Drops: Paul McCartney's 'Kisses on the Bottom'

By GLENN GAMBOAglenn.gamboa@newsday.comFebruary 3, 2012

There's something so adorable about the way Paul McCartney sounds like a schoolboy in love throughout "Kisses on the Bottom" (Hear Music).

Of course, Macca has his reasons. He's still a newlywed, after all, having married East Hampton transportation executive Nancy Shevell in October. But "Kisses on the Bottom" sounds unlike any other McCartney album -- because of the song choices and their simplicity.

His breezy version of the Harold Arlen classics "It's Only a Paper Moon" and "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" set the bar for the album -- bright, stripped-down, mostly acoustic interpretations, tinged with New Orleans jazz and matched nicely by McCartney's earnest, unadorned delivery.

You can almost hear him smile his way through Fats Waller's "My Very Good Friend the Milkman." With his original "My Valentine," McCartney walks right up to the line between poignant and sappy without crossing it, thanks to some well-placed acoustic guitar. He kind of falls over into sappiness with the children's classic "Inchworm," the bane of piano-lesson-taking kids everywhere, but that can be forgiven, since it follows the delightfully bluesy take on Charles Brown's "Get Yourself Another Fool."

"Kisses on the Bottom" isn't high-concept like 2007's "Memory Almost Full" or envelope-pushing like 2005's "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard." It is a pleasant, well-crafted trifle, an enjoyable little distraction that delivers a lovely time. It's essentially the soundtrack to the romantic comedy playing in McCartney's head -- and there's nothing wrong with that.

PAUL MCCARTNEY

"Kisses on the Bottom"