搬运自：微信公众号【评论搬一堆】（在原文基础上添加了英语原文与排版调整） 

翻译：酒酿冰激凌

校正：Ryan-Chopin

《Egypt Station》——即使是他的第17张专辑，他仍有话要继续说

When you’ve done enough in music to ensure your name defines the rock’n’roll era and will be mentioned alongside Mozart and Beethoven by the people of 2518, you have three standard late-career options. You could bow out reliving former glories as a reminder of your monumental achievements. You could chase the zeitgeist, working with the hottest young talent to try to recapture your cutting edge. Or you could slouch off into trad rock, playing out your days in the Blues Jam Retirement Home For Idea Drained Duffers.

当你在音乐领域赢得一片天地、甚至能确保你的名字得以定义摇滚乐时代、并且在2518年的未来你将与莫扎特和贝多芬一起为人们称道时，在职业生涯后期你有三个标准的选择。 你可以选“退休”，重温昔日的辉煌，以提醒你曾获得巨大成就；你可以追逐时代精神，与最炙手可热的年轻人一起努力，重新夺回你的前沿；或者你可以躲进传统摇滚世界里偷懒，在为想法枯竭者提供的“蓝调果酱退休之家”虚度你的光阴。

On his 17th solo album, Egypt Station, Macca tries all three on for size. Of late he’s courted young buck producers including Mark Ronson and Paul Epworth on his rather dazzling 2013 album New, and suffered the barrage of Kim Kardashian selfies that comes with recording with Kanye West.

在他的第17张个人专辑《Egypt Station》中，保罗将这三个选择尝试了个遍。 近来，他招来包括Mark Ronson和Paul Epworth在内的年轻制作人来一同合作，他们都参与制作了保罗发行与2013年那令人印象深刻的专辑“New”。但当时他遭受炮轰，因为Kanye West的妻子Kim Kardashian大尺度的照片影响了保罗与Kanye West的合作。

Here just three tracks vie, unsuccessfully, to mesh with modern pop. “Caesar Rock” updates the loop collage of “Tomorrow Never Knows” with dashes of The Who rock and contemporary R&B, but only serves to illustrate that although McCartney might have helped to invent electronica, he should probably leave it to the specialists now. The synthetic samba “Back In Brazil” is plain awful. Meanwhile, “Fuh You” paints the charming Sir Paul as a prowling, priapic horndog at a Bastille gig, and is easily the cheesiest thing he’s done since 1986’s “Press”.

这里只有三首曲目与现今流行音乐沾边，且并未成功入流。 “Caesar Rock”则是“Tomorrow Never Knows”配上“The Who”的摇滚风格，并融合了R&B风格后的升级版。这只是为了说明虽然McCartney可能助力创造了电子音乐，但他现在或许应该将这种音乐留给相关专业人士，而自己的制作并不是很成熟，合成的桑巴风格歌曲“Back In Brazil”呈现的效果非常糟糕。 与此同时，在“Fuh You”中，迷人的保罗爵士被刻画成在“巴士底狱”中的一个四处游荡的色鬼角色，这是他自1986年发行“Press”后所做的最奇怪的事。

He’s no less lusty on the couple of trad rock/bar blues numbers, which are frankly beneath him. “Come on to Me”, for instance, has McCartney encouraging the advances of an admirer in a flurry of septuagenarian innuendo (“I don’t think I can wait ... how soon can we arrange a formal introduction?”) more suited to the pensioners on First Dates.

他擅长传统摇滚/蓝调音乐，坦白讲，对他来说要熟悉制作这类音乐丝毫不在话下。 举例来说，“Come on to me”是保罗用70年代的暗语鼓励他的一位崇拜者前进（“I don’t think I can wait ... how soon can we arrange a formal introduction?/我想我等不了那么久......我们什么时候可以来一次正式介绍呢？”），来鼓励着他们发起“第一场约会”。

Such unbecoming carnality is, perhaps, part of the album’s overarching concept of reflecting on a lifetime of romance – McCartney describes each song as a station on life’s journey. It’s a theme unravelled on the tracks that throw back to his prime eras, where Egypt Station’s real magic lies. “Happy with You” has him declaring “I used to get stoned, I liked to get wasted, but these days I don’t because I’m happy with you”, from within a gorgeous pastoral flutter of flutes, toe taps and arpeggios that should really have been called “Mother Nature’s Grandad”.

这种不雅的欲望也许是专辑所要反映的浪漫概念的一部分，而这份浪漫足以持续一生，正如保罗将每首歌都描述为人生旅程中的一站。 回到黄金时代是这人生道路上的一大主题，这也是《Egypt Station》的真正魅力所在。 “Happy with you”中从飘来愉悦笛声、足尖点地起舞以及琶音和声，他在此宣称“I used to get stoned, I liked to get wasted, but these days I don’t because I’m happy with you（我曾为此迷醉，我曾虚度光阴，但近来我不再那样，因为与你一起我很开心）”，这应该算是“大自然母亲的爷爷了”（披头士曾有首歌叫“Mother Nature’s son/大自然母亲的孩子”，此处意为“Happy with you”更加悦耳美妙）。

“Confidante”, an open letter to an ex-soulmate, recalls the proggier folk bits of 1970s Macca, while “I Don’t Know” and “Dominoes” revisit Wings’ plusher mid-Seventies arrangements. Invoking fresh flower power, “People Want Peace” seamlessly fuses “Magical Mystery Tour”, “Eleanor Rigby” and Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance”, and Mother Mary would undoubtedly approve of “Hand in Hand”, panpipe solo and all.

给前灵魂伴侣的公开信“Confidante”，勾起了我们对20世纪70年代玛卡（Macca）民谣的回忆，而“I Don’t Know”和“Dominoes”则让我们能重新审视七十年代中期的编曲。“People Want Peace”也无缝衔接了“Magical Mystery Tour”、“Eleanor Rigby”和列侬（Lennon）的“Give Peace a Chance”，而母亲玛丽则会毫无疑问支持“Hand in hand”、排箫独奏、甚至全部。

Most heartening of all, though, is the seafaring remake of “Band on the Run” that is “Despite Repeated Warnings”. Opening as a classic “Live and Let Die” piano refrain telling the story of a deranged captain steering their ship towards disaster despite the crew’s desperate pleas, it ramps up the drama over tense, shifting 10cc and ELO segments before the line “it’s the will of the people” reveals its hand as a Brexit metaphor. So many records as reflective and evocative as Egypt Station prove to be career codas. Despite occasional misfires this one proves that, at 76, McCartney, socially and sonically, still has plenty to say.

实际上最令人振奋的是“Band on the Run”的航海翻版，即“Despite Repeated Warnings”。 作为一部经典的以“Live and Let Die”式钢琴开场的歌曲，它讲述了这样一个故事：尽管航海人员绝望地恳求，但疯狂的船长仍将他们的船转向灾难，在紧张情况下增加了戏剧性的一幕，以“人民的意愿”为借口将10cc和ELO段转移，暗指英国脱欧。 因此像《Egypt Station》这样发人深省又令人回味的专辑会是职业生涯的代表性杰作。 尽管他偶尔会跌倒，但这这张专辑证明了76岁的保罗·麦卡特尼对世界仍有许多话想说。