CLUB SANDWICH 82

THE SONGS
Mark Lewisohn looks at the stories behind the songs

            THE SONG WE WERE SINGING

            Written in Jamaica inside the first dozen days of January 1995, 'The Song We Were Singing' was the opening number taped by Paul in his initial sessions with Jeff Lynne, which took place some nine months after the pair had last worked together: on the Beatles' 'Real Love'.
            'The Song We Were Singing' set the pattern for the songs that would follow, with Paul and Jeff playing guitars, as a foundation on to which they built the other instrumental and vocal tracks. Their aim, successfully achieved, was to adhere to the spirit of Paul's roughly-recorded demo, evoking memories of the 1960s, when many a late night was enjoyed "chatting, smoking, drinking wine, hanging out... and discussing the vast intricacies of life". (The demo was laid into the multi-track tape as a guide for the studio recording, each element of the original being carefully listened to and then copied as close as possible, section by section, until the piece was complete.)
            Among the instruments played here by Paul [as seen in previous issues of CS - ed] is the standup bass originally owned by Bill Black and used by the Sun session player on all of Elvis Presley's earliest and greatest hits - including 'Heartbreak Hotel', the recording that seized the soul and assaulted the senses of a schoolboy Paul McCartney in 1956. (A few bits of hay and a 1956 guitar-string packet were recently found inside the bass.) With his own Bill Black's Combo, Bill went on to play in the Beatles' record-breaking Shea Stadium concert in August 1965, but died soon afterwards, at which point his standup bass was left to lie in a barn, slowly decaying. Linda McCartney stopped the rot when she bought it as the ultimate birthday present for her Elvis-mad husband in June 1974.

            THE WORLD TONIGHT

            The second song from Paul's initial group of sessions (there were four in all) with Jeff Lynne took what had been an acoustic, folk-tinged demo and imbued a progressively heavier treatment. Linda McCartney encouraged Paul to work his edgier, tougher, lead guitar work into Flaming Pie, an attribute he has tended to fight shy from over the years, but which remains a potent force, inspired by Jimi Hendrix - whom, like a fan, Paul followed, awe-struck, around the London clubs in the American's startling spring of 1967 - and also by Neil Young. (Again, showing every indication of ardent support, Paul and Linda drove for six hours to see Young's performance at the Phoenix Festival near Stratford-upon-Avon on 19 July 1996.) For the record, now that it's done, Linda still believes her husband "could have wound up a couple more solos on this album". 'The World Tonight' was written by Paul while on holiday in America in 1995. Of the 14 songs on
            Flaming Pie, only the title track, 'Somedays' and 'Great Day' were composed in England.

            IF YOU WANNA

            Having renewed their friendship - and musical kinship - working on 'Young Boy' three months earlier, Paul and Steve Miller combined again, in similar fashion, with 'If You Wanna'. The song was already a couple of years old at the point of recording, having been composed when Paul McCartney's 'New World Tour' reached Minneapolis, and a day off, in May 1993, which resulted in numerous hours inside a skyscraper hotel room that extended its head into the clouds. Inspired by being in (still then The Artist Known As) Prince's home city, Paul sat with a guitar and wrote a "driving across America" song, projecting images of Cadillacs and the Coast. ("I don't mean Blackpool this time," he affirms.)

            SOMEDAYS

            No matter how many songs a composer may have created, whether 5 or 500, mental mind-games are often employed to light the fuse. Paul McCartney, whose cache of hits extends much closer to the latter figure, still likes to impose arbitrary deadlines upon himself, and 'Somedays' was written under one such stricture. The date was 18 March 1994 when Paul drove Linda to a house in a village nearby their own, "where she would be photographed for a cookery assignment. While his wife was being snapped Paul retired to a bedroom, normally used by the house-owner's son, and - possessing an acoustic guitar, pen and paper - conceived his newest song. Knowing that he had only 90 minutes, and realising the question "What did you do?" would be asked of him when the photo session was over, was all the prompting Paul needed to create, the melody and lyric arriving wholly intact. The house-owner's son made his mark on the song, too, his soccer ephemera on the wall unconsciously prompting Paul to make footballing analogies in the lyric. Writing with John Lennon was often the same: the pair rarely spent more than three hours on a new song and were much influenced by everyday events and objects around them.
            One studio session, on 1 November 1995, seemed to be all that was needed to commit 'Somedays' on to tape, but Paul felt that it might also be enhanced by an arrangement. At this time he was occasionally meeting with George Martin at Abbey Road, sifting through unissued archive Beatles recordings for the Anthology (and still nervous, 30 years on, that he would not be the cause of any musical breakdowns...), and Paul asked George if he would listen to 'Somedays' and consider scoring it for an orchestra. "I see you haven't lost your touch!" was the considered response, and a 14-piece ensemble overdubbed their contribution on 10 June 1996.