The Wings song Paul McCartney struggles to listen to: “I have to sort of choke it back”
During his decade with The Beatles, Paul McCartney penned some of the most celebrated and beloved songs of all time. Somewhere in between the comfort of ‘Let It Be’, the melancholy of ‘Yesterday’, and the pure joy of ‘Yellow Submarine’, he secured his reputation as one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
The Fab Four broke up in 1970, but McCartney continued to prove his lyrical and instrumental prowess with Wings, recruiting Linda McCartney, Denny Laine and Denny Seiwell to flesh out his sound. Though the band would never quite reach the heights of his previous project, Wings put out some gorgeous music throughout the 1970s, including the romantic ‘Silly Love Songs’ and the rocking ‘Band on the Run’.
There is one song, however, that McCartney himself struggles to listen back to. The band’s first full-length offering, 1971’s Wild Life and, perhaps expectedly, included some lyrics inspired by McCartney’s time with The Beatles. One of those songs was ‘Dear Friend’.
Over haunting piano chords and atmospheric percussion, the track finds McCartney reaching out to his former songwriting partner, John Lennon. Their relationship had become increasingly strained as The Beatles came to an end. “Dear friend,” he sings, “What’s the time? Is this really the borderline? Does it really mean so much to you? Are you afraid or is it true?”
It’s clear that the track is a letter to Lennon, his “dear friend,” asking him to remember their true friendship and prioritise it over their previous issues. McCartney shared that he struggles to listen back to the song on the Paul McCartney website, admitting, “I have to sort of choke it back”.
“That’s sort of me talking to John after we’d had all the sort of disputes about The Beatles break up,” he explained, “I find it very emotional when I listen to it now.” It’s easy to see why the song would evoke this emotional reaction from the songwriter. Fortunately, the two did repair their relationship somewhat before Lennon’s death in 1980.
“I’m trying to say to John, ‘Look, you know, it’s all cool. Have a glass of wine. Let’s be cool,’” he explained, “And luckily we did get it back together, which was like a great source of joy because it would have been terrible if he’d been killed as things were at that point and I’d never got to straighten it out with him.”
The song remains a gorgeous attempt at reconnection and a testament to their partnership despite its decay in the band’s later years.
Listen to ‘Dear Friend’ by Wings below.
