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In the 1980s and early 1990s, hard rock bands like Guns N’ Roses ruled the charts. Bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones weren’t too fashionable anymore. The kids wanted loud, fast, hard rock with pyrotechnics and massive stage productions. When Axl Rose and his band covered Paul McCartney‘s “Live and Let Die,” the former Beatle couldn’t have been further in fans’ brains.

Few of Guns N’ Roses’ younger fans could recall that Paul had written the song for the James Bond film of the same name in 1973. When Paul’s children tried telling their friends at school that their father had written the song, no one believed them.

Paul McCartney with his children out on the street in 1973.
Paul McCartney and his children | Ronald Dumont/Getty Images

Paul McCartney’s ‘Live and Let Die’ was ‘a bit of an accolade’

In his book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote it’s nice when someone else commissions a song. That’s when the craft comes in.

One day in 1972, then-Apple Records head Ron Kass called Paul and asked him if he wanted to write a Bond theme song. Kass knew someone connected with the Bond franchise. Paul tried not to seem too enthusiastic when he said he’d probably be interested. He was extremely interested.

Paul knew writing a Bond song was “a bit of an accolade.” He’d always had a “sneaking ambition to do it.” He got to work on it as soon as possible, although he didn’t have much to go on. All he had was the film’s title, Live and Let Die. The screenplay wasn’t finished yet, so Paul bought the Ian Fleming book, which he couldn’t put down.

When Paul sat down to write his song at his piano, he knew how he wanted to approach it. He wanted it to be his version of a Bond song, without things like, “You’ve got a gun. Now go kill people. Live and let die.” That wasn’t him. Paul wanted the song to go, “Let it go. Don’t worry about it. When you’ve got problems, just live and let die.”

Once he worked that out, the song wrote itself.

Paul’s children tried telling their friends that he wrote ‘Live and Let Die’

Following the release of Live and Let Die, Paul became the first artist to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song for a Bond tune. However, by 1991, the younger generations had forgotten about that.

Then, Guns N’ Roses covered Paul’s “Live and Let Die” in 1991. In The Lyrics, Paul explained that following the hard rock band’s release of the tune, his children went to school and told their friends, “My dad wrote that.” Their friends replied, “No, he didn’t. It’s Guns N’ Roses.” Nobody believed them.

Interestingly, the younger generations couldn’t fathom a former Beatle writing a hard rock tune. None of them realized that Paul was hard rock before hard rock was a thing. He wrote The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter,” after all.

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Paul was very happy about Guns N’ Roses’ cover

Even though some of the younger generations had no idea Paul wrote and recorded “Live and Let Die” almost twenty years before Guns N’ Roses, the former Beatle was pleased about the cover.

Paul wrote that he thinks the hard rock band’s version of his Bond tune is “pretty good.” He explained, “I was amazed that they would do it – a young American group. I always like people doing my songs. It’s a great compliment.”

Whether fans knew “Live and Let Die” as a Paul McCartney song or not, it got a second life when Guns N’ Roses covered it. Paul’s children’s friends must know by now that he recorded the song. They probably feel silly that they didn’t believe the McCartney kids.

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