The 2026 song Rick Rubin knew had always existed: “Feels like it’s in the air”
Rick Rubin was never after the average rock and roll song when he made a record.
He had a vision for every artist that he worked with, and even if they went in the complete opposite direction, he was always going to give his opinion based on what he felt that the fans would have wanted to hear from whoever he worked with. But even if some songs were laboured over for years, sometimes the best tunes that anyone has ever heard tend to fall out of the air with no real warning.
That kind of spontaneity is half of what Rubin was after every single time he made a record, and whether it was working with Slayer or Tom Petty, he felt that he needed to be the one to capture that energy. A song like ‘Under the Bridge’ by Red Hot Chili Peppers was already one of the best songs of their career before it was recorded, but it wouldn’t have happened had Rubin not suggested that Anthony Kiedis turn his poetry into a song.
Rubin doesn’t need to concern himself with the technicalities of what a bass guitar tone needs to sound like all the time or what key that a song should be in, but that didn’t matter so long as he could feel what that person is trying to articulate. And even if he never got to work with some giants, that does certainly apply to what he heard when he listened to The Beatles for the first time.
Those voices were heavenly to Rubin when he first heard them as a kid, and getting the chance to work with Paul McCartney and discuss his songs was a producer’s dream come true. George Martin was the one putting together every single piece that the band had ever made, and when you look at the raw sonics behind their records, it’s fantastic, but that was nothing compared to how seamless Macca was at creating melodies.
Every member of the band could write a catchy tune when he wanted to, but McCartney was practically put on this Earth to make music that everyone could sing along to. All of his songs would have the habit of getting stuck in your head, even if you thought it was one of the more annoying songs in his discography, but even with over 50 years of distance between records, Rubin felt that a song like ‘Life Can Be Hard’ is still one of those McCartney classics that seemed like it was always there.
The song does fall into the category of his ‘granny music’ songs, but Rubin was knocked out when he heard the beginnings of the song in the documentary McCartney 3, 2, 1, saying, “The beauty of when I hear it is that I think that it’s a song that’s always been around, in a good way. Not in a sense that I’ve heard it before, but more like, this is one of those songs that feels like it’s in the air.”
And even though everyone can try to be the armchair music journalist and talk about how McCartney’s voice isn’t really what it used to be when he sings the song today, it actually gives the song a lot more character. The bones of this song were already started when McCartney was working on his third self-titled record, but with the rest of the bells and whistles added on, it feels like the kind of tune that can only come from someone who has done their fair share of living and is telling everyone that they can overcome anything.
It can get a little bit schmaltzy from time to time, but that’s the reason why McCartney’s songs work so well. Being cheesy was never a bad thing for him, and he could always find time to make a handful of tunes that were a bit more playful than anything that his contemporaries could have ever done.
