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11.44pm
8 November 2012
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Oudis said
I love it guys. It’s an amazing melancholic melody matched by great, intelligent lyrics. I prefer the McCartney version simply because it brings me back to my teens. Not many people talk about this little known masterpiece.
I agree. A masterpiece it is.
parlance
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Into the Sky with Diamonds, Oudis4.03pm
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1 May 2011
Offline Its nice enough but i’m with Billy in that its it would be filler, nice filler but filler all the same – a nice tune that doesnt do anything for its entire duration, same with much on McCartney.
Not sure what you’d take off to fit this on. Most folk would probably say ‘Wild Honey Pie ‘, the automatic nomination in the ‘White Album track that deserves a good kicking’ category. I’d argue that at least WHP is trying to be interesting and different whilst Junk is one more entry in the cute Paul pile. No thanks.
Still, at least its not ‘Teddy Boy ‘. 
"I told you everything I could about me, Told you everything I could" ('Before Believing' - Emmylou Harris)
5.09pm
1 November 2012
Offline I agree with Billy Rhythm that Paul often has written and recorded ditties that sound dashed off and uninspired; I strenuously disagree that “Junk” is one of them, however. I guess I have to chalk that up to the strange phenomenon of people disagreeing with my subjective impression!
Faded flowers, wait in a jar, till the evening is complete... complete... complete... complete...
5.17pm
1 November 2012
Offline Sugarplum,
Thanks for that detailed explanation. That’s very interesting. Since we know that Paul was an obsessive perfectionist on his songs, and we know he was always trying to get sounds of instruments a certain way (e.g., I believe on Mother Nature’s Son , he asked the engineers to put the timpani out in the hallway to get a certain effect), it doesn’t seem reasonable to suppose that he was just sloppy that day and got his tuning off on his guitar out of laziness or by accident. This opens up a whole new category for me of musical experimentation I never thought of — purposeful out-of-tuneness. And the subtler the more ingenious, it seems.
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Sugarplum fairyFaded flowers, wait in a jar, till the evening is complete... complete... complete... complete...
9.07pm
3 August 2014
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I really like Junk. (And I remember a yard like that, you should have seen the rambling/crumbing old Edwardian house where I grew up!) I’d say anyone that thinks the song is junk should have a go at playing it on an acoustic guitar and let us hear the results here!
I know I won’t be popular for saying this but I would have included it in the White Album and had no problem with ‘Junking’ anything with Ringo singing on it and also the whole of Revolution number 9! As for Why Don’t We Do It In The Road (the Anthology version) where Paul asks ‘What do you think of all that?’ it sounds pretty awful, but by the time Ringo has done the drums and Paul uses that great rock voice of his properly it all gets so much better for me. Not to mention the bass.. I like it!
Re the out of tune stuff- Please can anyone else who has a guitar in standard tuning try comparing it to what they can hear on Mother Nature’s Son and see how it seems to them?
Oops. I seem to have gone off-topic again..
8.59am
23 January 2022
Offline https://www.bbc.co.uk/programm…..s/p09zfcxh
this is a BBC podcast where Paul read excerpts of his Lyrics book. The link goes to the Junk episode.
It’s so funny to me, that for all my overanalysing of songs, I always heard junk as a straightforward meditation on consumerism. And then Paul goes and says
It’s mostly a love song
and
Sounds like one lover saying bye bye, and the other plaintively asking why why? Even as the junk in the yard demands an explanation for the urge to acquire something or somebody new
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Rube, sigh butterfly, Richard, savoy truffleMy hot take is that after the Beatles split they went down the paths of spiritualism, solipsism, alcoholism, and Paul McCartney
-- Jason Carty, Nothing is Real podcast
4.06pm
11 June 2015
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That’s very poignant. I’ll never listen to Junk in the same way again.
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meaigs, RichardYou and I have memories
Longer than the road that stretches out ahead
11.16pm
6 May 2018
Offline sigh butterfly said
That’s very poignant. I’ll never listen to Junk in the same way again.
Yes, likewise. I think it’s quite an underrated song.
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sigh butterfly, meaigs, RubeAnd in the end
The love you take is equal to the love you make
3.28am
7 November 2022
Offline For the longest time I thought Paul was singing “sentimental Jew believes”
Now today I find, you have changed your mind
4.21am
6 May 2018
Offline I’m enjoying the harmonies in this cover version of Junk performed by the MonaLisa Twins:
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Sea Belt, RubeAnd in the end
The love you take is equal to the love you make
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