KEY POINTS:
From the title to the reflective nature of many of the lyrics this - McCartney's 21st post-Beatles release, not counting live albums, classical digressions, compilations,and so on - could be read as his public swansong.
He considers his life on the energetic That Was Me; in an aching falsetto he wonders in You Tell Me about those perhaps mythical summers of yesteryear; and the poignant if lyrically clunky The End of the End asks "that on the day that I die I'd like jokes to be told".
In fact these songs were written in 2003, which places them in a period of happiness with his then-new wife Heather Mills - possibly the subject of the irritatingly twee See Your Sunshine, and the yelping Gratitude. Both are heavily embellished but at their core sound like knock-offs of the kind which have always burdened his solo work, proving again he still needs an editor. Dance Tonight is a polite rocker driven by mandolin, the eccentric Mr Bellamy could have come from Magical Mystery Tour, and the breezy Feet in the Clouds crams a lot of musical ideas into three and a half minutes.
Again solo McCartney is irritatingly uneven but at its best - the blistering Only Mama Knows and House of Wax, which recall that vital period in the early 70s - proves he can still shoulder-tap his muse.
Label: Universal
Verdict: At 64 do we still need him, will we still feed him?
