The Paul McCartney Lyric Inspired by the Placement of a Guitar Capo

An underrated part of the songwriting process is the environment in which the writer creates. Some little detail can push the song in a direction it might not have otherwise taken. Even the sound of an instrument can have a major impact.

That was the case for Paul McCartney when he wrote the song “Hope of Deliverance,” the first single released off his 1993 album Off the Ground. In particular, the placement of a capo on his guitar turned out to be the instigating event in the song’s creation.

Raising “Hope”

Paul McCartney is known for his affability and general friendliness, but even he needs to get away from it all now and then. Solitude can be especially helpful when he’s writing, which is why one day he secured himself a spot in his attic to work on some new material in peace and quiet.

The guitar he took had a capo placed far up the neck, which as guitar players know, means that the notes played can produce a kind of ringing sound. When McCartney started playing, the guitar noise reminded him of the joyous sounds coming out of churches at the holidays. In his book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, McCartney explains what that inspired in him from a lyrical standpoint:

“‘Deliverance,’ to me, is a religious word, a biblical word that you hear in church, and I’m glad to be using it in a secular context—in the context of a love song, that’s to say. We want deliverance from all the darkness that surrounds us.”

Off the Ground was an album where McCartney tried to tackle serious topics throughout, which made “Hope of Deliverance,” with its subtle references to the state of the world, a good choice for the lead single. Those ringing guitars, accompanied by Latin-style rhythms, are evident throughout the track, which McCartney put together with the band he’d used on his world tours in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.

The Meaning of the Lyrics of “Hope of Deliverance”

“Hope of Deliverance” is one of the McCartney songs that plays into the notion of him as a generally positive guy. But there’s just enough of the negative in there, both in terms of some hints in the lyrics and some twists within the music, that it’s by no means a naïve track.

It starts out benignly enough with a simple pledge of devotion to someone special: I will always be hoping, hoping / You will always be holding / Holding my heart in your hand. The second verse continues in that vein, but there are suggestions that this optimism hasn’t yet been rewarded. Note how the word someday enters the picture.

Leading into the chorus, McCartney lets some doubt creep into the picture for the first time. The narrator asks a series of questions that he can’t quite answer: When will it be right? I don’t know / What will it be like? I don’t know.

That’s when he reveals the refrain: We live in hope of deliverance / From the darkness that surrounds us. In other words, the happy ending isn’t guaranteed. The melody even folds into something a bit more downcast at this point, although it surges back upward to reflect that this guy isn’t going to let this cloud cover him up for too long.

In the final verse, McCartney seems to extend an invitation to the listening audience: And I wouldn’t mind knowing, knowing / That you wouldn’t mind going / Going along with my plan. That plan, as illustrated in “Hope of Deliverance,” is to make every effort to cultivate a better world, instead of conceding to a drearier alternative.

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Photo by Rob Verhorst/Redferns