Between the reactionary song written about 9/11 to writings on Heather Mills, Driving Rain is a divisive listen at best. Paul McCartney has often struggled in his solo career for no reason other than a fascination with the current studio tools and the world around him. Often, he can find himself bogged down in the wrong details. It’s what Andrew Watt and Nigel Godrich have been on hand to fix on albums after Driving Rain. Songs written with his son, James McCartney, and dedications to Mills in getting through the grief of Linda McCartney’s death. It’s hard not to feel moved by the songwriting decisions made on Driving Rain though McCartney seems to be dragged towards the middle of the road with some of these songs. Instrumentally interesting moments and a still strong vocal offering but a little fatigued by this image of McCartney as a voice of the times. He was, of course, but it taxes the album a little too much when it matters most.
Take opening track Lonely Road, for instance. Incredible electric guitar work and a heartening performance from McCartney that feels separate to the world around him. Yet it still offers commentary, that feeling of escapism that comes from engaging with your favourites. A little aimless and drifting is this opener but such is the point for the wider context of the album and where McCartney found himself when writing the album. He picks up the blues-y influence again, as he did on Run Devil Run and, to a larger extent, CHOBA B CCCP. That rocking first track where McCartney showcases his vocal depths is replaced quickly by the delicacy and heartbreak of From a Lover to a Friend. Arguably one of the most moving McCartney pieces to date, irrespective of the target. Whether it’s Linda McCartney or Mills, it matters not. McCartney sounds emotionally moved along and rises to the occasion with a suitable sincerity. But those early moments are replaced with the feeling that McCartney must be a commentator on the times.
His best works are when the influence of what’s around him is superfluous. Freedom, the hidden track that featured in many of McCartney’s live performances around this time, is a chance to catapult himself back into the conversation when a national tragedy is developing. Protest songs pushing the mood of the times is a necessity but here it feels like McCartney is trying to crowbar the song onto a selection of relatively strong works. It doesn’t fit all that well when the likes of She’s Given Up Talking convey the shock and trauma that much better, and with an abstract feeling to them. Facing an issue head-on is hardly the best way to write about it. Still, some phony way into global news events is better than whatever counting and rhyming McCartney is up to on the title track. Relatively simple and a dated but groovy instrumental, paired with some of the simplest writing McCartney has ever offered.
Tiny Bubble is a bit of a pathetic offering but it’s followed up with Magic and that’s a delicate touch from McCartney at play there. Driving Rain is an album that falls to bits in its mid-section. But this is the McCartney standard. Even the low points of Driving Rain, like the bass-led grooves of Spinning on an Axis, are wonderfully rich and musical treats. But then he brings up a song like About You, an ambitious love song with plenty of instrumental strength. It’s a song that, had it fallen onto a different release that hasn’t been wholly ignored by McCartney, would be a setlist staple. It’s a wonderful piece with all the riches expected of McCartney’s veteran status. Relatively weak material to wrap it all up and one of the lesser McCartney albums but, all the same, Driving Rain has moments that make it worth a listen. Rinse the Raindrops is an excitable, penultimate track and, like it or not, Freedom has a relevancy to the times.
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