The No. 1 Song Jack Lawrence Wrote About Linda Eastman Decades Before She Was Linda McCartney

Decades before Paul McCartney wrote songs like “My Love,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” and “The Lovely Linda” about his wife, Linda McCartney (née Linda Eastman), Broadway songwriter Jack Lawrence wrote the very first song for her when she was just 1 year old.

While on his tour of duty with the United States Maritime Service during World War II, Lawrence wrote “Heave Ho! My Lads, Heave Ho!” in 1943, which became the official song of the Maritime Service and Merchant Marine as the bandleader at Sheepshead Bay Maritime Service Training Station in New York.

A year earlier, Lawrence also penned “Linda” as a favor and to possibly repay a debt owed to her father and his attorney, Lee Eastman. Among her father’s famous clientele were abstract painter Mark Rothko and the Dutch expressionist Willem de Kooning, and composers Tommy Dorsey and Harold Arlen (“Somewhere Over the Rainbow”).

“It was 1943,” recalled Lawrence in 1998 following Linda’s death. “One day, my attorney at the time (Lee Eastman) said to me, ‘Jack, do me a favor. My wife, Louise, has a great song in her name, my son, Johnny, has lots of ‘Johnny’ songs he can claim, my daughter, Laura, is proud of that beautiful song, ‘Laura,’ but my other daughter, Linda, feels left out. How about writing a song especially for her?’ “Being a good friend, I obliged.”

From there, Lawrence started making the rounds but didn’t find a publisher for several more years.

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“Linda” Goes to No. 1

Lawrence published the song in 1946, and “Linda” was covered by multiple artists through the ’60s. Though innocent, his lyrics read like a love song to a woman he had become enamored of.

Linda, Linda
Morning, noon, an’ night I find
Linda’s always on my mind

When I go to sleep
I never count sheep
I count all the charms about Linda!

An’ lately it seems
In all of my dreams
I walk with my arms around Linda

But what good does it do me
For Linda doesn’t know I exist
Can’t help feelin’ gloomy
Think of all the lovin’ I’ve missed

We pass on the street
My heart skips a beat
I say to myself, “Hello, Linda!”

If only she’d smile
I’d stop for a while
Then I would get to know Linda!

Once published, Ray Noble and his orchestra, with Buddy Clark on vocals, were the first to record “Linda” and topped the charts with it in 1947. That year, other covers of the song hit the top 10, with Charlie Spivak and his orchestra peaking at No. 5 and Paul Weston at No. 8.

“Ray Noble somehow got hold of a copy and fell in love with the song and made the most exciting recording of it, with Buddy Clark doing the vocal,” recalled Lawrence. “After all those years trying to place that song, Ray and Buddy’s recording made an overnight sensation. So, [then] five-year-old Linda Eastman finally had her own song, and grew up to marry Paul McCartney and join his band.”

Lawrence added, “I like to think my song had something to do with all of that. We had newspapers taking pictures of little Linda sitting on the piano with me playing. I got a note from her about a year before she died, and she said, ‘Paul and I love every time they play your song, ‘Linda,’ and I still can’t believe to this day that it was written about me and for me.’”

Paul McCartney Records “Linda”

“Linda” was later recorded by Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, and Perry Como during the ’40s and ’50s. In 1963, rock duo Jan and Dean also had a hit with their surfer rendition of Eastman’s song, on the cusp of Beatlemania, and before the pair’s No. 1 hit “Surf City,” co-written by Beach Boy Brian Wilson, who also sang on the track.

For Linda’s 45th birthday present, Paul McCartney also recorded a version of “Linda,” which he presented to her on a 45 record.

Lawrence died in 2009 at age 96.

Photo: Gianni Penati/Condé Nast via Getty Images