“The most blatant Paul ripoff of all time”: the Mac DeMarco song inspired by Paul McCartney
Whether fans liked it or not, something within Mac DeMarco changed upon the release of his 2017 album This Old Dog. Whammy guitar lines and vocal hooks about the halcyon days of wreckless youth were swapped for musings over masculinity and broken paternal relationships. It ushered in the dawn of a new contemplative era for the hipster hero, one that has largely stuck around and has since informed a more nuanced and delicate discography.
His follow-up record Here Comes the Cowboy followed in a similar vein. Aside from the Haruomi Hosono-inspired ‘Choo-Choo’, the album was more of an acoustic-folk sound that foregrounded raw elements of his acoustic guitar and saw vocals drenched in reverb so as to give them a whispered quality.
It still showcased an element of playfulness that has always been at the heart of DeMarco’s charm but with an added sense of refinement, or, dare I say it, maturity. It was a move that saw him harness the echoes of one of his all-time heroes, Paul McCartney.
“I feel like a lot of Paul stuff is very fun-loving, whimsical; who knows what these lyrics are even about. But it’s less about the meaning to me than the melody and the harmony. It’s always stuck out to me,” DeMarco once said when discussing his work.
A creative mantra was identified for DeMarco as he embarked upon his 2017 record. Understanding the simple importance of melody and harmony, his songs on Here Comes the Cowboy were at times compositionally rudimentary—two chords running through the entirety of a song with minimal percussive support—yet the tenderness with which those profiles platformed said more artistically than large parts of his previous work.
But while most of McCartney’s influence on this record was soulful and emotive, there was one song in particular that DeMarco claims to be a direct copy of his work. “I’m a bit of a fanatic. Hugely, still now,” DeMarco said before admitting, “There’s a song on my last record that’s the most blatant Paul ripoff of all time.”
The song in question was nestled into the middle of the tracklisting and was rather modestly named after his girlfriend’s initials. ‘K’, which DeMarco elsewhere described as “a little Paul McCartney love song”, is one of his most beautiful and pared-back takes of all time, pitting a relatively untouched DeMarco vocal take with the standalone acoustic guitar.
It’s the sort of song you could picture a late 1970s McCartney writing at the end of a West Coast American pier. A song that would attract a hovering bluebird to sit on his shoulder and tweet along. Of course, the lyrics are as tender and poignant as some of McCartney’s finest romantic takes, but it’s the melody that’s so deeply informed by his influence. As DeMarco says, it’s that simple importance that McCartney so wonderfully mastered that shines through on this underrated DeMarco track.
