Total Badasses: Paul McCartney

Sir Paul McCartney. MBE. The most successful songwriter in the history of music. Musician. Activist. Total Badass.

I love Paul. I've always had a softspot for him, his songs always semed less pretentious and egotistical than those of his (equally badass and incredible) writing partner John Lennon. They were like the "Bert and Ernie" of groundbreaking 60's pop songwriting, and Paul is totally Ernie.

Anwyays, not only is the guy just obviously responsible for some of the greatest music humans have ever created (Let It Be, Hey Jude, Maybe I'm Amazed, etc), he also just seems like a totally realistic, genuinely nice guy. Maybe he's not or whatever, but still - to have been in the public eye your whole life and still come off like a fucking champion no matter what you get up to; is very impressive.

Plus, he's so incredibly decorated. Sir. Being a knight of the British Empire is awesome, especially if you got there by writing "Yesterday" and playing the bass. Awesome.

Here's one of my favourites from Paul's post-Beatles era.

Paul McCartney - Coming Up


It (no shit) brought John Lennon out of retirement.

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Total Badasses: Serge Gainsbourg

When I think of the words "Europe" and "cool" together I think of Serge Gainsbourg. What a fucking cool guy. Always with a cigarette in his hand, always drunk and slightly disheveled, this guy was the debauched poet/bard of his generation.

There are some amazing stories about Serge. In the 60s he wrote songs for various pop artists, one of whom was a very young French starlet named France Gall. One of Gall's biggest hits was the Serge-penned Les Sucettes, a seemingly innocent tale of a little girl who loves aniseed-flavoured lollipops. France continued to sing and perform the song until eventually finding out it was about oral sex, at which point she locked herself away for several months out of shame. Serge. What a dirty badass..

Watch them perform Les Sucettes here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nr0dUcrAU0
(can't embed this one, darn!)

Another is from his late period, in the 80s, when he'd appear on French TV, constantly drunk and ramble erotically. Here is a legendary moment when he tells Whitney Houston that he wants to fuck her:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMdXi6f5KRg

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