"Maybe I'm Amazed" by Paul McCartney
Singalong 024: Music can be endless if you let it
Baby, I'm amazed at the way you love me all the time / And maybe I'm afraid of the way I love you / Maybe I'm amazed at the way you pulled me out of time / You hung me on the line / Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you.
I feel like a fool writing about some of these songs, let alone playing them. But we have to play them, it’s not enough to just love them from the outside. As I wend through my tunnel of suck on the guitar, navigating a composition like “Maybe I’m Amazed” lets me feel a modicum of optimism.
This one has an otherworldly quality, using a similar first-inverted triad walkdown gimmick to Whichita Lineman and Can’t Find My Way Home, but with a generously resolved chorus that fully shakes out all of the tension, only to immediately start winding it up again with the verse chords. It can go around and around, it’s an endlessly satisfying song to play.
Baby, I'm a man, maybe I'm a lonely man who's in the middle of something that he doesn't really understand / Baby, I'm a man, and maybe you're the only woman who could ever help me. / Baby, won't you help me to understand?
This song is the polar opposite of Willie’s “Crazy”. We’ve arrived at Amazy. No more retail dating.
You get the sense that Paul, newly liberated from the Beatles and enjoying unfettered joy with Linda and the kids in 1970, has just reached enlightenment. The arc from “Yesterday” and “Blackbird” to “Maybe I’m Amazed” is arguably the most triumphant in pop music history. The golden boy could have just retired after this one, but it’s not his style. He’s still going today, as big as ever. Music can be endless if you let it.
Maybe I'm amazed at the way you're with me all the time / Maybe I'm afraid of the way I leave you / Maybe I'm amazed at the way you help me sing my song, you right me when I'm wrong / Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you.
Maybe he’s singing to Linda, Mary, Heather, You, his audience, God… doesn’t matter. He’s fully surrendered. We all can. It’s a song that, kind of like “Golden Slumbers”, feels like it goes in between two other, more serious songs. It feels too good to be true. Like you have to play it over again because you might have missed something.
But it’s here in its entirety. I’m not “maybe” amazed by this song, I’m definitely.
We’ve survived the loss of Bowie, Prince, Petty, Jimi, Janis, Kurt, Stevie Ray, Otis, Jeff Buckley, Chris Cornell. But Paul, Mick and Keith are still holding the house up.
It’s still their house:
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Great post Trevor!