In the decade leading up to Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, Paul McCartney would finally rid himself of the ugly pop style of the 1980s. He may have topped the charts with everyone from Stevie Wonder to Michael Jackson, but it was a sound and style which did his lyrical nuance and theme no favours. His collaborations with Elvis Costello lit the fuse which would, almost a decade later, blow. Flaming Pie would aid McCartney back into a more receptive, genre-dense style and even his covers album, Run Devil Run, offered an energy he had been lacking since the final days of Wings. Chaos and Creation in the Backyard goes a step further than those preceding releases and offers up McCartney in stripped-back, piano-led form. It’s a style which suits him to a point where it is too obvious to pursue it. But he does on this 2005 release, and it’s one of his very best.
Even on a return listen years after first encountering Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, the lyrical quality remains a surprise. Fine Line is a staggering cut from McCartney’s already impressive discography. His voice suits the piano. This is the obvious case for style dating way back to The Beatles, but he seemed to shy away from it during his chart-topping days as a solo act. He puts his voice back into suitably rich instrumentals with the strings and piano range on Fine Line the first of many quality songs here. Chaos and Creation in the Backyard is, quietly, what McCartney III listeners had been hoping for. He plays every instrument here and, beyond the loops and production, everything is McCartney’s doing. Nigel Godrich is the magic maker here, flat out refusing to include songs which linger on those old McCartney tones. Usual thematic suspects are not lost, just changed.
A songlike How Kind of You notes domesticity still, the loss of it, that is. A remarkable contrast to the likes of Ram and Wings at the Speed of Sound. Only the best can mature as artists and continue with a story worth hearing, and that is exactly what Godrich gets out of McCartney. Ageing artists must accept their changing vocals. Their new depths are only good to them and us if managed properly. For McCartney, his transition from pop rocker to a more baroque tone, however brief it was, is magnificent. Songs like Jenny Wren and At the Mercy highlight those lower octaves, the slowed style which comes from that inevitable charm of one man and his piano. String sections and a few extra instrumentals surround McCartney, and as welcome as these pieces are, they are not needed. Crucial to this choice though, is not wanting to head down the soppy singer-songwriter route, a surprise turn from McCartney, but a welcome maturity which can be heard on Run Devil Run.
It’s too easy a switch to relay heartbreak through slowed tones. Chaos and Creation in the Backyard is as sincere as it gets for McCartney. He briefly slips into that cloth-eared sincerity and nostalgia on Give Ireland Back to the Irish, though it’s only one rough moment in a flow of calm waters and quality songwriting. Too Much Rain has that too, but it’s held together by that beautiful blur of acoustic guitar and piano. Much of Chaos and Creation in the Backyard depends on McCartney’s writing, and with some brilliant direction from Godrich, the Wings frontman brings about a career-best offering. It’s the final three songs of this album that cement its brilliance, though. Promise to Your Girl, This Never Happened Before, and Anyway are nothing short of the very best songs McCartney has written. It’s a career high he has never managed to better in the decades to follow, and it would only be fair if he never did.
