Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi, everyone, it's Paul Moldoin. Before we get to
Speaker 1: this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
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Speaker 1: Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.
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Speaker 2: The vast majority of people in this city believe in
Speaker 2: love because they're getting married, or they getting engaged, or
Speaker 2: they're going to see a film. This idea of love
Speaker 2: is very strong and sometimes gets knocked because it also
Speaker 2: can be seen as sloppy. But the romantic thing is
Speaker 2: one of the things I write about a lot. One
Speaker 2: day with the bluebird, with the beaches. They're marvelous, the wonderful,
Speaker 2: the beautiful, idyllic world that we love to just be in,
Speaker 2: even if it's just in a dream, or even if
Speaker 2: it's just watching a film that's sort of feeling. When
Speaker 2: a film does that to you, it gives you that,
Speaker 2: oh my god, life's great.
Speaker 1: I'm Paul will do for a while.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I've been fortunate to spend time with one of the
Speaker 1: greatest songwriters of the era, and.
Speaker 2: Will you look at me? I'm going on to I'm
Speaker 2: actually a performer.
Speaker 1: That is Sir Paul McCartney. We work together on a
Speaker 1: book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
Speaker 1: of our conversations.
Speaker 2: Who is like going back to an old snapshot album
Speaker 2: looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 1: This is McCartney, A life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
Speaker 1: and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
Speaker 1: figures in popular music. In this episode Silly Love Songs,
Speaker 1: looking back on McCartney's prolific career, it's obvious that the
Speaker 1: dominant theme across his music is love. I guess this
Speaker 1: is true across the history of music. Love songs always
Speaker 1: topped the charts, songs about wanting love, falling in love,
Speaker 1: being in love, rejecting love. We seem unable to exhaust
Speaker 1: the subject, though a few Paul McCarthy. These critics have
Speaker 1: accused him of trying to, so much so that he
Speaker 1: eventually felt compelled to write Silly Love Songs, a love
Speaker 1: song about writing love songs.
Speaker 2: And what's wrong with that. I like to know.
Speaker 3: I again.
Speaker 1: From his earliest days as a songwriter, Paul McCartney was
Speaker 1: drawn to songs about romance.
Speaker 3: As a deser.
Speaker 4: SENDMA to you, remember that, always be in love with.
Speaker 3: Treasure.
Speaker 5: These you zose.
Speaker 2: Certain set of subjects to write things about. Love is
Speaker 2: very much wallable, revenge, breakups, desire, you know, and that
Speaker 2: covers an awful lot of territory those few categories.
Speaker 1: Unlike the small sy love songs of their parents' generation,
Speaker 1: the Beatles love songs were fresh and cheeky, filled with
Speaker 1: the light hearted fun of young love. In the early
Speaker 1: Beatles records, nearly every song was a love song, but
Speaker 1: often carrying some twist or clever take on tired romance cliches.
Speaker 1: For example, McCartney was able to use the love song
Speaker 1: as a vehicle for a critique of materialism by Rainbow.
Speaker 2: Below rhyme it just bangs in, there's no intro gon'd
Speaker 2: Bobby comes right in, so it's very instant, very simple,
Speaker 2: and then it goes into you know, by your diamond ring,
Speaker 2: by you anything, but it's still won't part.
Speaker 4: Of me love cause I don't care you mach for money,
Speaker 4: the money by.
Speaker 2: Love so it's just, you know, materialism versus love. It
Speaker 2: really is quite a simple idea. You know, you can
Speaker 2: have all the money in the world, but that's not
Speaker 2: going to buy you love. But I found it a
Speaker 2: neat little way to say it quickly.
Speaker 1: That said, the young lads from Liverpool were interested in
Speaker 1: both love and money, and they caught on that writing
Speaker 1: about love would be a quick way to reach a
Speaker 1: big audience.
Speaker 2: You know, nowadays people have a slightly sort of more
Speaker 2: hyphalutin idea of what you're doing when you're writing soldier
Speaker 2: what we were doing when we were writing them close
Speaker 2: and kiss you.
