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Paul McCartney wrote a song that made him feel “optimistic” following The Beatles‘ split. For a while, he didn’t know what to do with himself. How do you follow The Beatles?

Paul McCartney and his family in 1972.
Paul McCartney | Bettmann/Getty Images

Paul McCartney entered a dark period following The Beatles’ split

You can hear Paul’s desperation to keep The Beatles alive in their song “Get Back.” He thought they could stay together if they tried returning to their roots. However, John Lennon couldn’t contain his excitement about moving on and leaving Paul behind. He was done living in the past.

Eventually, Paul couldn’t deny that The Beatles had grown apart. All their other financial problems aside, they’d become four extremely different people. So Abbey Road was their final album, and Paul quickly got to work on his debut solo album. Despite seeming ready to move on, Paul had entered a rut.

During a 2016 interview with Mastertapes for Radio 4 (per the Guardian), Paul revealed he drank heavily and often contemplated quitting music after The Beatles split. It was a dark period for Paul; he didn’t know what to do next.

“I was depressed,” Paul said. “You would be. You were breaking from your lifelong friends. So I took to the bevvies. I took to a wee dram. It was great at first, then suddenly I wasn’t having a good time … It was difficult to know what to do after the Beatles. How do you follow that?”

In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that the whole period weighed on him “to such an extent that I even began to think it was all tied in with the idea of original sin.”

The song that made Paul McCartney ‘optimistic’ following The Beatles’ split

In The Lyrics, Paul wrote that his song “Great Day” made him feel optimistic following The Beatles’ split. After it was over for the group, Paul would often sit around a lot. Sometimes he sat in his kitchen while his children were playing or doing other things.

Sitting around, he came across the song’s chords and started feeling hopeful. “I liked the idea of a song saying that help is coming and there’s a bright light on the horizon,” Paul wrote. “I’ve got absolutely no evidence for this, but I like to believe it. It helps to lift my spirits, to move me forward, and hopefully it might help other people move forward too.”

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The singer-songwriter enjoys writing uplifting tunes

Paul likes writing uplifting songs. He’s often conscious that many people in the world are going through tough times. If he can be a reassuring voice, he thinks that’s incredibly important. So, Paul wrote “Great Day” to make himself feel better, but the song has probably made many others hopeful, too.

“Uplifting music is very valuable, so I like the idea of creating that, and I think that’s been a lot of what I do,” he wrote.

“Great Day” has a childlike aspect to it, too, that is cathartic. Paul thinks lyrics like “When you’re wide awake / Say it for goodness sake / It’s gonna be a great day’ are similar to a nursery rhyme, which soothes kids and put them to sleep. Paul is calming anyone who needs it.

Although Paul always tries not to write songs with similar lyrics to Beatles tunes, he used “It won’t be long” in “Great Day.” In The Beatles’ song, someone reassures their loved one they’ll meet again, and in “Great Day” Paul encourages everyone that good days will come. They did for Paul following The Beatles’ split.

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