Why Paul McCartney turned down “the greatest lyricist on the planet”
Every musician struggles to view the past through rose-coloured glasses. Even the greatest artists have moments where things go wrong, forcing them to either accept their mistakes or be haunted by them for the rest of their careers. Paul McCartney could have retired after The Beatles and still left behind one of pop music’s greatest legacies, but even he wasn’t immune to making a few questionable choices.
During the Summer of Love, any project that Macca did that did have the word ‘Beatles’ attached to it was probably not going to work out. The Fab Four had been joined at the hip for years, and despite things getting testy every now and then in the studio, they all knew they were on the cusp of something great when they decided to get off the road and become a studio-only creation.
Because, really, the road was only holding them back in a lot of ways. Every girl in the crowd was screaming so loud that no one could hear themselves, and when they did hear the results of their playing, there were a lot more bum notes and instances of them having a laugh rather than trying to create anything close to how they sounded in the days when they rocked the Cavern Club.
And now, with Abbey Road Studios becoming their de facto HQ, albums like Sgt Peppers are great examples of where they could go if they don’t rely on live performances. ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was proof that it could work, but this was them spring diving into experimentation without a net. In between takes, though, McCartney had something else on his plate when making the soundtrack to The Family Way.
While the piece is far from his greatest work in or out of The Beatles, the fragments that he had come up with were sweet enough to perk up George Martin’s ear in the background of the Pepper era. McCartney knew that it was better to keep pieces of the soundtrack entirely instrumental, but when he looked back at who he could have worked with, he was kicking himself for not seizing the opportunity.
“I didn’t know who he was. Later I realised, ‘Oh, that Johnny Mercer! You mean the greatest lyricist on the planet!’”
paul mccartney
Despite his insistence on working on his own, Macca was shellshocked when he figured out Johnny Mercer had offered to write out lyrics for the piece, saying, “We got an Ivor Novello Award for the score – for the best film song that year, a piece called ‘Love In The Open Air’, which Johnny Mercer was nearly going to put lyrics to, but I didn’t know who he was. Later, I realised, ‘Oh, that Johnny Mercer! You mean the greatest lyricist on the planet!’ I should have done that.”
Then again, Mercer’s style would have fit right in, considering what McCartney was used to making. As much as John Lennon got on his bandmate’s case about “granny” music, that Fred Astaire-esque tone to a lot of his songs would have probably benefited from the same man who helped work magic from films like Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
And given the fact that McCartney’s second stab at another score was Give My Regards to Broad Street, he seemed far better suited to have a collaborative partner when translating things to the big screen. He could always weave together a fine pop song, but lovers of classic cinema will always wonder what could have been with this songwriting legend.
