Paul McCartney Thought This Best-Selling Song Would Be a Flop
Believe it or not, Paul McCartney’s best-selling song in the U.K. is not with The Beatles. It’s a single that he released in his solo career. However, McCartney had second thoughts about releasing the song because he thought it would be a flop.
‘Mull of Kintyre’ is Paul McCartney’s best-selling song in the U.K.
In 1966, McCartney spent some of his Beatles money on a Scottish farm in an area called Mull of Kintyre. When The Beatles broke up in 1970, he and his wife, Linda, moved to the farm where they raised animals and their kids. It was a way for the international star to escape the hustle and bustle of London.
In 1977, he wrote a song called “Mull of Kintyre” that honored one of his favorite locations. He performed the song with his second band, Wings, and it outsold any Beatles single in the U.K. It became the best-selling single in the U.K. and remained at No. 1 on the charts for nine weeks. However, it was surpassed in 1984 by Band Aid’s “Do They Know it’s Christmas?”
McCartney thought ‘Mull of Kintyre’ would be a flop
While living in Scotland, Paul McCartney became entranced by the bagpipe and wanted to write a song incorporating the instrument. However, Scottish songs weren’t too popular then, and it had been a while since one hit the mainstream. In a 2007 interview with Uncut, McCartney said he thought the song would be “a flop.”
“We were expecting it to be a flop,” McCartney admitted. “We thought we should really be putting out something thrashy, fast, and loud. But it had occurred to me that there weren’t any new Scottish songs. I like the pipes, you know. The skin-tingling, bloodcurdling thing. So we released it, thinking, ‘Nah… it’s not the time for it.’ But I remember ringing here [his office], and the guy said, ‘It’s selling 30,000 a day.’ As a joke, I said, ‘Don’t get back to me until it’s selling 100,000 a day.’ And the next week, it was.”
McCartney was surprised that ‘punks’ liked the song as well
Another surprise the song gave to Paul McCartney was that British punks loved it. McCartney told a story where he and Linda were driving through the West End of London when they were approached by a group of “punks.”
“They looked pretty menacing,” McCartney shared, “and there were a lot of them. I said to Linda, ‘Keep your head down. Get the sunshields [in the car] down..’ And of course one of them recognises me. [Cockney accent] ‘Oi, Paul! Awright, Paul!’ I thought, oh no… The guy’s going like this [signalling for Macca to wind down the window]. So I put the window down a little bit. And he says: ‘You know that “Mull Of Kintyre”? It’s faaking great!’ I thought, ‘Now that is cool. Punks like it.’”
It might not be his best-remembered song, but there was a time when “Mull of Kintyre” was the biggest song in the U.K.
