The Paul McCartney Lyric That Looked Back to His Pre-Fame Years

When you’ve led a life as storied as Paul McCartney’s, it must be tempting to write every song about the experiences that you’ve had. Although Macca has occasionally dipped into nostalgia in his songs, he mostly keeps that tendency in check.

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Interestingly enough, his occasional reminiscences in song often go flying right past his Beatles days. On his 2007 track, “That Was Me”, he looks back with incredulity to his pre-fame youth.

Looking Way Back

Paul McCartney’s 2007 album Memory Almost Full took a while to reach fruition. McCartney started compiling the songs for it four years earlier, recording bits of it with his touring band. But he shelved the project for a bit to work with producer Nigel Godrich. Those sessions became the acclaimed 2005 album Chaos And Creation In The Backyard.

Coming off that success, McCartney didn’t take too long to dive back into Memory Almost Full. He touched up some of the songs that the band had finished. In addition, he wrote new material to fill out the running order.

Despite the disjointed creative process, he stumbled into one of his most thematically cohesive albums. As the title suggests, many of the songs look back and try to make sense of the past. “That Was Me”, which is part of an album-ending medley of songs, goes way back, as McCartney explained on the album’s promotional website:

“People often say they can remember more from their childhood than they can from a month ago. I think that is a fact of life – I don’t know why. So all I had to do for this song was to think back.”

Behind the Lyrics of “That Was Me”

McCartney shapes “That Was Me” as a series of snapshots, ones that he can call up in his mind even when he doesn’t have a picture on which he can rely. He seems to be confiding in his audience, taking them aside to explain to them that this person from such humble beginnings is indeed the guy singing to millions in the present.

In each verse, he riffs on the places he’s been and the formative experiences that have stuck with him. What’s interesting is how the memories kind of jam together at random. Check out the first verse as an example. “That was me, at the scout camp, in the school play,” he sings. “Spade and bucket by the sea, that was me.”

Liverpool attractions play a big part in the song. The bus stop acted as a kind of entertainment hub, a location from which anything was possible. When he sings about being “On a blanket in the bluebells,” he’s referring to a particularly picturesque getaway that he’d often enjoy.

McCartney does allow his remembrance to encompass the start of his Beatles days, particularly their time at The Cavern. “Yeah, that was me, sweating cobwebs under contract,” he sings. “In the cellar, on TV, that was me.” But then he’s right back to earlier times: “That was me, a cappella at the altar.”

The chorus sums it up for the audience, but it can also be heard as the singer trying to convince himself how things have changed. “The same me that stands here now,” McCartney marvels. “If fate agreed that all of this / To make a lifetime, who am I to disagree?” What a lifetime it’s been for Paul McCartney, even if “That Was Me” only fills us in on its earliest days.

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