Beleaguered Beatle: McCartney onstage at the ICA last year. Photograph: Getty Images
Spare a thought for Paul McCartney. Last year saw his divorce proceedings given a very public airing and ended in news of his secret heart surgery being leaked. This year is barely a week old and already fans are in a state over Sony ATV's decision to let Beatles songs be used in commercials. Why is this Macca's fault? Because Sony/ATV insist no songs will be used without the permission of the surviving Beatles. So presumably he gave the nod to the Luvs nappies deal.
Once more, McCartney gets the flak because a) he's still alive and b) let's face it, Ringo's never going to get the blame for anything. The unspoken assumption is that John Lennon would never agree to this sort of thing. The received opinion is that Lennon was the one who brought the vital doses of politics, sarcasm and experimentalism to the make-up of the Beatles. At the very least, that's a gross disservice to McCartney.
You want political? In 1972, Lennon may have abandoned the naïve hippie chants for songs like Attica State and Sunday Bloody Sunday, but it was McCartney who got himself a BBC ban for his single Give Ireland Back to the Irish.
You want sarcastic? He followed that release up with quite possibly the most tongue-in-cheek single in the history of pop, Mary Had a Little Lamb. Of course, this being McCartney, his detractors missed the irony used it as ammunition for their argument that he was the Saccharine Beatle.
You want experimental? McCartney's interest in the avant garde and ambient music is well documented - from Carnival Of Light to his Fireman project with Youth. And let's not forget it was Lennon who recorded the woeful "back to my roots" covers album Rock 'N' Roll.
The real difference between the two is that McCartney is still alive to make all the mistakes he likes. Let him be.
