Paul McCartney Wrote ‘Hello, Goodbye’ While Trying to Teach Songwriting

Paul McCartney wrote “Hello, Goodbye” in 1967. The song became a non-album single and has endured as one of their better-known hits. At this stage in The Beatles’ career, McCartney and John Lennon were writing separately, but McCartney still had a bit of help on the song. He was trying to teach songwriting to Alistair Taylor when he got the idea for “Hello, Goodbye.”

Paul McCartney wrote ‘Hello, Goodbye’ during a songwriting lesson

Taylor, who was the assistant to Beatles manager Brian Epstein, asked McCartney how he wrote songs. At this point, McCartney had become an incredibly prolific writer. The Beatles were at their peak, and he had written countless hits for the band. McCartney took the question as an opportunity to give Taylor a songwriting lesson at the harmonium in his living room. 

He instructed Taylor to say the opposite of whatever he said: black, white; stop, go; yes, no. While Taylor couldn’t recall if McCartney came up with the melody on the spot, it was clear he had an idea of where he should take the song.

“I’ve no memory at all of the tune,” Taylor said, per the book A Hard Day’s Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles Song by Steve Turner. “You have to remember that melodies are as common around the Beatles as bugs in May. Some grow into bright butterflies and others shrivel and die. I wonder whether Paul really made up that song as he went along or whether it was running through his head already.”

Not long after, McCartney took the songwriting lesson and used it to complete the song “Hello, Goodbye.”

“Anyway, shortly afterwards, he arrived at the office with a demo tape of the latest single — ‘Hello Goodbye.’”

The Beatles released it as a single at the end of 1967.

Paul McCartney directed a promo film for ‘Hello, Goodbye’

While songwriting was nothing new for McCartney, “Hello, Goodbye” brought him a new experience. He directed a promotional film for the song, which was a unique challenge for him.

“I directed the promo film we made for ‘Hello, Goodbye,’” he said in The Beatles Anthology. “Directing a film is something that everyone always wants to get into. It was something I’d always been interested in, until I actually tried it. Then I realised it was too much like hard work.”

Ultimately, McCartney said he didn’t have to do too much work, though. He tried to make the job as easy as possible.

“I didn’t really direct the film — all we needed was a couple of cameras, some good cameramen, a bit of sound and some dancing girls,” he said. “I thought, ‘We’ll just hire a theatre and show up there one afternoon,’ And that’s what we did: we took our Sgt. Pepper suits along and filmed at the Saville Theatre in the West End.”

John Lennon was not a fan of the song

Taylor was impressed by the speed with which McCartney could put the song together. Lennon did not share the sentiment. He wasn’t impressed by the song or McCartney’s attempt — though it was successful — to write a single.

“That’s another McCartney. Smells a mile away, doesn’t it?” Lennon said in the book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview With John Lennon and Yoko Ono by David Sheff. “An attempt to write a single. wasn’t a great piece; the best bit was the end, which we all ad-libbed in the studio, where I played the piano.”