Nod Your Head for Free

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney is offering a free song and video through iTunes for one week only.
The song, Nod Your Head, is taken from McCartney's recently-released Memory Almost Full album. The artist has also released the promotional video for the track.

Apple has released selected tracks recorded during McCartney's performance at the iTunes Festival, too. Tracks include: Coming Up, Only Mama Knows, That Was Me, Jet, Nod Your Head, and House of Wax.
In a second slice of Beatles-related news, Apple has also confirmed last week's report with the addition of a wide swathe of music and video from Ringo Starr - the first time music from the artist has been made available on a global basis.
EMI has introduced a new collection, Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo Starr and also added four back catalogue albums to those available through iTunes, including Sentimental Journey, Beacoups of Blues, Ringo and Goodnight Vienna.
Earlier this month, music from another former Beatle, John Lennon, was made available through iTunes.
Sixteen of Lennon's solo works from EMI Music were made available for the first time on iTunes, including the Lennon Legend and Acoustic collections and the albums: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Sometime In New York City, Walls and Bridges, Milk and Honey and the collections, Anthology and Working Class Hero.
“John would have loved the fact that his music will now be available in a format suited to a new generation of listeners,” said Yoko Ono at the time.
Paul McCartney's decision to offer free music through iTunes has been matched recently by another major league artist, Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen is currently offering his Radio Nowhere track for free through various global outlets.
The availability of music from all former Beatles bar George Harrison is likely to inflame speculation that The Beatles back catalogue will eventually be made available online.
For the present, all eyes will be looking to Apple's special event on 5 September for further clues on this.

As Macca sails a boat named Linda, Heather takes to pool

For Sir Paul McCartney it was a blissful reminder of the good old days - just him and Linda sailing on a lake.

Linda being the name of his dinghy, after his beloved first wife who died in 1998.
The 65-year-old former Beatle cycled to the lake from his holiday home in the Hamptons, the fashionable U.S. East Coast enclave where affluent New Yorkers spend their summer.
He and his soon-to-be-ex-wife Heather met up there last week when she handed over their three-year-old daughter Beatrice, whose time is divided between her parents.
Heather grew to love the Hamptons while spending time there with McCartney, and is renting a house a few miles from his. She was seen in a local bar playing pool with a "hunky male" and enjoying the company late into the evening.
Sir Paul's divorce from Heather is expected to cost him £70million. And if he needs any advice about breaking up, who better to provide it than his old friend Christie Brinkley, the 53-year-old former model who has been married four times?
He was introduced to Miss Brinkley some years ago by her second husband, Billy Joel, who wrote his hit song Uptown Girl about her.

And they met again the other night at a concert in a Hamptons club by James Taylor.
Members of the crowd said Miss Brinkley, in a widebrimmed floppy hat, danced close to Sir Paul as the band played How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You.
During the song - which has the lyrics "I needed the shelter of someone's arms" - Christie sidled up to Sir Paul, and whispered in his ear, having to take the hat off to get in closer to him, then leant her head on his shoulder.
They had spent much of the earlier evening laughing and joking together.
And at the end of the gig, before the couple left separately, McCartney was described as "beaming" and "really buoyed up" as he did a little dance on his own in front of daughter Stella and her husband Alasdhair Willis.
Miss Brinkley recently split from her fourth husband, architect Peter Cook, after he confessed to an affair.

Macca wants London Eye

Sir Paul McCartney is hoping to rename the London Eye in his honour to promote a new DVD, it has been claimed.The Beatles legend releases "The McCartney Years" later this year, and wants to use one of the UK's most famous landmarks to support the media campaign.The plan may also include a one-off concert on the iconic wheel structure, which could be decked out in the artwork for the video compilation, according to a 'source'."The whole idea came together after a series of meetings in Macca HQ. The artwork for the DVD cover is a stylised close-up of Sir Paul's eye - and that got the team thinking."It occurred to them that the other most famous eye in the world was, of course, the London Eye and they immediately tried to work together", the 'source' explained."It's ambitious but his people are determined to make it happen and Sir Paul may even perform a one-off show in one of the pods to make it even more special."Macca loves London and to be the face and name of the Eye - albeit just for a short time - would be a massive honour that he would cherish", he concluded."The McCartney Years" is scheduled for release in November. There are currently no details of the tracklisting.

McCartney Still Inspires

By Melinda Newman - ReZoom's Music Columnist

Here’s what I believe about music. I believe music can save your soul. At those times when absolutely nothing else can reach you, music can. When it feels like all hope is lost, a note, a voice, a melody can bring you back to safety. Brian Wilson called “Smile,” his legendary unfinished album (until 2004, at least) “a teenage symphony to God.” I believe the reverse: that through artists like Wilson and Springsteen and, of course, some of the world’s greatest classical composers, God is writing symphonies to us as a way to comfort us, soothe us and make his presence known. Everything I believe about music I felt on June 27 when Paul McCartney played at Amoeba Records in Hollywood. Incredibly, it was his first time ever playing at a record store.After the announcement of the surprise free show 48 hours in advance, folks began camping out in front of Amoeba for the 400 or so wristbands that would allow entry. Online reports claimed that at times 3,000 people were in line. The crowd was made up of ages from three to 70. A number of dads brought their little sons in what will surely be a bonding moment, even if the tots don't actually remember the concert.Among the 350 or so VIPs, who were lined up between the record store's CD bins like cattle in a chute, were Ringo Starr (who, sadly, did not join McCartney on stage), Olivia Harrison (George Harrison’s widow), the Eagles’ Joe Walsh, Alanis Morissette, Cybil Shepherd, former Disney head honcho Michael Eisner, Twiggy, Woody Harrelson and producer Rick Rubin. A little after 8 p.m., the star of the show appeared on stage and launched into the peppy “Drive My Car.” McCartney was effortlessly engaging and charming throughout the 75-minute performance whether rocking out with his touring band or playing “Blackbird” solo. There was a tacit, unspoken agreement between McCartney and the audience: He was going to play songs from his new CD, “Memory Almost Full.” All of these were well received -- the woman beside me sang along to every tune -- but he was also going to play what he knew we were all there to hear, the classic Beatles songs that make up the soundtrack to our lives. Given the hyper-ecstasy displayed by the crowd at this opportunity to see their musical hero in such an intimate setting, it pushes credulity to say McCartney was enjoying the evening as much as the audience, but he clearly was. Unlike so many acts who are mere shells of their former selves and who perform their hits by rote, McCartney delivered 40-year-old songs with the gusto of someone performing them for the 10th time instead of the 1,000th and managed never to seem like an oldies act. He innately seems to understand what these songs mean to people and has enough respect for his audience to not toss off a tune that may, in all likelihood, be someone’s favorite of all time.“Hey Jude,” written for Julian Lennon, is one of those songs for me. As first recorded for the 1968 album of the same name, it is a masterpiece. But it is as the world’s most famous sing-along that it has earned its place as something much more: an expression of our collective consciousness coming together through its hypnotically repeating “na-na-na” ending. It is as uplifting as any hymn. Speaking of hymns, McCartney also performed “Let It Be,” as a beautiful benediction for the evening. McCartney turned 65 in June, but he remains eternally youthful in a boundlessly energetic way that can only be brought about by following one’s passion. None of his new songs, as good as they may be, will ever have the iconic appeal of his Beatles classics, but that’s OK. No one, not even McCartney, should be forced to compete with that past.