S$# 033 Paul McCartney | Sweet Sweet Memories

When Paul McCartney released his 1993 Off The Ground album, he also had a large number of equally strong songs in the vault. He released these as b-sides with the OTG singles.

Sweet Sweet Memories is one of those songs. As many of McCartney's great songs do, it outlines a man's affection for a woman. Yet this one is a little different. Macca seems to have his tongue in cheek, and makes a literary nod too.

I know something you don't know
I want you to listen to the tale
I know a reasonable woman
Handsome and witty, yet a friend
She's got the right amount of passion
She isn't into rumour
Not too serious or too dumb
And equal mixture of good humour
And sweet, sweet memories (ah, sweet memories)

He borrowed a few lines from poet Alexander Pope (1688–1744), who had written some verse for Henrietta Howard, Countess Of Suffolk, in his On A Certain Lady At Court:

I know a thing that's most uncommon
(Envy, be silent, and attend);
I know a reasonable woman,
Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warped by passion, awed by rumour,
Not grave through pride, or gay through folly;
An equal mixture of good humour,
And sensible soft melancholy.

'Has she no faults then,' Envy says, 'Sir?'
Yes, she has one, I must aver:
When all the world conspires to praise her
The woman's deaf, and does not hear!

Sweet Sweet Memories is on the CD single for Off The Ground, and also on the hard-to-find Off The Ground - The Complete Works double CD.

It's one of the tracks I would really like to hear JPM perform in concert.