Paul McCartney And George Harrison In Manchester (November 1963)

The Beatles in Salzburg, Austria | 13 March 1965 © Alfred Strobel

Skåne, Sweden

I finally watched the Rupert and the Frog song (We all Stand Together). I still see people (mostly older, mostly on Facebook) dunking on “the frog chorus” and it’s just so clearly an outdated notion for it to be lame for a musician to make content explicitly for children. It’s so common now for artists who’ve become parents to make something their kids will enjoy. Jack White sang a song with the muppets on Sesame Street because he loves his fucking kids. It’s so normal now.

I get where Mary Had a Little Lamb released as single by a rock band went down wrong .. but this is creative, whimsical content explicitly *for* kids. The SONG, in particular, is beautifully composed, imaginative. Lovely! I keep listening to it.

He was 20 years into his career. The Beatles were never Led Zeppelin. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around people still being so weird about this. He such a well rounded musician; it’s all like an exploration in another part of his creativity. There are elements of the classical composing that would come later… and the playful, experimenter who made Robber’s Ball (my beloved), McCartney II, the Fireman records.

But anyway, watching this today reminded me of this moment from Behind the Scenes of BBC Radio where someone presented Paul and Mike with their childhood Rupert book. The title page filled in by their parents reads “This book belongs to Paul McCartney and Michael McCartney”.

It was either Paul or Mike who said they didn’t get many gifts as kids and for Christmas they’d usually get one toy addressed to Paul and Michael from Father Christmas. It makes me really consider why this Rupert project was so important for him that he held onto it for 15 years, always sort of considering ideas for it. There were those RAM era songs that were specifically for the “Rupert project”. It comes up so much in the McCartney legacy book.

Then there’s the element of the frogs and his history with frogs, from growing the tadpoles in his own hand made frog pond in the backyard and checking on them every day until one day they were frogs that hopped away. Then there was the dark, frog killing episode that shocked his brother and he probably felt some shame about.

But here, in this story, there are guard frogs on duty protecting their mostly undisturbed world. Happy and content, it’s the frogs that create this magical chorus.

There’s even a father and son frog pair who’ve come to see this event that only happens every couple of hundred years.

The father is rather Jim McCartney-esque with his pipe and 1940s style hat and manner. There’s a moment where the son inadvertently annoys his father and instantly recoils like he’s about to get hit and momentarily it looks like the father is considering it but gets a hold of himself.

But later, wrapped up in the music together, the father hugs his son.

I don’t know what I’m saying exactly but I think there’s some exploration of his childhood here and something about Rupert and the frog chorus that’s particularly meaningful to him.

Maybe he’s reconciling the dark, frog killing episode of childhood with the vegetarian, animal lover he’d become by giving the frogs their own hero’s story. Rupert, Jim, the threat of violence, the presence of love, the frogs he loved but also was violent toward.. and music at the center of everything. Unifying, healing. We all stand together.

For anyone interested, the full BBC clip is here

The full Rupert short is here

The Beatles | 17 May 1963 © Dezo Hoffmann (II) (III) (IV)

END OF PART ONE - INTERMISSION | Help! (1965) dir. Richard Lester

Paul Mccartney and Linda Mccartney on their wedding day March 12, 1969

Wings at Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin, March 1976