The musician Paul McCartney called an “out of body experience”
When The Beatles burst onto the global scene, it was always Paul McCartney who possessed the sweetest disposition. Not only did he have a knack for penning delicate lovesongs that endeared him to the world, but he also had the boyish voice to go along with it.
It’s reductive to simply refer to John Lennon in every analysis of McCartney’s work, but they were undoubtedly the most iconic songwriting partnership of all time. While creatively simpatico, they had two very different performative and vocal styles that reflected their respective personality differences. And it’s through the twisted lens of Lennon’s work that you can further understand just how sweet McCartney’s singing style was.
But it wasn’t just restricted to his adolescence. As his career progressed through the later Beatles discography and then into the work of Wings’, he remained a delicate and refined songbird despite becoming a more world-weary artist. While he certainly had a rasp in him, showcased on the likes of ‘Helter Skelter’, he was at his undeniable best when exuding the sort of sweetness heard of ‘Here There and Everywhere’ or ‘Blackbird’.
But being the creatively evasive chameleon he was, he was always looking to lean away from his natural sensibilities and push his vocals into more uncomfortable territory. And while his songwriting counterpart would have been a great reference point to lean on, McCartney turned to another artist for inspiration.
“I could do Little Richard’s voice which is a wild, hoarse, screaming thing,” he once said. “It’s like an out-of-body experience. You have to leave your current sensibilities and go about a foot above your head to sing it. A lot of people were fans of Little Richard so I used to sing his stuff, but there came a point when I wanted to do one of my own, so I wrote ‘I’m Down.'”
It’s a track bursting with the signature energy of an early Beatles who were churning out new ideas by the minute. Given the backstory of the song’s genesis, you’d be forgiven for thinking McCartney and Co packed up their things after the recording of this song, and Macca let his vocal cords soothe over a top of herbal tea.
But no, ‘I’m Down’ was a track born from an iconic recording session that saw The Beatles churn out three songs in one day. The relatively slow-tempo ‘I’ve Just Seen a Face’ kicked off proceedings in what was the sonic equivalent of some light calf stretches before McCartney thrust the band into a 100m sprint with ‘I’m Down’.
And as the dust settled from the raucous energy of that track, they decided to lay down one of the most iconic songs of all time, as you do. Still panting from the take of ‘I’m Down’, McCartney picked up his guitar and recorded ‘Yesterday’.
“On the day, I recorded Paul singing and playing guitar simultaneously,” George Martin later remembered. “Then we overdubbed the strings while Paul had another go at the vocal. But because we didn’t use headphones there was leakage from the studio speaker into his microphone, giving the impression of two voices or double-tracking.”
Not only had McCartney pushed his vocals past his own natural limits in one song, but he delivered the recording of a song most musicians would sell their soul for. If you’ve ever tried answering the age-old question of whether hard work beats talent or vice versa, do yourself a favour and never ask McCartney for his take, because he doesn’t know the difference.
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