Grammys: Has John Sent Paul a Message?

The last time Paul McCartney got a Grammy nomination for Best Album, Richard Nixon had just resigned as president. People were wearing bell bottoms. Hip-hop was something bunnies did. That was in 1974 for "Band on the Run."

But today, on the 25th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon, McCartney has Grammy nominations for Album of the Year, Pop Album of the Year and Best Male Vocal, all for his work on "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard."

Did Lennon send him a message? "Chaos" is considered by some (not all) to be his best album in 31 years. There have been plenty of high spots in between and lots of success, but "Chaos" was dark enough to attract the attention of the Grammy committee.

Stevie Wonder’s 10 years in the making "A Time 2 Love" was not so lucky. And that’s the irony, since back in 1974, Stevie won Best Album for "Fulfullingness’ First Finale" over "Band on the Run."

Stevie was the Grammy king then. He’d won the year before for "Innervisions" and won again, two years later, for "Songs in the Key of Life."

In 1975, Paul Simon was so happy when he won for "Still Crazy After All These Years," he said, “I’m glad Stevie Wonder didn’t make an album this year.”

McCartney is not much of a Grammy holder. Wings got nothing over the years except for that award and one in ’79 for instrumental arrangement. The only time McCartney ever got a Grammy for singing seems to be a weird Grammy trivia note: they gave him an award for singing “Eleanor Rigby” in 1966 as a soloist from a group. Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr must have gone crazy.

Lennon’s only wins came with the Beatles for Best Song, “Michelle,” also in ’66, and Album of the Year, "Sgt. Pepper," in ’67. After he died, he and Yoko Ono picked up Album of the Year for "Double Fantasy."

But what an irony: McCartney in there with Mariah Carey, Kanye West, Gwen Stefani and U2. Even he must be shocked this morning. A quarter of a century ago, on Dec. 9, 1980, when he was told Lennon had been killed, he muttered one line: “What a drag.” He was probably in shock, but the line has reverberated through the years.

Since then, McCartney, like Ono, has gone about revising history where he could. He wrote a song for Lennon in ’82 and has struggled under his partner’s shadow all along.

It didn’t help that right after Lennon was killed, Robert Christgau wrote in the Village Voice: “They killed the wrong Beatle.” That was the worst.

Today, McCartney is vindicated. He probably has Lennon to thank. If he wins, for some reason, he’d better remember to thank Lennon in all his Grammy speeches.

As for Wonder: several nominations including Best R&B Album, but not the big one, for "A Time 2 Love." He wrote all the songs and played most of the instruments. Kanye got nominated for Album of the Year. He wrote none of the songs, played none of the instruments, but knew where to sample from.

He’d better bring Shirley Bassey, Mrs. Curtis [Altheda] Mayfield and a host of other people he ripped off. If all those people aren’t special invited guests at every Grammy event, it’s going to be noted, again and again.

Sent by Sr.Cohiba