Paul McCartney rarely says anything negative about The Beatles and the band’s songs. He has said slightly negative statements about specific pieces, but it’s not usually a mean or biting comment. With that being said, he disliked a few Beatles songs, even if it can be hard to tell. 

Here are five Beatles songs disliked by Paul McCartney.

‘She Said She Said’

“She Said She Said” is a favorite song for many Beatles fans, but Paul McCartney doesn’t share the same attachment. However, it may have to do with the story behind the song rather than the track itself. “She Said She Said” is based on an acid trip that George Harrison and John Lennon embarked on with actor Peter Fonda. 

Rumor is that Paul got into an argument with the band over being teased for not taking acid. In Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now, McCartney reflected on the track, saying Harrison had to replace him on bass when he refused to play on it. 

“I’m not sure, but I think it was one of the only Beatle records I never played on,” McCartney said. “I think we’d had a barney or something, and I said, ‘Oh, f*** you!’ and they said, ‘Well, we’ll do it.’ I think George played bass.”

‘Tell Me What You See’

“Tell Me What You See” first appeared on The Beatles’ 1965 album Help!. The song is credited to the Lennon-McCartney duo but was primarily written by McCartney. While the British singer-songwriter didn’t bash this track, he did tell Miles that he thought the song was “not awfully memorable,” which is a polite way of saying he isn’t a fan. 

‘What You’re Doing’

“What You’re Doing” is from The Beatles’ 1964 album Beatles for Sale. While McCartney wrote this song, it’s one of the few songs the band never performed live. Reflecting on this song years later, McCartney called it “a bit of filler” for the album.

“I think it was a little more mine than John’s,” he explained. “You sometimes start a song and hope the best will arrive by the time you get to the chorus, but sometimes that’s all you get, and I suspect this was one of them. Maybe it’s a better recording than it is a song; some of them are. Sometimes a good recording would enhance a song.”

‘Every Little Thing’

Most Beatles songs were performed by the person who wrote them, whether it was Paul McCartney, John Lennon, or George Harrison. “Every Little Thing” is rare because Paul wrote it, but John performed the lead vocals. However, it’s not one of the band’s more memorable tracks, as it’s another that McCartney called “filler.”

“‘Every Little Thing,’ like most of the stuff I did, was my attempt at the next single… but it became an album filler rather than the great almighty single,” he admitted. “It didn’t have quite what was required.”

‘Hold Me Tight’

As this list has shown, Paul McCartney doesn’t admit to disliking Beatles songs, but his indifference toward a few is essentially his kind way of dismissing them. “Hold Me Tight”, from their 1963 album With The Beatles, is one he doesn’t remember well and called a “failed attempt at a single.”

“I can’t remember much about that one,” McCartney said. “Certain songs were just ‘work’ songs… you haven’t got much of a memory of them. That’s one of them.”