Speaker 5: Always there was a certain formula the pronoun I you
Speaker 5: me him, her, my, she love me, I saw her standing,
Speaker 5: I'll get you, or my look, I want to hold
Speaker 5: your hand.
Speaker 1: But you probably weren't feeling that was formulaic at the time,
Speaker 1: were you.
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: Not really no, no, we weren't. But looking back on it,
Speaker 2: all they were all I may love. Because you wanted
Speaker 2: to contact the fans, there were songs to contact the
Speaker 2: people with.
Speaker 1: The Beatles did contact people on a massive scale, and
Speaker 1: as they developed their musical style, ernest love songs remained
Speaker 1: front and center. Take for instance, McCartney's I Will from
Speaker 1: the White album who.
Speaker 3: Knows All long I've loved you? Do you know why
Speaker 3: love you?
Speaker 6: Still?
Speaker 2: Will?
Speaker 3: I wait long loud? Did you want me to?
Speaker 2: I will see? I wasn't actually wait for anyone by it.
Speaker 2: It's a very romantic idea. So it's me as the Troubadour.
Speaker 2: It's me, you know, wandering around show and Forrest, you
Speaker 2: know allan.
Speaker 1: A Dale the looked playing Troubadour Risk from the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three Disney film Robin. I love that movie.
Speaker 2: I love that thing. It's that kind of thing. It's
Speaker 2: me as that guy. And then so you know, if
Speaker 2: you want me to, I will. And then for if
Speaker 2: I ever saw you, I didn't catch your name, I
Speaker 2: never really mattered. I'll always gonna say.
Speaker 3: So you I did got your name.
Speaker 2: It's too like an amorphous person. Instead of every man,
Speaker 2: it's every girl. And I'm very much think that I
Speaker 2: don't have to have a face. It's a dream of
Speaker 2: a face.
Speaker 3: Very mad. I will feel the same for me.
Speaker 2: It's so satisfying to get in touch with that feeling.
Speaker 2: And the other thing is, of course then the tune,
Speaker 2: the melody. But I'm coaxing out of this thing. I'm
Speaker 2: getting to this, you know, Alana Dale Place strolling, minstrel place,
Speaker 2: body and down. Then I'm also trying to make this
Speaker 2: tune fit these words in feeling and trying to get
Speaker 2: this chew to have heart and there's tie to be
Speaker 2: as appealing as this thought of finding love is.
Speaker 3: Weird, weird.
Speaker 2: All I would have is just a little path through
Speaker 2: pencil notes with the lyrics. But if I come out
Speaker 2: with this thing in this case, I will. It's more
Speaker 2: than satisfying. It's quite a thrill because you know you've
Speaker 2: done it.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 1: One of the most fascinating things, one of the most
Speaker 1: mysterious things, it seems to me, is how one knows that.
Speaker 2: I think, just when it's good, it's good. You just
Speaker 2: know this is I've just written a good true this
Speaker 2: method is good and these words fit it. And so
Speaker 2: someone listening to this will relate to this. I just
Speaker 2: know it because you've cooked this recipe and you just
Speaker 2: know it's going to taste good. You don't know how
Speaker 2: offer it to people and do you know they're going
Speaker 2: to taste it and go, let's taste good.
Speaker 1: But court these love songs take their inspiration and from
Speaker 1: everything and everywhere, but he's often drawn on the edge
Speaker 1: old tradition of writing to amuse. The song My Love,
Speaker 1: for instance, was written to his first wife, Linda McCartney.
Speaker 3: And where I Go, where I Know my heart can
Speaker 3: stay with mine.
Speaker 2: It's a fuel love song to Linda, and it talks
Speaker 2: about some of the things I value in a song manner.
Speaker 2: You know, when I go away, I know my heart
Speaker 2: and stay with my love. You know, that's the idea
Speaker 2: of faithfulness. But into just those lines bad for instance,
Speaker 2: I don't know, even at the breakup of the Beatles
Speaker 2: when the couple is getting pretty bare, when me and
Speaker 2: Linda would go away to Scotland, there was plenty there,
Speaker 2: you know. So it's just other ways of saying, you know,
Speaker 2: when we were down and out, she'll still be there.
