Paul McCartney Compares Songwriting on His Farm vs. Abbey Road Studios
Paul McCartney owns High Park Farm, located in Kintyre, Scotland. When The Beatles broke up, Paul and his wife, Linda, spent many years living there, where they made music and raised their family. McCartney wrote many songs for his solo career and his second band, Wings, at his farm, and the former Beatle said the songwriting experience was more liberating than writing at Abbey Road Studios.
Paul McCartney was convinced to buy a farm in Scotland
The Beatles became wildly successful in the 1960s, leaving McCartney with a vast amount of money he didn’t know what to do with. In an interview for his website, Paulmccartney.com, the “Yesterday” singer said he was convinced by an accountant to invest his money into something. He agreed, and they found a plot of land in Scotland that McCartney bought and later visited with Linda.
“I was always drawn to the romantic notion of the Highlands. And John was too, he had visited relatives who had a croft in the Highlands, and he spoke romantically of it, so I had that thought in my head. But I never really intended to do much with that thought. Then when we started to earn a little bit of money, there was an accountant who said, ‘You should use the money for something – you should buy something with it’. Whereas we’d always thought you just stick it the bank. He said, ‘No, you’ve got to invest it, you got to do something’. So, I said OK, and he came up with this property that was for sale in Argyle near Campbeltown. He said it would be a great investment.”
McCartney said he was initially hesitant to leave London for the farm, but once he lived there with Linda, he learned to appreciate the many benefits of being in a more isolated environment.
McCartney says songwriting on the farm was ‘very free’ compared to Abbey Road Studios
While discussing his life on the farm, McCartney discussed how songwriting there differed to writing with The Beatles at Abbey Road Studios. The British singer-songwriter said they were living a “free” lifestyle that allowed him to write about whatever he wanted to. Sometimes, he would just write about whatever he saw on the farm. With The Beatles, it was more about work and making a hit record.
“Because of the lifestyle we were living, it was very free. The Beatles had been great, and I’d loved it, but I couldn’t say it was free, personally. I couldn’t exactly go to Scotland for a few months. If you were in The Beatles, you had to make records and work. But when we went to Scotland, we had a very free, sort of hippie lifestyle. It meant I could sit around in the kitchen in the little farmhouse we lived in, with the kids running around and me just with my guitar, making up anything I fancied. ‘Three Legs’ for instance was me jamming around with a blues idea, and then with no particular relevance I sang ‘my dog, he got three legs, but he can run’, meaning that everything doesn’t have to be perfect, it can still work. And then I added the lyric ‘a fly flies in’, and I’m sure that happened, with the window open in Scotland! I’m sure a fly actually flew in and I went ‘okay – you’re in the song! Fly flies in, fly flies out’.”
McCartney learned various skills on the farm during his free time
One of the benefits that McCartney had on the farm was more free time. When he wasn’t writing new songs, he took up carpentry as a hobby and learned how to make tables and stools. He also learned to ride horseback and trotted around the farm with Linda on their horses. He admitted he would never have had time to learn these skills if he was still with The Beatles.
