Paul McCartney Once Wrote a Love Song on a Hotel Piano — ‘I Can’t Resist Playing the Piano’
Paul McCartney learned how to play the piano at a young age, and since then, he has developed a fascination with the instrument. Sometimes, he randomly starts playing pianos he finds in public, and he once wrote a love song using a piano he found in a hotel.
Paul McCartney learned how to play his dad’s piano as a child
McCartney had a love for music starting in his youth, and he learned how to play the piano and the guitar during his early teenage years. In an interview with Apple Music with Zane Lowe, the former Beatle said he had a piano in his home in Liverpool that his dad often used to entertain guests. McCartney taught him how to use the instrument and is always tempted to tinker around with any piano he sees.
“We had a piano in our house that, again, my dad played for the family parties, so there was always a piano there available. So, I started tinkering around, and that became the second instrument that I loved,” McCartney explained. “Even now, if I’m in a kind of hotel or in one of these places, where there’s a piano in the lobby, I can’t resist.”
McCartney wrote a love song using a hotel’s piano
In 2012, the British singer-songwriter released “My Valentine” on the album Kisses on the Bottom. McCartney said he wrote the song while on vacation in Morocco in the early days of his relationship with his wife, Nancy Shevell. It was constantly raining, so they were often in the hotel. Paul found a piano in the hotel foyer and started playing it. One thing led to another, and he wound up writing “My Valentine” as a love song for Nancy.
“I was on holiday in the very early days of me and Nancy. We were on holiday in Morocco, and we’d come away to have a great holiday together, but it was raining every single day. You’d come all this way to Morocco, thinking it was gonna be blissful, and it was terrible. But there was a piano in the hotel foyer. So, I would go in there when I knew no one was going to be around, except maybe the guy setting the tables for the evening. And I would quietly just play it. Then, I wrote a song, actually on Valentine’s Day, for Nancy called ‘My Valentine.’ Sometimes, it goes further than just tinkering. Sometimes, you get a song out of it.”
McCartney knows he’s giving people a story
Paul McCartney is one of the most recognizable people in the world, and many would notice him playing the piano in a hotel lobby. The “Let it Be” singer is aware of his fame and knows people would tell everyone they know about this sighting.
“If there are some people around, and I just do a quick bit of ‘Lady Madonna’ or something, then I know I’ve given them a story,” McCartney explained. “They can go home and, ‘You know what I was doing? I was in the hotel foyer, this bloke walks in, he plays a thing, and it was Paul McCartney.’ So, I know I’m doing that.”
