Hurcut!
How interesting is Sir Paul McCartney's new haircut? Very, seems to be the answer. It seems to have made the papers because it is a moptop, a bit like the one he used to have when he had a moptop. (Hey, Gordon Brown standing in front of some soldiers isn't the only thing that's happening in the news!) Paul is 65. He is often accused - and it is an accusation - of trying to recapture his youth through his hair. Why? We all find a haircut that we can live with, usually sometime after our twenties, and it's likely to be one we had in our youth. I spent most of my thirties with variations on a quiff, and have in my forties settled into a longer fringe, which basically harks back to my early New Romantic style. Hair loss often dictates which way you go, too. Looking at the fine head of hair my dad has in his sixties, I'm fairly confident mine will see me through a few more decades.
McCartney is, of course, under unlikely scrutiny. (If Linda had never died and he hadn't sought a new, younger, more glamorous wife, my guess is that we'd have allowed him to slip into his autumn years with whatever the hell hairstyle he liked, but the "wisps of grey" he "allowed to show" after his divoice from Heather were a sign of depression, according to the armchair psychologists who write for the likes of the Mail. Not neglect due to having other stuff on his mind, then?) Macca even had to go on record two years ago to insist that, yes, he was dyeing his hair, but no, it wasn't under pressure from his scary wife. He'd been colouring it for years. To quote Macca himself - "Shock horror!"
Writing a song called When I'm 64 when he was 16 (although it wasn't recorded until he was 25) was always going to come back to bite him on the arse, but the world's moved on. Gentlemen of 65 wear trainers. They wear fleeces and hooded tops and jeans and, as a rule, don't wear flat caps like they used to. (The flat cap became de rigueur for working men because it kept the head warm and could be taken off and folded up in a coat pocket once inside the pub. Which is why the baseball cap has superceded it, a development that has further sealed the generation gap.) But what of the moptop? Is it acceptable for a 65-year-old man, regardless of whether he helped popularise the style in the first place, to have a whispy fringe and a bit of a bouffant on top and hair over the ears? I hope so. I saw an old man at the station this morning with a full combover, the kind that comes from behind both ears and is greased over the top of the balding dome, effectively glued there for the day. I couldn't help but think that such a hairstyle will soon be extinct. Vanity, and not just in rock stars, has crept in. Even those who despise our image-obsessed culture can surely be thankful for that!
I had my hair cut today, as usual self-conscious about using a salon at my advancing age, but look, I had a moptop. I am 23 years younger than Paul McCartney.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 10:08 AM
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Here is my haircut routine:
Shave head
Hair grows into unsightly mullet
Shave head
Hair grows into unsightly mullet
etc...
I find the process of going into a barbers and having your scalp mucked about with worse than facing a dentist's drill. But then, with looks like these I could wear a dead baby on my head and still get admiring glances, my barnet doesn't really make any difference.
NB - The worst and most irritating haircut in music belongs to that idiot guitarist from the Klaxons who somehow has managed to secure the affections Lovefoxx, the jammy beggar.
I think it's Phil Spector's hairstyles we should be worrying about. Mind you, he's got enough on his plate at the moment...
It's a small thing... but a doctor once told me that male pattern baldness is passed down the female line of the family. So your father's fine head of hair counts for nought... it's your maternal grandfather you want to look to.
Eek!
Here's my maternal granddad, God bless him, back in about 1979.
That's not a bad head of hair for a man of advancing years - I reckon you'll be alright...
Is it just me who finds getting a haircut traumatic?
The man has the face of a melted dildo, putting a wig on it doesn't help either.
Completely sympathise with the haircut/ mullet/ hair cut/ mullet problem. My hair started to crawl towards the back of my head in my late twenties but now seems to have stopped half-way across. Trouble for me is that it has always crept down the back of my neck - I am genetically predisposed to mulletdom. By the way, my maternal gradnfather had a very smart head of hair until the day he died whilst I am a half-a-slap-head. And those Iraqis think they've got worries!
dg - my learned other half told me something similar, which probably helps explain why my mum's dad's shiny dome has me fearing the worst.
God I loathe having my hair cut, but then I think at least I've still got hair to have cut.
And the female line baldness thing is true.
Gents, may I just say this from a female point of view. Sean Connery hasn't had a decent head of hair for years, but is still as sexy as sin, so don't worry about your barnets. Some of us only notice the thinning hair if the rest of you is unattractive.
BTW - lovely eyebrows, Andrew. Very in vogue for this season.
A cure for hair loss is not many years away so there's certainly no need to worry. But as there isn't one now, McCartney's haircut just draws attention to the fact that the rest of him has aged.
