Best Paul McCartney Songs: 20 Essential Post-Beatles Macca Tracks
By the time The Beatles split, in 1970, Paul McCartney had already accomplished more than any musician could have hoped for. Having helped change the face of music on several occasions, he could have spent his post-Beatles life in semi-retirement, emerging solely to remind us of his past accomplishments. As a solo artist, however, McCartney continued to shape pop and rock music, whether with new collaborators (Wings, his wife Linda, Elvis Costello, producer Nigel Godrich) or simply following wherever his creative muse led. The best Paul McCartney songs, then, pay tribute to that relentless drive to keep finding new modes of expression.One of the interesting aspects of Paul’s 2013 album, NEW, is that the production credits feature Giles Martin and Ethan Johns, successful young producers, but – more significantly – the respective sons of George Martin and Glyn Johns, both of whom had produced The Beatles. From the sessions with Ethan Johns came ‘Early Days’, a song about Macca’s carefree teenage years back in Liverpool. “On the day I wrote the track ‘Early Days’ I was thinking about the past, particularly me and John in Liverpool in the early days, so I just ran with that,” Paul explained. “I started to get images of us in the record shop listening to early rock’n’roll and looking at the posters, and the joy that that gave me remembering all those moments.
Source: Paul McGuinness/udiscovermusic.com
