What Paul McCartney’s ‘Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight’ and The Beatles’ ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ Have in Common
Paul McCartney‘s “Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight” has something in common with The Beatles‘ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” The same person gave the singer-songwriter both of the tunes’ names.
A friend gave Paul the name The Beatles’ ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’
In his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that he used to meet his Nigerian friend, Jimmy Scott, in London clubs in the 1960s. Scott was a conga player who worked with Stevie Wonder and The Rolling Stones.
Around the time that he became friends with Paul, Scott had a band called the Ob-la-di Ob-la-da Band. According to All Music, the name came from a Yoruba phrase that Scott often used, “ob-la-di ob-la-da,” which translates to “life goes on.”
Scott played congas on The Beatles’ tune. However, it caused some drama between the friends. Scott believed he deserved a co-writers credit for inspiring Paul with the song’s title. In 1984, Paul told Playboy, “He got annoyed when I did a song of it because he wanted a cut. I said ‘Come on, Jimmy. It’s just an expression. If you’d written the song, you could have had the cut.'”
According to Steve Turner’s A Hard Day’s Write: The Story Behind Every Beatles Song (per All Music), Paul paid Scott’s legal fees after he was imprisoned at the end of the 1960s for failing to pay alimony in exchange for Scott dropping contentions that Paul owed him something.
In The Lyrics, Paul said Scott “had a legendary status” for inspiring The Beatles’ song title.
Scott inspired Paul again after he had a role in naming The Beatles’ song
Years after Scott inspired Paul to name a Beatles song, “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” he inspired the singer-songwriter with another phrase he had.
Scott used to say, “Nothing too much, just out of sight.” Paul wrote that in those days, expressions were “like fashion.” He added, “I guess it’s the same for every generation, but I think it was during the sixties when language started to become a little less formal, especially in song lyrics.
“We had expressions like ‘far out,’ and another one was ‘too much.’ I remember saying, ‘Oof, too much.’ And Jimmy would say, ‘Nothing too much, just out of sight.’ I thought, ‘I like that; it’s very good.'”
So, Paul wrote a song named “Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight” for a project he had called The Fireman.
What happened to Scott?
Besides inspiring Paul McCartney twice, Scott continued to play conga on some great rock songs. Into the 1970s, he gave workshops on African music and drumming at the Pyramid Arts project in East London.
In 1983, Scott joined the ska-rock band, Bad Manners. He was still in the band when he died in 1986. Scott’s bandmate, Doug Trendle, said Scott caught pneumonia during an American tour after being left naked for two hours during a strip search upon re-entering the U.K. Scott died the following day.
Scott’s fate was horrible, but his memory lives on in the songs he helped name with his interesting phrases.
