Paul McCartney Said ‘Jet’ Draws Imagery From the Relationship Between His First Wife Linda and Her Strict Father

Paul McCartney said his and Wings’ song “Jet” draws imagery from the relationship between his first wife, Linda, and her father, Lee Eastman. The show business lawyer was a bit too strict for Paul. He was like a Sergeant Major.

Paul McCartney used some of his Beatles songwriting skills when he wrote ‘Jet’

In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that he used some of his Beatles songwriting skills when he wrote Wings’ “Jet.” He explained that they learned how to make hits when he was with The Beatles. They had to because they were The Beatles, after all. They couldn’t write flops.

Around the time that Paul wrote “Jet,” he was deliberately trying to make Wings sound different from The Beatles. However, Paul needed the skills he used in The Beatles to make hits for his new band. “The tricks of the trade still applied, so when it came to ‘Jet,’ I had loads of tricks that I could use,” Paul wrote. “One of them is shouting; that works. A shout is always a good song opener.”

“Jet” was the name of his family’s Shetland pony that lived with them at their Scottish farm. On the day Paul wrote “Jet,” he took his guitar and walked to the top of a hill where an old fortress once sat.

“It was an extraordinarily good vantage point,” Paul wrote. “The kind of place where you could imagine the Vikings coming up the hill while we poured oil on them or, if that didn’t work, threw some spears at them. There were some lovely little spots on the hillside where we all liked to hang out.”

When Paul got to the fortress, he let his mind wander, and somehow, his wife’s relationship with her father came to mind.

Paul McCartney based ‘Jet’ on his wife’s relationship with her father

In The Lyrics, Paul explained that he took some imagery from the relationship between his wife and her father for “Jet.”

Paul said his father-in-law, Lee Eastman, was very cool and accomplished. However, he was “a little bit too patriarchal for my liking.” They got along well, but Eastman was a bit strict. “That’s partly where the ‘sergeant major’ comes from,” Paul wrote.

You can see the references to Eastman in the lyrics, “I can almost remember their funny faces/ That time you told them that you were going to be marrying soon” and “Was your father as bold as a Sergeant Major?/ Oh, how come he told you that you were hardly old enough yet?”

“Sergeant Major” also comes from Gilbert and Sullivan and “the very model of a modern Major-General.” Paul added, “Partly, too, from Bootsie and Snudge, the UK television sitcom, which had a character called Sergeant-Major Claude Snudge.”

There’s another reference in “Jet.” “Mater,” or “mother,” goes back to Paul’s Latin class in school. “This is an imaginary mother figure, though I think it’s fair to say that the ghost of my real mother always loomed somewhere in the background,” he said.

The singer-songwriter wanted his father-in-law to be The Beatles’ manager

Interestingly, Paul said his father-in-law was a bit too strict for his liking. The singer-songwriter wanted Eastman to be The Beatles’ manager, along with his brother-in-law John. However, the rest of The Beatles out-voted Paul and appointed Allen Klein as their manager. It’s one of the most significant reasons the Fab Four broke up.

Whatever Paul thought of Eastman, the entertainment lawyer inspired his son-in-law on “Jet.” When Paul returned from the fortress at the top of the hill, he felt accomplished.