“I’m proud of it”: the only profane word used in a Paul McCartney song
Rock and roll has never been for the prudish stripe of music fans. The entire genre started out as the kind of music meant to piss off any concerned parents, and if someone thought that Elvis Presley or Little Richard was too risque, they were better off going back to their Pat Boone records and never trying to come within fifteen feet of a rock and roll show ever again. Although Paul McCartney was a much softer touch when it came to what rock was meant to sound like, he could certainly get caustic when he wanted to.
After all, this is coming from the person who threw the first shot when dealing with the first major diss tracks in popular music. Many people didn’t believe that The Beatles had to have warm feelings towards each other, but listening to McCartney take a few sly jabs at John Lennon on ‘Too Many People’ and Lennon responding with ‘How Do You Sleep’ made it seem like they hated each other all along.
But that was the furthest thing from the truth. The two had only drifted apart in that timeframe, and while Lennon was going to go on a string of divisive albums, McCartney was more interested in making tunes that could make people happy. It might have worked out for him, but it didn’t stop his reputation for being one of the least cool Beatles starting out, often playing the squeaky-clean counterpoint to Lennon’s political tirades.
Calling Macca the lighthearted Beatle might have been accurate, but he knew where to take his music if someone pissed him off. ‘Carry That Weight’ was already about the frustration of having to deal with every dopey business meeting that he had to go to during the band’s final days, but ‘Give Ireland Back to the Irish’ was the first time he wrote anything overtly political about the troubles going on between Ireland and Britain at the time.
“I’m not a teenybopper. I’m an artist.”
paul mccartney
While that tune isn’t nearly as memorable as ‘Give Peace A Chance’, he had a better grasp of the medium when working on ‘Big Boys Bickering’ in the 1990s. After talking about the ongoing problems happening in modern-day politics, but whereas he could be coy about his opinions every now and again, this was the first time that McCartney used a swear word, using the line about the big boys “fucking it up in every way”.
He normally shied away from using that kind of language, but the former Beatle knew that it would fit the moment a lot better, saying, “I wrote ‘Big Boys Bickering’, and for the first time in a song, I used the word ‘fucking’ which I knew would upset some people. I’m proud of it. I’m not a teenybopper. I’m an artist. I’ve written serious stuff before, and I’m writing it now. You don’t like it, don’t buy it.”
And for someone who seemed put off whenever someone swore in a song, McCartney actually pulls it off effectively. Given his status as a living legend, hearing him suddenly swear is certainly jarring at first, but anyone who isn’t put off the minute that someone says a “bad word” shouldn’t have much of a problem getting past the lyrics, especially since the idea of big boys bickering has only become a bigger issue as the years have gone on.
Because let’s face it, McCartney has earned the right to do whatever he wants, and this is a much better version of swearing than being cheeky later on with ‘Fuh You’. McCartney might play it safe every once in a while, but this is the kind of confidence that John Lennon had the same time he called people “so fucking crazy” on ‘Working Class Hero’.
