NEW: a typical McCartney stuck-in-your-head tune

After a week of hints on social media, the release of Paul McCartney's upcoming album NEW, later that year, is official confirmed on September 2, 2013. The same day the new single, and title track of the album, is also released. It turns out to be a typical up-beat McCartney tune that immediately gets stuck into your head. A real earworm, sounding so familiar you might think you know this song already for years:

We wanted to put it out as the first track from the album, because it’s a summer, drive along song. I can imagine driving the motorway while this one is blasting from the car speakers. (…) When I play to people the (new) album and this one comes along, they go “Oh this is you!” (…) So yeah, people do point out that it’s very me. And I must say, when I wrote it, I thought that. I thought “Okay, this is me, writing songs that I’m known for”. 

NEW is a love song, dedicated to Nancy Shevell with whom Paul married two years before:

You know there are so many ways to talk about meeting someone and falling for someone. It just occurred to me, when I was writing this song, that I could say ‘then we were new’. There we were, going along and then we were new. It was just another way that I thought was kind of, hopefully, original to say ‘then we were in love’.

The song was written at McCartney’s home in London on his dad’s old piano, that the McCartney family used to have in their home back in Liverpool. 

It got a great sound and obviously the whole vibe, because it was my dad’s, I played it as a kid, he played it, it’s a nice instrument to play. So I got to this… (humming the basic beat) I wrote a couple of verses and grabbed a little cassette recorder that I can stick things down on quickly and when I had it finished I took it in to Mark. 

Mark Ronson is one of four producers with whom McCartney has been working on the album NEW. The two have known each other on a friendly basis and Ronson also acted as a DJ at the wedding of Paul and Nancy. Ronson has the ability to create a nostalgic sixties sound and he is especially known for the work he has done with Amy Whinehouse on her classic album Back To Black.

Mark’s work with Amy Winehouse was sensational, so I knew he’d be good. He knows his music, he knows what he likes and the two of us together took the song and tried to put the maximum vibe into it. We had a lot of fun. He brought expertise, energy, enthusiasm and the odd laugh or two. (…) I said ‘I think we can do this one well together. You’ve got a good pop sensibility’, although I don’t like the word ‘pop’. And he loved the song and then we kind of put the brass on it which is a little bit of his trademarks. So suddenly there it was, it all came together you know. We had the track. 

The collaboration on the track worked out very well. That the song sound so familiar from the start, may be caused by the fact that it's probably one of Paul's most Beatles-sounding songs that he has made in his solo carreer. To me, NEW has a similar vibe as Got To Get You Into My Life and Good Day Sunshine, tracks McCartney wrote for the Beatles album Revolver.

It was just such an instant classic. I said, ‘I would love to work on that song with you’, and that’s how it started. It was a masterclass in learning how to put together a fucking incredible song – just watching his mind work. I was definitely surprised by how inspired he still is. It would be so easy for someone at this point in his career to go in, mess around, not necessarily phone it in, but it’s so inspiring how brimming with ideas he is the entire time he is in the studio. (…) There’s a certain kind of rhythm on, say, Penny Lane and Got To Get You Into My Life which is also on NEW. But it’s really hard to get it right, to get the right feel, because it’s Paul’s own personal groove. In the end we had to get his live band in to play on the track, because it’s so difficult to follow. Once he picks up that bass, his rhythmic sensibilities also kick in. Watching him in the studio was a masterclass in harmony and arrangement.

Mark Ronson

About two weeks after the official release, McCartney posted a video with an acoustic version of the song on YouTube, featuring his live band singing along. Rusty Anderson also strums acoustic guitar during the performance, which was taped just prior to the band’s performance in Regina, Canada during the Out There! tour.

It was totally impromptu. We hadn’t sung it since we recorded it together months earlier. We simply joined in as we normally do before taking the stage with Paul, this time singing NEW without practicing it beforehand.”

Brian Ray

The new single is received with positive reviews worldwide, gets a lot of airplay on the radio and got compared with the Beatles classic Got To Get You Into My Life. In Japan the song finds itself in the top of the charts, with a fourth place. The track also appears in the animated movie Cloudy With A Change Of Meatball 2.

Related Posts:

Paul McCartney 21st Century Singles Top 10
McCartney's 21st Century Hidden Gems
10 Favorite Guitar Solos By McCartney

André Homan

André Homan is a Dutch writer and journalist.

Nieuwere post Oudere post