Songwriting is a delicate balance between vulnerability and universality, as Paul McCartney learned while working on the “angst-ridden” song he wrote to make himself feel better after a particularly arduous time in his life. After all, the more commercially available the music, the finer the line between sounding desperate and speaking to everyday experiences.
Luckily, McCartney was able to work through his initial concerns that he was leaning toward the former and continued writing this quintessentially Paul tune, angst and all.
Paul McCartney Wrote This Song To Help Feel Better
When Paul McCartney first sat down to write what would later become the opening track of his 2018 release Egypt Station, he worried that he was creating a song that was too “angsty.” In an interview with GQ, McCartney said he feared the song sounded too desperate. But eventually, he realized he enjoyed angsty music, so why wouldn’t others?
“People like that,” he said. “I like that. So, I’m gonna write something. You can often take a moment you remember where you had, let’s say, an argument, and you think of that situation, and you work it out in the song. Just by saying the opening lines, I’ve got crows out my window, dogs at my door, I don’t think I can take anymore, that makes you feel better.”
“Suddenly,” McCartney said, imitating playing a piano with his hands, “it’s a song. You’re crafting it into a vehicle that kind of puts all those thoughts in there, all your troubles and woes, so you work your things out.” In a different September 2018 interview, McCartney said his troubles were nothing “madly serious, but just one of those days when it’s like, ‘Oh, my god, what am I doing wrong here?’”
The Former Beatle Has Long Used This Songwriting Tactic
“I Don’t Know” opens Paul McCartney’s 17th studio album, Egypt Station, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200 on September 22, 2018. This impressively long discography doesn’t even include his work with the former band that catapulted him to fame in the 1960s, the Beatles. But even then, using songwriting as therapy was a technique often used by the younger McCartney.
For example, the Beatles’ “I’m Looking Through You,” which the Fab Four included on their 1965 release Rubber Soul, came from what McCartney described as a “shattering” fight with his then-girlfriend, Jane Asher. “As is one’s wont in relationships, you will, from time to time, argue or not see eye to eye on things,” McCartney recalled in Barry Miles’ Many Years From Now. “I remember [the song] particularly as me being disillusioned over her commitment.”
McCartney even used his music to process the tumultuous Beatles breakup and falling out with friend and bandmate John Lennon. After the Fab Four split, McCartney wrote “Too Many People” as a dig at his former colleague, later saying, “I felt John and Yoko [Ono, his wife] were telling everyone what to do, and I was p***ed off with it.”
Indeed, using music to process emotions is just one of many masterclass songwriting techniques McCartney has demonstrated over the years, turning his personal therapy sessions into musical healing for the rest of us to enjoy.
Photo by Laurent VU/SIPA/Shutterstock
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