The Beatles are the most successful band of all time, with an estimated amount of more than 600 million records sold worldwide. They only released 13 studio albums but their incredible songwriting led by Paul McCartney and John Lennon changed music forever, since almost every band even from different music genres were inspired by them.
The band’s co-founder, bassist and singer Paul McCartney is still active at the age of 81, touring and writing new music. As a solo act and as a member of The Wings, he released 26 studio albums in the last five decades and had numerous hits.
With so many incredible songs written by him, it’s hard to chose which one is the greatest, but the musician already mentioned which one it is.
The song that Paul McCartney said is the greatest one he wrote
Paul McCartney and John Lennon were so prolific when it came to writing songs that at a certain point of The Beatles’ career, they would even say to each other ‘Let’s write a swimming pool’, because they were always writing successful songs that would ended up giving them more money.
Even though almost all The Beatles tracks are really well know, there are some songs that are not often remembered. Which is one that McCartney said 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’.”
McCartney continued:
“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.”
“I remember John saying: ‘You know, that’s probably my favorite song of yours’. So that was a good compliment. I always remember that. So yeah, that’s probably my favorite too,” Paul McCartney said.
Paul said that the track is similar to a song Fred Astaire sang
McCartney always had a broad taste in musical, what gave him a lot of background to add different kinds of inspirations in his songwriting. He revealed in an interview made available by Beatles Bible, that he thinks a song recorded by Fred Astaire is very similar to “Here, There and Everywhere”.
“I think the structure of it, I like it. It always reminds me in structure of a great Cole Porter song (called) ‘Cheek To Cheek’ which Fred Astaire sang. It starts of ‘Heaven, I’m in heaven. The La, La, La. It goes through it and in the middle it goes (differently). But it takes me back to ‘Heaven…’ It’s so neat the way it just wraps itself up that I always thought wow, that’s a great trick.”
“So ‘Here, There and Everywhere’ does that. ‘Here’, first verse, second verse ‘there, third verse ‘everywhere’ and leading me back to ‘here’, you know. That was what attracted me. Then I think that wouldn’t have been enough to have make it my favorite song. But I also think it’s got a nice melody.”
McCartney continued:
“So the combination of those always made it one of my big favorites. That’s a question you get asked a lot. But that one, when I’m pushed, I will pull that one out of the bag. Is definitely amongst my favorites,” Paul McCartney said.
Credited to Lennon and McCartney, the song was featured on The Beatles’ 1966 album “Revolver”. Since that album had other bigger hits like “Taxman”, “Eleanor Rigby”, “Yellow Submarine”, “And Your Bird Can Sing” it’s not one of the most remembered ones of it. “Revolver” peaked at number 1 on Australia, Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, Germany and United States.