Speaker 2: I might go away, She'll be there when I get back.
Speaker 2: I'm just doing a reaffirmation of my love for Linda.
Speaker 2: But I also hope that other people, because it doesn't
Speaker 2: just say my Linda, it is in my love, so
Speaker 2: that other people will be able to relate to it
Speaker 2: and go, yeah, wow, that's great, she said for me too.
Speaker 1: There's also my Valentine which Paul McCartney wrote for his
Speaker 1: wife Nancy.
Speaker 3: What if it rained, we didn't care.
Speaker 2: She's that someday soon the sun was gonna shine. My
Speaker 2: Valentine is the most definite story. I had fallen in
Speaker 2: love with my lady Nancy, but we weren't an item yet,
Speaker 2: and in my case, I always looking over my shoulder
Speaker 2: for paparazzi. But we went on holiday to Morocco to
Speaker 2: a quiet little hotel I knew of, and because we
Speaker 2: weren't an item, we didn't stay together in the same room.
Speaker 2: Nancy got a room and I had a room, and
Speaker 2: my brother and his wife were on holiday with us.
Speaker 2: They had a room and it rained the whole bloody time.
Speaker 2: Might as well have stayed in Manchester. You know, it
Speaker 2: just rained. But we had a great time, and the
Speaker 2: lovely thing was I was getting to know non See,
Speaker 2: and as you do in those kind of occasions, I
Speaker 2: apologize to her for the rain, like it was my fault.
Speaker 2: I sound'm really sorry that I'm really sorry about all
Speaker 2: this rain. She said, doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: What am it rain? We didn't care.
Speaker 2: She said that someday soon some who's gonna shine, And
Speaker 2: the attitude of it doesn't matter.
Speaker 5: We're so sort of sweet.
Speaker 2: There's a little bit really resonated with me. I thought,
Speaker 2: that's great. You know.
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney had many muses throughout his career. Sometimes the
Speaker 1: music was inspired by was a little hairy, as was
Speaker 1: the case in Martha, My Dear.
Speaker 4: Martha, my Dear, the worst spend my days in conversation.
Speaker 4: Please remember me, Martha, mine love, don't forget me, Martha,
Speaker 4: my dear, Martha, my dear.
Speaker 2: It was about my dog. She was an English sheep dog. Here.
Speaker 2: I'd never had a dog, and I'd always kind of
Speaker 2: wanted one, but we hadn't been able to have one
Speaker 2: because my mom and dad both worked so they were
Speaker 2: out all day and we were at school, so we
Speaker 2: never had a dog. But when I grew up, was
Speaker 2: in the Beatles and had a house on my own
Speaker 2: and actually had someone looking after the house, then I
Speaker 2: could get a dog, I felt, you know. So I
Speaker 2: went along to a place and selected this little dog.
Speaker 2: And it's beautiful. So there's a little fluffy puppy. They're
Speaker 2: very cute puppies. Well, all dogs are cute puppies, but
Speaker 2: this particularly cute. She was a lovely little dog and
Speaker 2: I just adored her, you know, we became great friends.
Speaker 2: Every time I came home, there was this little wiggly
Speaker 2: bundle of fluff loving to see me. You know. I
Speaker 2: used to take her out to the country of long walks,
Speaker 2: take her out to Regent's Park where she would see
Speaker 2: a dock on the lake and forget that you couldn't
Speaker 2: walk on water, so she'd run into and it'd be
Speaker 2: like a cartoon. Oh, it was very nice. And I
Speaker 2: remember John being very sort of sympathetic to me. I
Speaker 2: think he warned me seeing me with a pet. John
Speaker 2: was a cat guy. He loved his cats. And when
Speaker 2: you say warmed to you, yeah, I remember you know him.
Speaker 2: I just remember a sort of when he came around
Speaker 2: and i'd be playing with Martha, I could tell that
Speaker 2: he liked it.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I heard this at the time, of course, of good mind.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if I knew at the time
Speaker 1: that Martha wasn't dark.
