Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott picks his favourite Paul McCartney song
It’s near-impossible to find a prominent musician of the past five decades that wasn’t touched by at least a few of The Beatles’ songs or the subsequent solo efforts that followed. Throughout the 1960s, the songwriting partnership of Paul McCartney and John Lennon changed Western culture almost single-handedly, straining the pre-conceived boundaries of sonic art and setting visual trends for a vibrant youth.
As a band in the right place at the right time, The Beatles’ dominion wasn’t confined merely to music. Consequentially, even those uninterested in the band have been affected by the domino-pushing ripple of these four remarkable lads from Liverpool. As for Joe Elliott, the lead singer of the Sheffield hard rock group Def Leppard, The Beatles was love at first listen.
Elliott first encountered The Beatles’ music in the 1960s during his childhood years. He grew up watching the band morph from suited mop tops to colourful hippies with wanderlust. When he reached his teen years in the 1970s and began to craft a career of his own, Elliott continued to follow the now-separated Beatles, but the influence of glam heroes began to eclipse his consciousness.
In celebration of McCartney’s 80th birthday in 2022, Stereogum asked a broad and colourful selection of famed musicians to pick out their favourite song credited to the Beatle. For his selection, Elliott picked out ‘Little Lamb Dragonfly’, a popular track appearing on 1973’s Red Rose Speedway.
“With the greatest respect to everything he’s ever written in the world ever, and the obvious ‘Live And Let Die’s and ‘Band On The Run’s and ‘Jet’ and etc., I’m going for ‘Little Lamb Dragonfly’ off Red Rose Speedway,” Elliott began, defending his choice.
“When I first heard that song, I was 13 or 14. There was something very melancholic about it that just sucked me in. It sounded like someone doing poetic license on phrases, sat on a blanket at some country field having a picnic,” he continued.
Adding: “It sounded the furthest away from what you’d expect the Beatles to be doing. It wasn’t ‘Helter Skelter’ or ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ where they were pushing boundaries. It was just a guy, a gentle guitar part, really beautiful melodies. Still, to this day, when I hear it, I get all kind of … squidgy. It’s a beautiful lament, almost like a nursery rhyme.”
Expanding on his discussion, Elliott noted how McCartney impacted his life, even in his pre-school years. “I’m told by relatives that when I was three, four years old, I was pretending to be Paul McCartney with a plastic Paul McCartney guitar, stood on a little stool singing ‘Love Me Do’ to whoever would listen,” he said. “I was obviously well aware of who the Beatles were and was a huge fan of the singles as a kid. And I’m a huge fan of them now with the new perspective from my sixties.”
“But becoming a teenager, I wasn’t listening to the Beatles anymore,” he added, noting his teenage glam distraction. “They were gone. We had Marc Bolan and David Bowie. I was well aware of who McCartney was. I think it was probably ‘Live And Let Die’ and ‘Jet’, all the stuff from around ’73 when he was rockin’ again. The Band On The Run album, it’s fantastic, my favourite McCartney album. It depends what mood I’m in. If I want to rock out and I want to listen to McCartney, I’ll be listening to Band On The Run. If I want to sit in the bath with the candles on, I’ll pick Red Rose Speedway. These are mood albums.”
Listen to Paul McCartney’s ‘Little Lamb Dragonfly’ below.
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