The song Paul McCartney wrote for The Beatles’ children: “I hope it will help”
When we remember The Beatles, we remember the band that changed the world for the better. When they travelled to America and conquered the States almost overnight, they didn’t just launch a successful music career, they launched successful careers for plenty of others who would subsequently start bands and make music that was inspired by them.
Of course, while we often recall this version of The Beatles, we also remember the fact that the band had a lot of problems. They had personal issues, their own demons to battle, and creative differences, all of which meant that these four friends from Liverpool wound up having a tumultuous relationship, which was filled with ups and downs.
For instance, there were problems which arose when the band were together, especially towards the end of their time together, as they were frequently at each other’s throats, debating over what was a good song and what was a band one. Their tastes had become completely different, and they couldn’t agree on what constituted good music anymore. For instance, when John Lennon was forced to write the song ‘Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da’, he tried to intentionally sabotage it.
“John Lennon came to the session really stoned, totally out of it on something or other, and he said, ‘All right, we’re gonna do ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’,” recalled Richard Lush, the band’s engineer at the time. “He went straight to the piano and smashed the keys with an almighty amount of volume, twice the speed of how they’d done it before, and said, ‘This is it! Come on! He was really aggravated.”
There were also feuds that carried into each member’s solo careers. Paul McCartney wrote the song ‘Too Many People’, which featured a line about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s political activism. Meanwhile. John Lennon released ‘How Do You Sleep?’ It was a brutal diss track aimed at McCartney, which called into question his personality and his artistic integrity.
However, while there were these persistent feuds that plagued each member of The Beatles, there are constant reminders dotted throughout their career which take us back to the fact that this was a group of friends who made the world a better place. We find it in the joy we get from their music, and we also find it in the sweet gestures that the band members have done for one another.
A great example of these is the songs that Paul McCartney wrote for The Beatles’ children. Whenever a child of the band was going through a difficult period, McCartney would try to comfort them in the only way he knew how: through music. A great example of this is the song ‘Hey Jude’, which he famously wrote for John Lennon’s child.
McCartney wrote another song for one of the band members’ children was the song ‘Little Willow’. Released on McCartney’s 1997 album Flaming Pie, the track was dedicated to Ringo Starr’s first wife, Maureen, who died of cancer, and her children. He knew how much of a hard time they will have been going through, and wrote the song to try and provide a little bit of comfort.
“I wanted to somehow convey how much I thought of her. For her and her kids,” he said when discussing the song, “It certainly is heartfelt, and I hope it will help a bit.”
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