Speaker 2: No, not many people knew that, except the fans who
Speaker 2: had seen me with with my only issue dog was
Speaker 2: called Martha again. You know, I like the sort of
Speaker 2: mystery of songwriting and creating things, because it's not like
Speaker 2: having to write a historical essay, it doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be true, which to me is a great thing. Might
Speaker 2: you have.
Speaker 3: Always been my inspirations?
Speaker 4: Be good to me, math my love, don't forget me
Speaker 4: matho might dear.
Speaker 1: All this singing about love over the years has made
Speaker 1: some harder boiled music fans and critics dismissive. McCartney has
Speaker 1: contended with accusations of being sentimental schmaltzy, of lacking sophistication.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people who are cynical about
Speaker 2: it haven't been lucky enough to feel it. You know.
Speaker 2: Often sort of wonder what the critic who damns it
Speaker 2: looks like, what his life is or her life looks like.
Speaker 2: I often want to get a photograph of them and go, oh,
Speaker 2: it's him listening to him, because you can't have outlive
Speaker 2: them anyway, you know, they come and go.
Speaker 1: While some of McCartney's critics are tired of love as
Speaker 1: a subject, others are more specifically disdainful of an over
Speaker 1: earnest attempt at the sound of love, schmaltz and musical
Speaker 1: grandeur the way many classic love songs are produced. When
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney wrote The Long and Winding Road, he initially
Speaker 1: recorded it as a straightforward ballad, a stripped down ode
Speaker 1: to the mysterious journey of love, the love and.
Speaker 2: Windingly do your.
Speaker 3: Will never disappear.
Speaker 2: I've seen that road before. It's a bit creepy, you know,
Speaker 2: this road of stretching winding, and I had it also
Speaker 2: in my mind. There is a road on our farm
Speaker 2: in Scotland which leads to the road End, as they
Speaker 2: call it. It's called the road End, which is the
Speaker 2: tea junction. So this idea of life being a lone
Speaker 2: winding road that never ends, will never disappear. I've seen
Speaker 2: that road before. Lead me to your door, so give
Speaker 2: me a clue here. You know, it's like John when
Speaker 2: he went up in the helicopter with Marishi, said he
Speaker 2: open he'd slipping the answer, let me.
Speaker 3: Know the world. Many times I've been alone, and many
Speaker 3: times I'm right.
Speaker 2: We recorded it and I'll inclined that. And he didn't
Speaker 2: think the record was sort of glamorous enough, so he
Speaker 2: wanted it to be made more glamorous, and I think
Speaker 2: everyone went okay.
Speaker 1: Klein suggested that the band work with producer Phil Spector,
Speaker 1: who's more involved or chestral arrangement. Dazzled with sentiment.
Speaker 3: Love wanday.
Speaker 2: So do yor.
Speaker 4: Well never disappeared.
Speaker 2: I've seen that road before.
Speaker 1: This became the Beatles' final number one song in America,
Speaker 1: but some took issue with the grand production. At least
Speaker 1: one journalist complained that Specter's production made the song unlistenable.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the first time critics but complain about McCartney's
Speaker 1: love songs, and it wouldn't be the last.
Speaker 2: Long I was being accused of just writing silly love
Speaker 2: songs and was in danger of starting to buy into
Speaker 2: this idea that you should just be a bit tougher
Speaker 2: and a bit more worldly. But then asked me, realized
Speaker 2: that's exactly what love is. It's worldly. So this idea
Speaker 2: came to me. You know, you think of people would
Speaker 2: hardly not well, I look around me and say it doesn't.
Speaker 2: So some people want to fill the world that silly
Speaker 2: love songs. What's wrong with that?
Speaker 4: People want to build a world silly loves songs?
Speaker 3: What's wrong with that?
Speaker 1: I'd like to know, does he Wright go.
Speaker 2: Again? Instead about lowering songs about love? Let's get on
Speaker 2: with it, get into it, and don't be embarrassed. Because
Speaker 2: even though you can't say this is a suppy subject.
