2 songs that Paul McCartney said were the greatest ones he wrote

Alongside the late legendary John Lennon, The Beatles co-founder, bassist and singer Paul McCartney had the most successful and influential songwriting partnership of all time. They wrote most of the hits of the band and inspired countless generations of musicians worldwide. So it’s not easy for someone like Paul, who also had a successful solo career, to pick the best songs he wrote.

But he mentioned them a few times and Rock and Roll Garage selected the two Beatles songs that McCartney said were the greatest ones he wrote.

The 2 songs that Paul McCartney said were the greatest ones he wrote

“I Saw Her Standing There”

As pointed out by Howard Stern in 2021, Paul McCartney revealed in his book “The Lyrics” that his favorite song he wrote is “I Saw Her Standing There”, which was released in 1963 as a single. He recalled in the interview that originally the second line of the song would be “she never been a beauty queen”. But Lennon looked at him like it wasn’t a good one. Then he changed to “you know what I mean”, which made the song better.

In an interview with Bob Mortimer in 2023 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), McCartney recalled a funny moment of a Jerry Seinfeld show. “Jerry Seinfeld was doing a show once and he was doing a bit of a speech. He said: ‘For instance, you know, Paul, you wrote ‘She was just 17, you know what I mean’. Well, I’m not sure, we do know what you mean, Paul?'” Paul McCartney said.

Credited to Lennon and McCartney, “I Saw Her Standing There” is not one of The Beatles’ biggest hits. But is certainly on the top 20 of their most famous songs. According to Setlist FM, the track was played by The Beatles live almost 200 times. Paul featured the track on his solo setlist more than 400 times.

It peaked at number 1 in many countries when it was released as a single. Some of them were USA, Denmark, Australia, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway and Finland.

“Here, There and Everywhere”

Another Beatles song that McCartney already picked as the favorite one he wrote was “Here, There and Everywhere”, first featured on their 1966 album “Revolver”. He said that during a session of Questions and Answers with Japanese fans back in 2017 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) that is the best one he wrote.

“I get that question asked a lot. It’s very difficult to choose one song, because you always think of them like your babies, like your children. And you don’t wanna choose one. But because I get asked that a lot I always do choose ‘Here, There and Everywhere’. As I think it’s quite a good song and I was pleased with it when I wrote it. One memory is that we were filming the film ‘Help’. I was in a cabin in our room, after being skiing in Austria. John (Lennon) and I were listening to our album. ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ came on.”