Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul muldoon. Before we get to
Speaker 1: this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
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Speaker 2: The vast majority of people in this city believe in
Speaker 2: love because they're getting married, or they getting engaged, or
Speaker 2: they're going to see a film. This idea of love
Speaker 2: is very strong and sometimes gets knocked because it also
Speaker 2: can be seen as sloppy. But the romantic thing is
Speaker 2: one of the things I write about a lot. One
Speaker 2: day with the bluebird, with the beaches. They're marvelous, the wonderful,
Speaker 2: the beautiful, idyllic world that we love to just be in,
Speaker 2: even if he's just in a dream, or even if
Speaker 2: he's just watching a film. That's a feeling. When a
Speaker 2: film does that to you, it gives you that, oh
Speaker 2: my god, life's great.
Speaker 1: I'm Paul will do for a while now. I've been
Speaker 1: fortunate to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters
Speaker 1: of the era, and.
Speaker 2: Will you look at me I'm going on to I'm
Speaker 2: actually a performer.
Speaker 1: That is Sir Paul McCartney. We work together on a
Speaker 1: book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
Speaker 1: of our conversations.
Speaker 2: It was like going back to an old snapshot album
Speaker 2: looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 1: This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
Speaker 1: and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
Speaker 1: figures in popular music. In this episode Silly Love Songs,
Speaker 1: looking back on McCartney's prolific career, it's obvious that the
Speaker 1: dominant theme across his music is love. I guess this
Speaker 1: is true across the history of music. Love songs always
Speaker 1: topped the charts, songs about wanting love, falling in love,
Speaker 1: being in love, rejecting love. We seem unable to exhaust
Speaker 1: the subject, though a few Paul McCarthy. These critics have
Speaker 1: accused him of trying to, so much so that he
Speaker 1: eventually felt compelled to write Silly Love Songs, a love
Speaker 1: song about writing love songs.
Speaker 3: And what's wrong with that.
Speaker 2: I like to know the rang.
Speaker 3: Again.
Speaker 1: From his earliest days as a songwriter, Paul McCartney was
Speaker 1: drawn to songs about romance.
Speaker 4: As a.
Speaker 5: SENDMA to you, remember that, always be in love with you,
Speaker 5: treasure these.
Speaker 2: Your zose certain set of subjects to write things about.
Speaker 2: Love is very much wall revenge, breakups, desire, you know,
Speaker 2: and that covers an awful lot of territory those few categories.
Speaker 1: Unlike the small sy love songs of their parents' generation,
Speaker 1: the Beatles love songs were fresh and cheeky, filled with
Speaker 1: the light hearted fun of young love. In the early
Speaker 1: Beatles records, nearly every song was a love song, but
Speaker 1: often carrying some twist or clever take on tired romance cliches.
Speaker 1: For example, McCartney was able to use the love song
Speaker 1: as a vehicle for a critique of materialism My.
Speaker 6: Now Rainbow Friends Below Ryan.
Speaker 2: It just bangs in, there's no intro, can't Bobby comes
Speaker 2: right in, so it's very instant, very simple, and then
Speaker 2: it goes into you know, by your diamond ring, by
Speaker 2: you anything. But it's still won't part.
Speaker 6: Of me love because I don't care you that the money,
Speaker 6: the money love, so it's.
Speaker 2: Just you know, materialism versus love. It really is quite
Speaker 2: a simple idea. You know, you can have all the
Speaker 2: money in the world, but that's not kind of by
Speaker 2: you love. But I found it a neat little way
Speaker 2: to say it quickly.
Speaker 1: That said, the young lads from Liverpool were interested in
Speaker 1: both love and money, and they caught on that writing
Speaker 1: about love would be a quick way to reach a
Speaker 1: big audience.
Speaker 2: You know, nowadays people have a slightly sort of more
Speaker 2: hyphalutin idea of what you're doing when you're writing soult
Speaker 2: and what we were doing when we were writing them.
Speaker 4: Close and I'll kiss you.
