The songs Paul McCartney was put on Earth to write
Paul McCartney is an ode to that classic creative mantra of “just start”.
When he was asked about the advice he would give to wannabe musicians and songwriters, McCartney was upfront with his advice, saying that nobody is going to be great once they begin, and it will take some time before they write songs that they’re proud of. The key is to just get going.
“First of all, get the passion to want to write stuff and that’s not too hard,” he said when passing on his wisdom, “I think that the trick is ‘write a lot’, the more you write the better you get. So once you’ve got your passion you’ve written your first song, write your third, fourth, fifth, probably around you sixth you go ‘you know what? That’s actually not too bad.”
He continued, “So I think that’s it. I remember a painter being asked how this guy could become a better painter and he said ‘paint more’. So I think that is the trick, just write more.”
You can’t say that Paul McCartney doesn’t follow his own advice. Throughout his entire career, The Beatle has never been able to escape this inner desire to write songs. This manifests in both the bands that he plays in and his career as a solo artist. There were very few moments in Paul McCartney’s life where he couldn’t be found with a pen in his hand, lyrics in his brain and a tune on the tip of his tongue.
That career has come with plenty of highlights and a number of different themes being touched upon. It was Paul McCartney who helped to develop the idea of concept albums, as he was able to take a notion like a fictional band and create a whole album surrounding them, their music, and their image. I’m talking, of course, about Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, a record which is unrelenting in its influence.
One of the songs on the album is ‘Day In The Life’, a track that Graham Nash once called one of the most adventurous ever made. “It’s one of the greatest songs ever written. It’s one of the most adventurous songs ever written and recorded,” he said.
Adding, “I don’t think there’ll ever be another Beatles; I think that the universe put those four kids in the right place at the right time and gave them the right talent, to be able to move the hearts, minds and spirits of billions of people, and continue to this day.”
This is one example out of many of the great songs that McCartney has been responsible for putting together in the past. However, despite having such an unrivalled brain when it comes to expanding the parameters of creativity, Paul McCartney attests that the songs he feels most strongly about are those which are somewhat universal in their themes.
When talking about the kind of songs that he was put on Earth to make, McCartney admitted that he feels most passionately about love songs. It sounds simple, but the way that McCartney has been able to connect with listeners around the world for decades is no small achievement. This may well have been his one true calling.
“One side of what I do, and did, and still do, is write love songs,” he said, “Most people I know who aren’t cynics like them.”
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