Hiding Under Covers

THE POST OFFICE TOWER LONDON  Souvenir Brochure (1969) I'm standing on the Post Office Tower   So I can see all there is to see   --Paul Weller, ' Life from a Window ' (1977)  Through the Post Office Tower   Travel miles and miles of copper wire   --Fake Teak ' The Post Office Tower ' (2010)  I made this bomb for the GPO   To blow them all to Hell --Cressida ' Goodbye Post Office Tower Goodbye ' (1971) The Post Office Tower (now BT Tower ) in London's Fitzrovia was opened by Harold Wilson on 8 October 1965. It is 177 metres (581 ft) tall, with a further section of aerial rigging bringing the total height to 189 metres (620 ft). It's been my favourite London building since I visited it as a child in 1969. An excellent blog about the Tower including some  videos  and  images from the  menu  of its famous revolving restaurant can be found at  The Great Wen . This p...

This is an article I wrote for The Independent in 2006, to mark Paul McCartney's 64th birthday. Unfortunately it never ran so I'm posting it here to mark Macca's 71st birthday on 18 June. It's not intended to be definitive, nor is it a list of my personal favourites; just an illustration of  the variety of music Paul has written over 50 years, from rockers and romance to ambient and comedy. Maybe I’m Amazed (1970, 1977) If this is all  Paul   McCartney had ever written, we would still know his name.  The inspiration for this proud ballad was of course Linda Eastman, who Paul married  in 1969. Regularly voted one of the greatest love songs ever, it evaded single release until a live version made the charts in 1977 and has since been covered by, amongst others, Rod Stewart and Joe Cocker. Find it on: McCartney and Wings Over America Helter Skelter (1968) This White Album headbanger was inspired by the Who's song, “I Can See for Miles”. McC...

JAMES BROWN AT THE APOLLO (UNIVERSAL/POLYDOR  2013) Fifty years ago, the first of James Brown’s celebrated “live at the Harlem Apollo” albums hit the racks. Recorded during the heat of the Cuban missile crisis just a few months earlier, this landmark release almost never happened.  The album was nearly scuppered not by Khrushchev or Kennedy, but by Syd Nathan, the president of King Records. In the autumn of 1962, Brown, already a solid and dependable R&B star, approached Nathan with the idea of issuing a live recording of one of his popular shows at the New York theatre. The heart of what he did was his live act, he reasoned. Capture it on vinyl and they’d sell a million. Nathan pursed his lips, thought of the hit singles he could spend the money on, and refused.  So Brown stumped up $5700 of his own to fund the album and prove his label wrong. He hired the Apollo for a week, dressed its ushers in Tuxedos and groomed his backing singers – the Famous Flame...