Celebrating Sir Paul: My Brave Face

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We’re just two days away from Paul McCartney’s birthday. Of course, the countdown celebrating his career will continue for the rest of the month. You don’t get an abrupt ending just because the day is over…you should know that from my celebrations of my birthday. Here’s today’s song, easily the eeriest one on the list. My Brave Face (Paul) Why do I say it’s eerie? Well, this song is about a man who finds himself single again. Paul certainly knew that pain when Linda died. What’s eerie is that this song is from 1989. Linda died in 1998, nine years after this song came out. And it wasn’t like co-writer Elvis Costello was going through the “suddenly single” thing at the time (he’d divorced in 1984 and was in a relationship by the end of the 80s). You can definitely hear Costello’s sound in the bridges. If you’re familiar with his work nobody has to tell you that’s his work. It also took Paul in a different direction. Most of the songs I’ve been posting this month, and indeed most of the songs in Paul’s catalog, are happy love songs. This is not one of them. And here’s an interesting fact: this was the last former Beatle’s song to hit the US top 40 in the 20th century. My Brave Face Written by Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello From Flowers in the Dirt (Paul), 1989 I clear away another untouched TV dinner: