In a turn of events that has left the nation’s cultural commentators reaching for the smelling salts and a stiff gin, Sir Paul McCartney has publicly lauded the guitar skills of one Paul Mescal. Yes, that Paul Mescal. The one who cries beautifully in tiny shorts on screen. Now, apparently, he’s also a secret six-string savant. Heaven forfend, the man can do everything.
This warm, transatlantic exchange of pleasantries, reported by the usual feverish outlets, is being hailed as a triumph of British soft power. Soft power? The phrase alone is enough to curdle milk. It sounds like something the Foreign Office dreamed up over a lukewarm cup of tea after running out of actual ideas. What’s happening here is simple: a Beatle, a man who wrote ‘Yesterday’ while dreaming and forgot it existed, paid a compliment to an actor. It’s not diplomacy. It’s just two famous Pauls having a chat.
But let’s bask in the supposed glory, shall we? McCartney, the nation’s beloved bass-thumping treasure, took time out of his schedule of collecting solar systems and being generally adored to say that Mescal has ‘great feel’ on the guitar. Great feel. That’s a bit like saying the sea is damp. It’s technically true but utterly devoid of any spicy detail. Was it a pentatonic run? Did he bend a string into submission? Or did he just strum a G chord with enough Irish charm to trick a living legend? We’ll never know because the details have been lost to the nebulous fog of celebrity culture.
This isn’t cultural soft power. This is a PR puff piece dressed up as geopolitics. If we wanted actual cultural soft power, we’d be exporting the works of Shakespeare performed by actual badgers. That would be soft power. Or perhaps we could send Giles Brandreth to recite limericks to world leaders. That would at least be amusing. But no, we have to hear that Paul Mescal, a man who famously can make a turtleneck look rebellious, can also play guitar. The horror. The sheer overwhelming mundanity.
Meanwhile, the press is in a froth: ‘British cultural icons unite!’ they shriek, ignoring that McCartney is British and Mescal is Irish. A technicality, perhaps, but in the current climate of every word spoken by a celebrity being a geopolitical act, it’s crucial. The man from Dublin is a representative of the Irish cultural juggernaut, and yet we Brits are claiming him as our own? Steady on, chaps. Let’s not annex the man along with his talent.
But I digress. The real story here isn’t about guitar prowess or soft power. It’s about the sheer, unadulterated niceness of the entire affair. In a world where the news cycle is dominated by nuclear threats and the price of bread, here come two Pauls having a lovely conversation about a musical instrument. It’s the cultural equivalent of a warm bath. And we’re supposed to be outraged by this? No, dear reader, we’re supposed to be disarmed by it.
McCartney’s golden retriever energy combined with Mescal’s man-of-the-people mystique is a potent cocktail. It’s a reminder that sometimes, just sometimes, famous people say nice things about each other without any ulterior motive. It’s not about building bridges or asserting dominance. It’s about one chap saying, ‘You play a mean guitar’ and the other chap blushing and saying, ‘Aw, shucks.’
In conclusion, this report is a tale of two Pauls, a guitar, and a whole lot of nothing. But in our current era of everything being news, this qualifies as a headline. So let’s raise a glass of something fizzy to cultural soft power, to transatlantic bonhomie, and to the fact that we’re still obsessed with what celebrities think of each other. It’s all we have left.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a pressing engagement with a bottle of gin and a playlist of Paul McCartney’s more obscure solo works. The soft power can wait.
