Why Paul McCartney's intuition-led attitude to songwriting is worth taking onboard

18 January, 2025 - 0 Comments

You might think that one half of the songwriting team that rapidly created some of popular music’s most important songs at a rate that has largely been unmatched by any other artist would have something to say about discipline in songwriting. In actual fact, Paul McCartney’s attitude has always been to let intuition guide, as opposed to following a rigid process, when birthing new tracks.

When interviewed about his songwriting workflow with NPR’s All Songs +1 podcast in 2016, Paul opened up about the fact his songs can be triggered by a variety of starting points. “If I was to sit down and write a song, now, I'd use my usual method: I'd either sit down with a guitar or at the piano and just look for melodies, chord shapes, musical phrases, some words, a thought just to get started with,” said Paul. “Then I just sit with it to work it out, like I'm writing an essay or doing a crossword puzzle.”

Later, in the same interview, Paul stated that he had long been a ‘student of the instinctive’, and that once he’s hit on a cool idea, he’ll try a range of approaches to build it into a full song, but it doesn’t always work out; “I just fiddle around with that and try and follow the trail, try and follow where it appears to be leading me. And sometimes it leads me down a blind alley so I have to retrace my steps and start again down another road.”

McCartney, who - at the time of the interview - was guest-teaching a songwriting class at the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys, said that he always introduced his class by telling the young, aspiring songwriters the same thing; “Nearly always the first thing I go in and say [is], 'I don't know how to do this. You would think I do, but it's not one of these things you ever know how to do. You know I can say to you: Select the key. We will now select a rhythm. Now make a melody. Now think of some great words,' That's not really the answer.”

Source: Andy Price/yahoo.com

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