The Paul McCartney Song That He Somehow Wrote in Less Than 2 Hours
Paul McCartney is a natural songwriter and is often able to write a song on the spot. Many of his songs were written when he had plenty of free time, while others he had to write within a deadline. McCartney shared that he once gave himself two hours to write a song and was successfully able to do so.
Paul McCartney has the ability to write songs quickly
Paul McCartney is responsible for many iconic rock songs, such as “Let it Be,” “Hey Jude,” and “Band on the Run.” A few songs were written in a few hours, while others took a couple of days. Sometimes he benefited from working with John Lennon, while other times, he was alone.
There are plenty of examples of McCartney’s songwriting efficiency throughout his career. In 1963, McCartney and Lennon quickly finished “I Wanna Be Your Man” for The Rolling Stones, which became their first hit. He also wrote the song “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)” on the spot when Dustin Hoffman asked him to. He also came up with “Wonderful Christmastime” in a few minutes while struggling with the summer heat.
Paul McCartney wrote a song in 2 hours while waiting for Linda
Paul McCartney wrote many songs with his first wife, Linda, and was able to do it spontaneously while on a date or hanging around the house. While coming up with songs for his 10th album Flaming Pie, the former Beatle managed to write one while waiting for Linda to finish up an appointment. In an interview with Global News, McCartney said he waited for about two hours and was able to get “Somedays” out of it.
“Songs can come from anywhere. Sometimes, I would drive Linda (McCartney) to one of her cookery assignments, and on one particular day, I had driven her to a photo session at a farmhouse in Kent. I kept out of the way, went upstairs, and made up a little fantasy for myself to write a song.”
“I knew that Linda would be about two hours doing the shoot, so I set myself a deadline to write a song in that time. And ‘Somedays’ was it. I wrote the whole song at that time. Normally, you might get most of it down and think you’ll finish it up next week. But I thought I’ll finish it up so that when Linda had finished the shoot, and would say, ‘What did you do? Did you get bored?’ I could say, ‘Oh, I wrote this song, wanna hear it?’”
McCartney and Lennon would usually finish songs in three hours
Paul McCartney and John Lennon had a competitive spirit when writing a new song. The “Yesterday” singer said he had a similar approach to Lennon where he would write a new song quickly so he could show it to John. Lennon would do the same thing, leading to the two becoming able to write songs rapidly and efficiently.
“John and I used to play this game and I don’t think it ever took us more than three or so hours to write a song,” McCartney said.