As a bird, I find the question of 'gentlemen's grooming' a constant challenge in my everyday life...it's great that it's become the norm for men to take basic hygiene seriously - I can remember days when anything more 'enhancing' than Euthymol tooth-powder ( which failed to impact in any way on halitosis) was considered effeminate. Train carriages no longer reek of male B.O, which is all to the good.
It's just a case of getting the balance right. I keep a wary eye on the bathroom shelf to make sure my bloke doesn't have more bottles and jars on his side than I do. He's got a good head of hair ( and, having frequently been complimented by various barbers on its 'great texture' is increasingly thankful for it), but I don't want him spending more time on it than I do on mine. Macca's can do what he likes, but for me it looks like just a bit TOO much tweaking and primping has gone into that effort. That said, I've never found him attractive anyway.
I too would rather sit in the dentist's chair than the hairdresser's, by the way, so it's not just the blokes, Swineshead. Give me a root canal filling any day.
Can't knock the moptop - did you know Chekov in Star Trek's rug was a deliberate Beatle cut?
I swear by my rooster cut a snip for all seasons - and endless variations appear in rock. Rod Stewart, Keef, Steve Marriot, Bowie, even Patti Smith if you take it too extremes. Longer at the sides and tufty bit at the back.
Bowie is the king of cool cuts, not many men can carry off a mullet (in caribbean sunset color too). The Orange and yellow centre parting 'Golden years' look was a gem. And the 'Stage'era wedge was everywhere in the 80's from Soul Boys to the Lotus Eaters.
Weirdly my last blog posting was about how much I hate having my hair cut. I get really nervous for no apparent reason - I'd rather go to the dentist I think...
Is it me, or does Paul McCartney look scarily like Phil Spector with that new haircut?!
Apart from his hair I'm sure there's a bit of tweakage been done to the ol' bugle. - I don't care either way and god knows I wouldn't mind downsizing my ol' snoz' - but I'm would convinced there's been work done
http://piqued.wordpress.com/2007/09/page/2/
I beat you all to it last month
remember the wise words of P. J. O'Rourke: 'Age and guile beat youth, innocence and a bad haircut.'
did you get baldrick to do that one for you andrew?
:-p
Ha ha.
Did you get the head massage too this time?
Excellent and informative post today, but why the pic of Anthony Newley at the bottom?
I went bald in my early twenties, so I wasn't too fussed when I started going grey in my late twenties. Fortunately I was never going to live off my looks anyway.
Musically speaking McCartney was my first love and he'll probably be my last, even if (and it's not that big an if) he never makes a really decent record again. He can do what he wants with his hair as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps the dyeing came in when he started touring extensively again - he seemed happy enough to be grey in the eighties.
Incidentally - and I mention it only because I find it astonishing - McCartney was only 24 (but nearly 25) when Sgt Pepper was released. Harrison was too.
Good hair, Andrew, did they offer you any other grooming services this time?
Why are we talking about hair when there is a far more vital point for discussion....shaving.
We go for hair cuts every few weeks, but the real pain is the shaving routine which is a daily bind. Where is the fantastic invention that would allow us to smear some Immac (Veet now?) stuff on our faces and disolve the bloody stuff? If the ladies can have it for their 'special places', then why not us?
AnonoNick
ps Why is Macca wearing Elton John's wig?
my dad's got a full head of hair, and I'm a slaphead... so best not count your chickens!
(paternal mother's family, or something, apparently)
ST
To be honest, when you're Paul McCartney, I think you can pretty much have your hair cut how you want. Colouring his hair is a different matter altogether. If only he was prepared to go grey gracefully - check out recent pictures of Ringo for a guide.
The head massage comes as standard in the salon I now use. I suppose I could opt out if I asked, but to be honest, I've grown used to it, as long as you don't catch the eye of the girl who's doing it, in the mirror. Best to avert one's eyes. (I'm not relaxed enough to close them though.)
I personally find the trend for a number one cut as soon as you have thinning hair depressingly ubitiquous, but it looks like there is no way back. People like Danny Baker are refreshing by having that 70s/80s 'scraped back-kept long' look on a thinning head. I think it was significant that the Stones and the Beatles all had great hair; certainly helps a band's longevity that it remains entact.
So "a number one cut as soon as you have thinning hair (is) depressingly ubitiquous"...is it not rather a case of good aesthetic sense finally kicking in after years of the awful sight of wispy bits growing long at the sides or the dreaded comb over??? I'd go for the "depressingly ubitiquous" option every time! The fact that a skinhead haircut is no longer associated with violence and fascism is a modern blessing for the follically challenged...
Hats are always a good option when hair loss looms, that and big scarves to wrap around the thinning area. Oh, perhaps that's only if you're a goth or a member of the Quireboys...
I think its rather endearing that you used the cover of a Paul McCartney post to show us a picture of your new haircut.
It's my blog! I don't need an excuse to show you pictures of me. (See: entries passim)
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