what the hell he was talking about. Frankly I loved it. (And The Stranger found out about it well before I did.)

That's the end of B-Sides Week. Hope it was educational or at least low-effort.