Speaker 2: There was a certain formula the pronoun I you me him, her, my,
Speaker 2: she love me, I saw her standing I'll get you,
Speaker 2: or my look, I want to hold your hand.
Speaker 1: But you probably weren't feeling that was formulaic at the time,
Speaker 1: were you.
Speaker 2: No? Not really no, no, we weren't. But looking back
Speaker 2: on it, all they were all I may love. Because
Speaker 2: you wanted to contact the fans, there were songs to
Speaker 2: contact the people with.
Speaker 1: The Beatles did contact people on a massive scale, and
Speaker 1: as they developed their musical style, ernest love songs remained
Speaker 1: front and center. Take for instance, McCartney's I Will from
Speaker 1: the White album.
Speaker 4: Who Knows hal long I've loved you?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 7: I love you still?
Speaker 4: Will I wait, lo me loud?
Speaker 2: Did you want me too? I will see I wasn't
Speaker 2: actually wait for anyone. But it's a very romantic idea.
Speaker 2: So it's me as the Troubadour. It's me, you know,
Speaker 2: wandering around show and Forrest, you know, play.
Speaker 1: Alan a Dale the lud playing Troubadour Risk from the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three Disney film Robin.
Speaker 3: I love that movie. I love that thing.
Speaker 2: It's that kind of thing. It's me as that guy.
Speaker 2: And then so you know, if if you want me to,
Speaker 2: I will. And then for if I ever saw you,
Speaker 2: I didn't catch your name, I never really mattered. I'll
Speaker 2: always gonna say.
Speaker 1: So you I did got your name.
Speaker 2: It's too like an amorphous person. Instead of every man,
Speaker 2: it's every girl. And I'm very much think that I
Speaker 2: don't have to have a face. It's a dream of
Speaker 2: a face.
Speaker 6: Very mad.
Speaker 3: I will.
Speaker 2: We feel the same for me. It's so satisfying to
Speaker 2: get in touch with that feeling. And the other thing is,
Speaker 2: of course then the tune, the melody. But I'm coaxing
Speaker 2: out of this thing. I'm getting to this, you know,
Speaker 2: Alan Dale place strolling minstrel place de body down. Then
Speaker 2: I'm also trying to make this tune fit these words
Speaker 2: in feeling. I'm trying to get this chew to have
Speaker 2: heart and there's tune to be as appealing as this
Speaker 2: thought of finding love is.
Speaker 1: Weird, weird.
Speaker 2: All I would have is just a little path through
Speaker 2: pencil notes with the lyrics. But if I come out
Speaker 2: with this thing in this case, I will. It's more
Speaker 2: than satisfying. It's quite a thrill because you know you've
Speaker 2: done it. Yes.
Speaker 8: One of the most fascinating things, one of the most
Speaker 8: mysterious things, it seems to me, is how one knows that.
Speaker 2: I think, just when it's good, it's good. You just
Speaker 2: know this is I've just written a good tune. This
Speaker 2: melody is good and these words fit it. And so
Speaker 2: someone listening to this will relate to this. I just
Speaker 2: know it because you've cooked this recipe and you just
Speaker 2: know it's going to taste good. You don't know how
Speaker 2: offer it to people, and do you know they're going
Speaker 2: to taste it and go this taste good?
Speaker 1: McCarty's Love Songs take their inspiration and from everything and everywhere,
Speaker 1: but he's often drawn on the edge old tradition of
Speaker 1: writing to amuse. The song My Love, for instance, was
Speaker 1: written to his first wife, Linda McCartney.
Speaker 2: And where I Go, where I Know my heart can
Speaker 2: stay with mine. It's a fuel love song to Linda,
Speaker 2: and it talks about some of the things I value
Speaker 2: in a song manner. You know, when I go away,
Speaker 2: I know my heart and stay with my love. You know,
Speaker 2: that's the idea of faithfulness.
Speaker 3: But into just.
