Paul McCartney’s lasting advice to all songwriters
The world of music has been riding a wave of admiration for Paul McCartney given the recent celebration of his 80th birthday and his eagerly anticipated headline set at the 2022 Glastonbury Festival. A bonafied modern icon and etched into the annals of history as one part of the most important bands of all time, McCartney is unrivalled in his majesty.
Any young and aspiring musician likely looks to their idols as well as the greats of their field, and in the case of Paul McCartney, he has never been shy to pass on advice to those who look up to him, regardless of the range of experience, specifically in the field of songwriting.
Paul McCartney’s advice for songwriters is as follows: “First of all, get the passion to want to write stuff and that’s not to hard. I think that the trick is ‘write a lot’, the more you write the better you get. So once you’ve got your passion you’ve written your first song, write your third, fourth, fifth, probably around you sixth you go ‘you know what? That’s actually not too bad.”
He continues, “So I think that’s it. I remember a painter being asked how this guy could become a better painter and he said ‘paint more’. So I think that is the trick, just write more.”
People always say that practice makes perfect, and it seems that there’s something to that, especially in the case of one of the greatest songwriters of all time. It’s not too far-fetched to think that even the greats tend to like their own work the longer they progress.
When asked later about this same prompt, Paul McCartney addressed a group of young songwriters by saying: “I always say to the kids, there are no rules. I don’t know how to do it. It can happen anyway but I do like collaboration. I mean, obviously writing with John was the ultimate collaboration and I think we were both very lucky to find each other because we played perfectly off each other.”
He concluded by adding, “An example I always give is I was starting this song ‘Getting Better’ and I’m going ‘It’s getting better all the time’ and he goes ‘It couldn’t get much worse’ and you suddenly got the foil to what you’re doing. So the next line is no just ‘getting better, still’. So I would do that to his songs and he would do that to mine.”
So, according to one of the best in the business—run things by people you can trust, and keep on practising until you make it!
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