The Album Paul McCartney Claimed Was Full of Throwaway Songs Was Also One of His Best and Most Creatively Ambitious Works Ever

For some people, an album is simply a collection of singles and a few fillers and nothing more. Paul McCartney, however, is an artist who typically considers his work more carefully. He and the Beatles helped define the modern album—work that seems to expand the bounds of what an album was in the decades before their rise to fame. Because of this, McCartney fans were shocked when he made an album full of what he called “throwaways.” Find out which album that was below.

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Paul McCartney’s “Throwaway” Album

McCartney’s writing always stood in stark contrast to his bandmates’. By the end of their tenure, the band had all but given up on McCartney’s whimsical songwriting voice. To pursue that creative ambition, he needed to shed the weight of the other Beatles.

Though he got his wish, it wasn’t as easy a road as he might have thought before the band broke up. Of course, changing gears might have seemed like heaven to McCartney in the middle of the Beatles’ tenuous relationship, but finding solo success was almost equally as hard.

Fans wanted more of the same, which they couldn’t have after the Beatles parted ways. In hindsight, it would’ve been impossible to please everyone with a debut solo effort, but McCartney made it even harder thanks to his daring introduction, McCartney.

The Risk of Releasing McCartney

McCartney’s debut album was a massive risk for the singer. McCartney swapped the Beatles’ polished perfection for something more akin to the DIY style we know today. He opted to rework older material and even improvise songs. This resulted in a work that was a far cry from what fans had come to know. Though it’s now looked on more favorably, McCartney was a hard pill to swallow upon its release.

McCartney once described this album as a collection of “throwaways.” But he didn’t mean it pejoratively. McCartney wanted to capture the energy of songs that don’t typically make the cut.

“They were almost throwaways, you know,” McCartney once said. “But that’s why they were included. They weren’t quite throwaways. That was the whole idea of the album: all the normal things that you record that are great and have all this atmosphere, but aren’t that good as recording or production jobs. Normally, that stuff ends up with the rest of your demos, but all that stuff is often stuff I love.”

It proved to be a hard sell for fans back in the day. Over the years, the album has become known as one of McCartney’s best and most creatively ambitious works. It’s not an album that would’ve worked for everyone, but McCartney eventually won people over.  

(Photo by Chris Walter/WireImage)