Paul McCartney was in a strange place in 1980. Early that year, he was busted for trying to bring half a pound of marijuana into Japan, jailed, and eventually deported. In the wake of the resulting tour cancellations, his backing band Wings dissolved. Nearing 40 and starting back over on his own, McCartney decided to use his first truly solo album in a decade to get back in touch with what the kids were listening to. And in 1980, the kids were getting “hep” to new wave and synth-pop. McCartney’s take on synth-pop roughly parallels the cover photo of McCartney II, which shows a stunned (or stoned) McCartney, eyebrows raised and mouth slightly agape, looking completely flabbergasted by reality. Clearly, this is a man in need of a personal assistant.If “Temporary Secretary” is the sound of McCartney’s subconscious crying out for help in holding his shit together, it’s buried under his oft-noted penchant for insubstantial whimsy, which never took a more bizarre turn than this song. Musically, it’s an attempt to pull off the robotic synth-pop of Gary Numan that doesn’t quite nail it – it still sounds like a human being, albeit one who’s doing something baffling. Part of the problem is that everything was recorded and produced by McCartney in his own home studio, so the result doesn’t have the slick, polished sheen of mainstream ‘80s new wave. Nor is it backed by a ton of experience creating music with synthesizers. There’s a weird, angular sequencer line that serves as the song’s base, and it’s punctuated by…acoustic guitars, which don’t exactly create a man-machine vibe. The vocal effects sound similarly homemade, with a nasal chorus that pops up at irregular intervals, and a monotone recitation of almost randomly chosen rhymes in a similar “robot” voice. Sonically, it’s about as convincing a transformation as a robot costume made out of a cardboard box and tin foil.
If the music is at odds with itself, the lyrics are even more baffling. McCartney spends most of the song begging one Mr. Marks (a reference to a large British temp agency, analogous to addressing Mr. Manpower) to send him a girl. Perhaps McCartney assumes that, as a rock star, he needs to address his request to the head of the company rather than some low-level functionary. The first stanza makes it sound like McCartney is out for a piece of ass, like in the good old days when sexual harassment was legal – he wants a girl who fits on his knee, and he’ll let her keep the job even if she does it wrong. Yet, ever the gentleman (or perhaps recalling that he married a woman named Linda), Paul spends the rest of the song convinced that he’s doing a remarkably good deed on this girl’s behalf by giving her a shitty temp job. He gives personal assurances that he’ll treat her right and rarely – RARELY – keep her till late at night. (Presumably, they’d confine most of the screwing to regular business hours.) This crosses into a creepy middle-aged-man concern with how hard it is for young girls these days to stay on the right track (especially with older guys like him out to bone them). So he asks Mr. Marks to take a personal interest in his ex-temp’s well-being once he’s done with her. Which, having already taken “dictation” on McCartney’s lap, and maybe thrown in a bit of belly dancing, wouldn’t seem likely to assuage a young lady’s fears about prostituting herself to wealthy men.
Furthermore, McCartney seems unclear on what kind of women will be available to fill his position, telling Mr. Marks in his “best” robot voice that it’s okay to send him a belly dancer, a diplomat, or a neurosurgeon (all very skilled professions) as his temporary secretary. One gets the impression that McCartney would also not mind if the Duchess of Luxembourg came over to clean his solid gold toilet. Again, perhaps breathing the rarefied air of stardom (and/or weed) for too long has clouded McCartney’s perception of how the lower levels of the world work. Or perhaps he is mired in the fantasy world of ancient Greece, in which prostitutes were expected to be cultured and well-read, and well-off older dudes got to have sex with the boys they were responsible for educating. At any rate, if you worked at a temp agency and got a call like this, you’d probably think three times about sending anyone over.
Other than “Coming Up,” which became a hit in a more organic live version, “Temporary Secretary” is far and away the most striking song on the album, the remainder of which could be more accurately titled “Paul McCartney Dicks Around With Cheap Synths In His Spare Bedroom.” Still, it’s one that prompted my Beatles-obsessed father to ask, “What is he doing?”
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