Speaker 2: Those lines bad for instance, I don't know, even at
Speaker 2: the breakup of the Beatles, when the couple was getting
Speaker 2: pretty bare, when me and Linda would go away to Scotland,
Speaker 2: there was plenty there, you know. So it's just other
Speaker 2: ways of saying, you know, when we were down and out,
Speaker 2: she'll still be there. I might go away, She'll be
Speaker 2: there when I get back. I'm just doing a reaffirmation
Speaker 2: of my love for Linda. But I also hope that
Speaker 2: other people, because it doesn't just say my Linda, it is.
Speaker 7: My love, so that other people will be able to
Speaker 7: relate to it and go, yeah, wow, that's great, she.
Speaker 9: Said for me too.
Speaker 1: There's also my Valentine, which Paul McCartney wrote for his
Speaker 1: wife Nancy. What if it rained, we didn't care.
Speaker 6: She's the that someday soon the sun was gonna shine.
Speaker 2: My Mountine is the most definite story. I had fallen
Speaker 2: in love with my lady Nancy, but we weren't an
Speaker 2: item yet, and in my case I always got looking
Speaker 2: over my shoulder for paparazzi. But we went on holiday
Speaker 2: to Morocco to a quiet little hotel I knew of.
Speaker 2: And because we weren't tonight and we didn't stay together
Speaker 2: in the same room, Nancy got a room and I
Speaker 2: had a room, and my brother and his wife were
Speaker 2: on holiday with us. They had a room. And it
Speaker 2: rained the whole bloody time. Might as well have stayed
Speaker 2: in Manchester, you know, it just rained. But we had
Speaker 2: a great time, and the lovely thing was I was
Speaker 2: getting to know none. And as you do in those
Speaker 2: kind of occasions, I apologize to her for the rain,
Speaker 2: like it was my fault. I so I'm really sorry
Speaker 2: that I'm really sorry about all this rain. She said,
Speaker 2: doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: What him in rain. We didn't care.
Speaker 2: She said that someday soon some who's gonna shine And
Speaker 2: the attitude of it doesn't matter. We're so sort of sweet.
Speaker 2: There's really resonated with me. I thought that's great. You know.
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney had many muses throughout his career. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: music was inspired by was a little hairy, as was
Speaker 1: the case in Martha, My Dear, Martha, my.
Speaker 6: Dear, the last spend my days in conversation, Remember me, Martha,
Speaker 6: my love, don't forget me, Martha, my dear.
Speaker 7: Martha, my dear.
Speaker 2: It was about my dog. She was an English sheep dog.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 2: I'd never had a dog, and I'd always kind of
Speaker 2: wanted one, but we hadn't been able to have one
Speaker 2: because my mom and dad both worked so they were
Speaker 2: out all day and we were at school, so we never.
Speaker 3: Had a dog.
Speaker 2: But when I grew up, was in the Beatles and
Speaker 2: had a house on my own and actually had someone
Speaker 2: looking after the house, then I could get a dog,
Speaker 2: I felt, you know. So I went along to a
Speaker 2: place and selected this little dog, and it was beautiful.
Speaker 2: There's a little fluffy puppy. They're very cute puppies. Well,
Speaker 2: all dogs are cute puppies, but this particularly cute. She
Speaker 2: was a lovely little dog, and I just adored her.
Speaker 2: You know, we became great friends. Every time I came home,
Speaker 2: there was this little wiggly bundle of fluff loving to
Speaker 2: see me.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I used to take her out to the country of
Speaker 2: long walks, take her out to Regent's Park where she
Speaker 2: would see a dock on the lake and forget that
Speaker 2: you couldn't walk on water, so she'd run into it,
Speaker 2: be like a cartoon. Well, oh, it was very nice,
Speaker 2: and I remember John being very sort of sympathetic to me.
Speaker 2: I think he warned me seeing me with a pet.
Speaker 2: John was a cat guy. He loved his cats.
Speaker 3: And when you say warmed to you, yeah, I remember
Speaker 3: you know him.
Speaker 2: I just remember a sort of when he came around
Speaker 2: and I'd be playing with Martha. I could tell that
Speaker 2: he liked it.
Speaker 8: You know, I heard this time of course of good mind.
Speaker 8: But I don't know if I knew at the time
Speaker 8: that Martha wasn't dark.
