Taylor Swift Was Shocked Paul McCartney Wrote 1 Beatles Song When He Was a Teen

Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney interviewed each other. Swift was shocked to learn Paul wrote a Beatles song from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band when he was a teenager. Despite her comments, the track in question feels like it could have come from a teenage mind.

Taylor Swift and Paul McCartney discussed The Beatles’ song ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’

In a 2020 Rolling Stone article, Swift reacted to Paul’s record McCartney III. “I listened to your new record,” she said. “And I loved a lot of things about it, but it really did feel like kind of a flex to write, produce, and play every instrument on every track. To me, that’s like flexing a muscle and saying, ‘I can do all this on my own if I have to.'”

Paul responded with some insight into his creative process. “Well, I don’t think like that, I must admit,” he said. “I just picked up some of these instruments over the years. We had a piano at home that my dad played, so I picked around on that. I wrote the melody to ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ when I was, you know, a teenager.” Swift was surprised Paul wrote the song when he was so young. 

John Lennon said he didn’t relate to the song even though he wrote something similar

The book All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono features an interview from 1980. In it, John was asked about the origin of “When I’m Sixty-Four.” “Paul’s completely,” he replied. “I would never even dream of writing a song like that. There’s some things I never think about, and that’s one of them.”

John’s claim is a little surprising. He wrote a track called “Grow Old with Me.” The track has the same theme as “When I’m Sixty-Four,” although it’s serious and romantic. It’s odd John said he never thought about that topic when he obviously did. 

Notably, “Grow Old with Me” wasn’t released in John’s lifetime. Instead, it debuted on John’s posthumous album Milk and Honey. Ringo Starr went on to cover the track (with Paul’s help) on his album What’s My Name.

The Beatles’ ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ feels like a song a young person would write

Maybe Swift shouldn’t have been surprised that Paul wrote “When I’m Sixty-Four” when he was so young. After all, “When I’m Sixty-Four” is a bit of a juvenile song. It’s vaudeville melody and jocular lyrics would have made it perfect for Sesame Street if the show removed the song’s lines about wine. On top of that, it’s not particularly complex on a compositional level. 

For that reason, some Beatles fans might conclude that “When I’m Sixty-Four” is a bad song, or that it doesn’t belong on a masterpiece like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Vaudeville isn’t the most dignified genre, but “When I’m Sixty-Four” is one of the best songs made in that style. On top of that, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band benefits from “When I’m Sixty-Four” and its other moments of levity. If the record was nothing but heavy songs like “A Day in the Life” or “Within You Without You,” it wouldn’t have the same broad appeal. 

“When I’m Sixty-Four” shows off Paul’s teenage side and that works perfectly on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.