“The two lovers are going to take on the world. “A really teenage song,” he said in 2001. Two years later, he revived it as Ram’s grand orchestral finale. Like many of McCartney’s early triumphs, “The Back Seat of My Car” could have been a Beatles song: He played them an early version in 1969. There’s no resentment in the performance, just a lot of love for the memory of a friend. “So many times I had to change the pain to laughter/Just to keep from getting crazed.” And because he’s Paul, it comes out as a bittersweet, gentle folk ballad that’s one of the most moving songs he’s written this century. “They can’t take it from me if they try/I lived through those early days,” he sings. It’s not like it fades.” This highlight from 2013’s New, he explained, is rooted in that same sense of frustration at revisionist Beatles histories. I still have very vivid memories of all of that. “I can see every minute of John and I writing together, playing together, recording together. “I know my memory has got chips in it that still can go exactly back to two guys sitting in a room trying to write ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ or ‘One After 909,'” he told Rolling Stone in 2014. You might think of McCartney as being beyond the old debates over who wrote what in the Beatles, but if so, you don’t know Paul. “You can’t win ’em all,” McCartney said with a shrug. “I’ve Had Enough” was a minor Top 40 hit in the U.S. McCartney’s sarcastic snarl suggests he was already paying close attention to future collaborator Elvis Costello. This late-model Wings cut followed up the ultra-easygoing “With a Little Luck,” with tough talk and guitars to match. “I didn’t know I was doing anything innovative, really.” “I just saw it as an experiment,” he said years later, by which time the song had become a cult favorite. But it was an unstoppable phenomenon in Britain, becoming the country’s bestselling single ever, beating “She Loves You.” (It was unseated in 1984 by “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”)ĭeep into the free-form tape-machine improvisation that produced most of McCartney II, Paul came up with this oddly catchy electro-pop nugget, about a slightly creepy-sounding guy looking to hire a temp. “I thought it might be good to tell some people you can’t stand them.”Ī bagpipe-assisted pub singalong in praise of the gorgeous, remote part of western Scotland where McCartney’s farm is located, “Mull of Kintyre” is a footnote for most U.S. “I don’t write many songs like that,” he told RS. Nigel Godrich’s production makes this psychedelic ballad feel like it’s floating in space, while the excellently sharp-edged lyrics lash out at an undermining type. “I would use the word ‘memory.’ … If you’re using your imagination, you tend to look into the past.” “I wouldn’t use the word ‘nostalgia,'” he said. McCartney tapped into the restless energy of a man half his age on this backward-looking single, singing about “searching for the time that has gone so fast” over quick, incisive riffs. On Wings’ next tour, images of Magneto and Titanium Man were featured alongside paintings by artists like Magritte. On vacation in Jamaica, McCartney started buying comic books for his kids - inspiring him to write this jolly little tune about a bank robbery involving several Marvel supervillains. I don’t think that’s corny.” Even though it was Paul’s 1970 solo debut that marked the end of the Beatles, it was Paul’s post-Beatle career that was truest to the band’s world-hugging, happiness-spreading vision, as he channeled his own changing inspirations and desires into beloved hits like “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Jet” and “Band on the Run,” as well as genius obscurities like “Monkberry Moon Delight.” Our ranking of his 40 greatest solo songs is sure to start some arguments (his banned stoner-anthem rocker “Hi, Hi, Hi” makes the top 10 and his radio-dominating global smash “My Love” isn’t here at all), and the picks run from pop to folk to punk and disco and beyond, as well as a few silly love songs - some of the greatest of all time, in fact. “It was great, and I can go along with all the people you meet on the street who say you gave so much happiness to so many people. “I’m proud of the Beatle thing,” Paul McCartney told Rolling Stone in 1978.
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