Speaker 2: No, not many people knew that, except the fans who
Speaker 2: had seen me with with my only issue dog was
Speaker 2: called Martha again. You know, I like the sort of
Speaker 2: mystery of songwriting and creating things because it's not like
Speaker 2: having to write a historical essay it doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be true, which to me is a great thing. Mother.
Speaker 6: Might you have always been my sporation. Be good to me,
Speaker 6: my love, don't forget.
Speaker 2: Me nots might.
Speaker 1: All this singing about love over the years has made
Speaker 1: some harder boiled music fans and critics dismissive. McCartney has
Speaker 1: contended with accusations of being sentimental, schmaltzy, of lacking sophistication.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people who are cynical about
Speaker 2: it haven't been lucky enough to feel it, you know.
Speaker 2: Often sort of wonder what the critic who damns it
Speaker 2: looks like, what his life, his or her life looks like.
Speaker 2: I often want to get a photograph of them and go, oh,
Speaker 2: it's him, not listening to him, because you can't have
Speaker 2: outlive them anyway, you know, they come and go.
Speaker 1: While some of McCartney's critics are tired of love as
Speaker 1: a subject, others are more specifically disdainful of an over
Speaker 1: earnest attempt at the sound of love, schmaltz and musical
Speaker 1: grandeur the way many classic love songs are produced. When
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney wrote The Long and Winding Road, he initially
Speaker 1: recorded it as a straightforward ballad, a strict down ode
Speaker 1: to the mysterious journey of love, the love and.
Speaker 2: Winding badly.
Speaker 3: Do your.
Speaker 1: Will never disappear.
Speaker 4: I've seen that road before.
Speaker 2: It's a bit creepy, you know, this road of stretching
Speaker 2: and winding, and I had it also in my mind.
Speaker 2: There is a road on our farm in Scotland which
Speaker 2: leads to the road End, as they call it. It's
Speaker 2: called the road End, which is the tea junction. So
Speaker 2: this idea of life being a long winding road that
Speaker 2: never ends, will never disappear. I've seen that road before.
Speaker 2: Lead me to your door, so give me a clue here.
Speaker 2: You know. It's like John when he went up in
Speaker 2: the helicopter with Marishi, said he hoped he'd slip in
Speaker 2: the answer, let.
Speaker 4: Me know the word. Many times I've been alone, and
Speaker 4: many times I'm right.
Speaker 2: We recorded it and I'll inclined. That's what he didn't
Speaker 2: think the record was sort of glamorous enough, so he
Speaker 2: wanted it to be made more glamorous, and I think
Speaker 2: everyone went okay.
Speaker 1: Klein suggested that the band work with producer Phil Spector,
Speaker 1: who's more involved or chestral arrangement. Dazzled with sentiment.
Speaker 3: Love Wandy doo yr.
Speaker 4: Well never disappeared.
Speaker 6: I've seen that role before.
Speaker 1: This became the Beatles' final number one song in America,
Speaker 1: but some took issue with the grand production. At least
Speaker 1: one journalist complained that Specter's production made the song unlistenable.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the first time critics but complain about McCartney's
Speaker 1: love songs, and it wouldn't be the last.
Speaker 2: I was being accused of just writing silly love songs
Speaker 2: and was in danger of starting to buy into this
Speaker 2: idea that you should just be a bit tougher and
Speaker 2: a bit more worldly, and then asking me, really, that's
Speaker 2: exactly what love is. It's worldly. So this idea came
Speaker 2: to me, you know, you think of people would hardy
Speaker 2: not well? I look around me and I say it doesn't.
Speaker 2: So some people want to fill the world with sailly
Speaker 2: love songs. What's wrong with that?
Speaker 3: People want to build the world.
Speaker 4: What's silly love songs?
Speaker 3: What's wrong with that?
Speaker 7: I'd like to know, does he want.
Speaker 3: To go.
Speaker 10: Again instead about lowering songs about love?
