Name a better musical marriage than the one between Paul and Linda McCartney. The husband and wife were more than spouses and they were more than bandmates. Together, they were truly partners, working alongside each other to craft some of their band, Wings’, most iconic works.
Videos by American Songwriter
Paul may have been the pop rock group’s leader and creative core, but several hits in the band’s catalog came to be with the help of his wife. Below are five classic Wings songs you may not have known Paul and Linda McCartney wrote together.
1. “Jet” – Wings (1973)
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney
Was your father as bold as the sergeant major? / Well how come he told you that you were hardly old enough yet? / And Jet, I thought the major was a lady suffragette, sings McCartney on “Jet” in between choruses of Jet! Ooooooo! Jet!
The 1973 track was co-written by Paul and Linda and harbored little Easter eggs of their life together. The song’s title, for instance, was the name of a little black puppy they owned at the time and the lyrics are a nod to when Paul first met Linda’s father.
“Her dad was a little old fashioned and I thought I was a little bit intimidated, as a lot of young guys can be meeting the father figure,” McCartney said of the song in a 2017 interview. “And if the dad’s really easy-going, it makes it easy. It wasn’t bad but I was a bit intimidated, probably my fault as much as his. Anyway, the song starts to be about the sergeant major and it was basically my experience, roughly translated.”
2. “Let Me Roll It” – Wings (1973)
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney
You gave me something, I understand / You gave me loving in the palm of my hand / I can’t tell you how I feel / My heart is like a wheel / Let me roll it / Let me roll it to you, swells the 1973 Wings tune, “Let Me Roll It,” what would be the B-side to the above “Jet.”
The couple penned the tune together, releasing it on the band’s acclaimed album, Band on the Run. Linda can be heard playing the organ on the track, leading the building rock tune with the bellowing pipes.
3. “Band on the Run” – Wings (1973)
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney
Stuck inside these four walls / Sent inside forever / Never seeing no one nice again / Like you / Mama, you, plays Wings’ magnum opus “Band on the Run.”
The husband-wife duo wrote the 1973 tune inspired by the popular songs being released during the time. “The thing is, you kind of go with fashions sometimes,” Paul said of the song in the aforementioned interview. “At that time there were a lot of records about desperados, renegades, that kind of thing … I thought yeah, it’d be quite nice to write a song about a prison break because it’d be quite dramatic and, again, you could use it as symbolism—talking about breaking out of your boring life… It was an American thing, really, that I got caught up in.”
4. “Live and Let Die” – Wings (1973)
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney
When you were young and your heart was an open book / You used to say “Live and let live” / (You know you did, you know you did, you know you did) / But if this ever-changing world in which we’re living / Makes you give in and cry … Say live and let die, sings McCartney on “Live and Let Die.”
Paul and Linda were recruited to write the theme song for the 1973 James Bond film of the same name. Performed by Wings, the tune quickly joined the ranks of the most iconic themes from the Bond franchise and remained a staple for the band, as well.
5. “Silly Love Songs” – Wings (1976)
Written by Paul and Linda McCartney
You’d think that people would’ve had enough of silly love songs / I look around me, and I see it isn’t so / Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs / And what’s wrong with that? / I’d like to know, ’cause here I go again…, Paul croons in the Wings’ hit “Silly Love Songs.”
The couple penned the funky bass-powered ballad as a response to regular criticism that Paul could only write sappy, sentimental love tunes. “The idea was that you may call them silly, but what’s wrong with that?” he told Billboard of his love-filled catalog. “[‘Silly Love Songs’] was, in a way, to answer people who just accuse me of being soppy.”
Photo by Reg Lancaster/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