Speaker 2: It actually is the opposite. It's actually very deep and
Speaker 2: meaningful and basis of most religions and most philosophy. This
Speaker 2: thing people can feel for each other that makes life
Speaker 2: better if they can engage in it. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: mean that there's no more to this than that.
Speaker 3: That doesn't come in a minute.
Speaker 2: Love doesn't come in a minute. Sometimes it doesn't come
Speaker 2: at all. I only know that when I'm in it.
Speaker 2: It isn't silly. Love isn't silly.
Speaker 1: Was there's a response to someone who actually did say this,
Speaker 1: response to a lot of people who would say that
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was kind of I was given that reputation,
Speaker 2: you know, and I had to stand up for it.
Speaker 2: I think it is easier to get good criticism if
Speaker 2: you rail against things and probably swear a lot, because
Speaker 2: it just makes you seem stronger. Oh there's fucking weather.
Speaker 2: It's fucking unbelievable that I fucking hate thunder, I fucking
Speaker 2: hate lightning. What the fuck is God doing this for?
Speaker 2: What's the point?
Speaker 5: I told her?
Speaker 2: Rather well, said, says, the critic was marvelous. You go, Oh,
Speaker 2: it's a lovely day. It's nice. I like the rain,
Speaker 2: soppy bastard. So that's at a contrary that Bowld John
Speaker 2: had a lot of that. I think often people who
Speaker 2: do it it's a shield right against life.
Speaker 1: The lyrics to Silly Love Songs have McCartney leaning into
Speaker 1: his sappiest nature, shrugging off is rock star persona. The
Speaker 1: song is even set to a disco track. He sounds
Speaker 1: like he's celebrating every romantic cliche he can deploy. And really,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with that?
Speaker 2: And what's wrong with that? I like to know?
Speaker 5: He go.
Speaker 1: Again, There's nothing wrong with that. I mean, it's so
Speaker 1: beautifully direct. I love you.
Speaker 2: A friend of mine outlawed the word love in a chant.
Speaker 2: I thought, I get it. You know, it's been news
Speaker 2: many times before, and so you know, for maybe a
Speaker 2: day or two you're try and avoid it, thinking, yes,
Speaker 2: a good idea, and you should just avoid it with
Speaker 2: them now, because I'm known for that, and because I
Speaker 2: wrote the song saying what's wrong would silly love songs?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: I mean it's something I think about, you know, I
Speaker 2: think about this whole planet and the whole human race.
Speaker 2: And then in China right now, there's these two people
Speaker 2: and they love each other and they getting married and
Speaker 2: committing their whole lives to each other. Or in South
Speaker 2: America right now there's a mother having a baby and
Speaker 2: loving this baby, and the father is loving this baby.
Speaker 2: So the point I'm making, you know, fairly obvious, is
Speaker 2: that this love thing is global and goes throughout not
Speaker 2: only humans but animals, goes throughout creatures. So a mother
Speaker 2: horse can love its fall.
Speaker 6: So it really becomes very important, which outweighs the fact
Speaker 6: that it might be soppy, So you're always trying to
Speaker 6: say it in a kind of non soppy way, nearest,
Speaker 6: I have forgot to it with silly love songs, you know,
Speaker 6: which is on purposely.
Speaker 2: Being soppy, you know. But now I think it is
Speaker 2: staggeringly important word feeling because it's going on everywhere in
Speaker 2: the whole of existence right now.
Speaker 3: I would have had it on the silly love song.
Speaker 5: We Row Messy, and so.
Speaker 2: Some people long.
Speaker 3: Silly love songs.
Speaker 2: Long with the.
Speaker 1: Silly love songs from Wings at the Speed of Sound,
Speaker 1: released in nineteen seventy six. In the next episode, that
Speaker 1: strange and awesome Jewel A Day in the Life.
Speaker 4: Welcome fell out of bed, dragged a calm across my head.
Speaker 1: That's next time on McCartney A Life in Lyrics.
Speaker 4: Looking up, I noticed I was late famicode
Speaker 1: Grand McCartney A Life in Lyrics is a co production
Speaker 1: between iHeartMedia n p L and Pushkin Industries