In 13,728 Stores

Over a span of 329,472 Hours

Or 19,768,320 Minutes

10 Million Customers were aurally assaulted, so ABC News told us last night, in their reporting on the full frontal marketeering perpetrated by Starbucks yesterday. As has been well reported on, blogged on, etc., Starbucks has released the first album on their new “Hear” music label; Paul McCartney’s latest, “Memory Almost Full.”

Pawn is a fan of McCartney — The first real rock-n-roll album I purchased was “Let It Be” on its original Christmas release, oh so many years ago. But this is going too far. We fear the day when other marketeers decide to start their own labels and assault their customers, and employees, with non-stop repeating loops of aging rock stars.

Yesterday Pawn read the June 4th profile, in The New Yorker Magazine, of McCartney. A very good piece. Here is an interesting excerpt:

His new record includes a song called “That Was Me,” an upbeat rock tune on which he demonstrates that his voice is still capable of startling clarity and range. The song contains a verse about his Beatle days: “That was me / Seathing cobwebs / Under contract / In the celler / On TV / That was me!” I mentioned that the song seems to express amazement at the life he has led.

“That’s exactly it, I am amazed,” he said. “How could I not be? Unless I just totally blocked it off. There were four people in the Beatles, and I was one of them. There were two people in the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team, and I was one of them. I mean, right there, that’s enough for anyone’s life. And there was one guy who wrote ‘Yesterday,’ and I was him. One guy who wrote ‘Let It Be,’ ‘Fool on the Hill,’ ‘Lady Madonna’ — and I was him, too. All of these things would be enough for anyone’s life. So to be involved in all of them is pretty surprising. And you have to pinch yourself. That’s what that song is about.”

You’ve gotta love how he can brag and not seem immodest at the same time. How rare it is to hear someone speak proudly, and yet reverently, about their own accomplishments, and not come off sounding like they’re full of themselves.

Just to make this complete, reading this at a Chinese restaurant, as I got to these paragraphs, the song “Hey Jude” came on the Muzak!

That’s just freaky!