Paul McCartney on his favourite love songs
Nobody loves a silly love song quite like Paul McCartney. Across his nearly 60-year history of writing and performing music, McCartney has become perhaps the most popular and successful pop star of all time. Throughout his time with The Beatles, Wings, and across his solo career, McCartney has added more standards to the musical canon than just about anybody in history. Safe to say, quite a few of those additions are love songs.
“Over the years people have said, ‘Aw, he sings love songs, he writes love songs, he’s so soppy at times,’” McCartney told Billboard in 2001. “I thought, ‘Well, I know what they mean, but, people have been doing love songs forever. I like ’em, other people like ’em, and there’s a lot of people I love — I’m lucky enough to have that in my life.’ So the idea was that ‘you’ may call them silly, but what’s wrong with that?”
When asked in the 2015 book Conversations with Paul McCartney to name his favourite love songs of all time, McCartney harkened back to the classic age of pre-rock and roll. Songs from the Great American Songbook, classic jazz numbers, and classic tracks that kicked off the singer-songwriter movement all came into McCartney’s thoughts. As for the top of the list, McCartney went with some all-time great songs.
“A song that’s become one of my particular favourites is ‘The Very Thought of You,’ which interestingly was written by Ray Noble, a British guy,” McCartney said. “It’s not often that you get these classics that Sinatra and Nat King Cole and Tony Bennett would sing as part of their regular repertoire, written by a British guy. So, well done our team.”
“I love ‘When I Fall in Love,’ particularly Nat King Cole’s version, which I remember as a kid,” McCartney added. “Though I always liked Nat King Cole, I never really listened to a lot of Sinatra, and now I have, and see what people were on about”.
“It’s nice to have come to him later, actually,” Paul added. “There’s a lot of stuff he sings that I like. [He offers a section of ‘A Lovely Way to Spend an Evening.’] When you’ve got the candles going, and you’re having dinner with your bird, a glass of wine, there’s no finer record.”
McCartney also mentioned that he loved ‘Stardust’ by Hoagy Carmichael and ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’ by Frank Sinatra. He even offered up a song that has his own name in the songwriting credits, even though he admits that he didn’t have much of anything to do with it. ‘Julia’ by The Beatles was a John Lennon song through and through, doubling as an ode to his deceased mother and a paean to his new love, Yoko Ono. A solo performance by Lennon ended up on The White Album, so McCartney’s appreciation for the song comes strictly from an outside perspective.