Speaker 2: Just get on with it, get into it, and don't
Speaker 2: be embarrassed. Because even though you can't say this is
Speaker 2: a soppy subject. It actually is the opposite. It's actually
Speaker 2: very deep and meaningful and basis of most religions and
Speaker 2: most philosophy. This thing people can feel for each other
Speaker 2: that makes life better if they can engage in it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean that there's no more to this
Speaker 2: than that. That doesn't come in a minute. Love doesn't
Speaker 2: come in a minute. Sometimes it doesn't come at all.
Speaker 2: I only know that when I'm in it. It isn't silly.
Speaker 3: Love isn't silly.
Speaker 1: Was there's a response to someone who actually did say.
Speaker 2: This, response to a lot of people who would say
Speaker 2: that about it. Yeah, that was kind of I was
Speaker 2: given that reputation, you know, and I had to stand
Speaker 2: up for it. I think it is easier to get
Speaker 2: good criticism if you rail against things and probably swear
Speaker 2: a lot, because it just makes you seem stronger. Oh
Speaker 2: there's fucking weather. It's fucking unbelievable that I fucking hate thonder,
Speaker 2: I fucking hate lightning.
Speaker 3: What the fuck is God doing this for?
Speaker 2: What's the point? I told her? Rather well, said, says
Speaker 2: the critic was marvelous. You go, Oh, it's a lovely day.
Speaker 2: It's nice. I like the rain.
Speaker 3: Soppy bastard.
Speaker 2: So that's a contrary that bold John had a lot
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 9: I think often people who do it it's a shield right
Speaker 9: against life.
Speaker 1: The lyrics to Silly Love Songs have McCartney leaning into
Speaker 1: his sappiest nature, shrugging off is rock star persona. The
Speaker 1: song is even set to a disco track. He sounds
Speaker 1: like he's celebrating every romantic cliche he can deploy, and really,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with that?
Speaker 2: What's wrong with that?
Speaker 3: I like to know.
Speaker 2: The rang go.
Speaker 9: Again?
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, it's so beautifully direct.
Speaker 1: I love you.
Speaker 2: A friend of mine outlawed the word love in asant
Speaker 2: I thought, I get it. You know, it's been news
Speaker 2: many times before, and so you know, for maybe a
Speaker 2: day or two you're trying and avoid it, thinking, yes,
Speaker 2: good idea, and you should just avoided with them now
Speaker 2: because I'm known for that, and because I wrote the
Speaker 2: song saying what's wrong would silly love songs?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: I mean it's something I think about, you know, I
Speaker 2: think about this whole planet and the whole human race.
Speaker 2: And then in China right now there's these two people
Speaker 2: and they love each other and they getting married and
Speaker 2: committing the whole lives to each other, or in South
Speaker 2: America right now, there's a mother having a baby and
Speaker 2: loving this baby, and the father is loving this baby.
Speaker 2: So the point I'm making, you know, fairly obvious, is
Speaker 2: that this love thing is global and goes throughout not
Speaker 2: only humans but animals, goes throughout creatures. So a mother
Speaker 2: horse can love its fall. So it really becomes very important,
Speaker 2: which outweighs the fact that it might be soppy. So
Speaker 2: you're always trying to say it in a kind of
Speaker 2: non soppy way, nearest I ever got to it do
Speaker 2: with silly love songs, you know, which is I'm purposely
Speaker 2: being soppy, you know, But now I think it is.
Speaker 2: It's staggeringly important word feeling because it's going on everywhere
Speaker 2: in the whole of existence right now.
Speaker 4: I would have had it not the silly love song.
Speaker 7: I'm growing easy, and so.
Speaker 1: Some people will.
Speaker 7: Silly love songs.
Speaker 3: Wrong with.
Speaker 1: Silly love songs from Wings at the Speed of Sound,
Speaker 1: released in nineteen seventy six. In the next episode, that
Speaker 1: strange and awesome jewel A Day in the Life.
Speaker 6: Welcome fell out of bed, dragged a calm across my head.
Speaker 1: That's next time on McCartney A Life in Lyrics.
Speaker 6: Looking up, I noticed I was late fam Code Grandma McCartney.
Speaker 1: A Life in Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia
Speaker 1: n p L and Pushkin Industries