What Are Your Top 40 Solo Paul Songs?
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Here we go. Very difficult exercise but I certainly love each of these songs:
- Maybe I’m Amazed
- Too Many People
- Back Seat of My Car
- Little Lamb Dragonfly
- Band on the Run
- Jet
- Picasso’s Last Words
- 1985
- Magneto and Titanium Man
- Letting Go
- Somebody Who Cares
- The Pound is Sinking
- Wanderlust
- Through Our Love
- No More Lonely Nights
- Only Love Remains
- Back on My Feet
- Loveliest Thing
- My Brave Face
- We Got Married
- Figure of Eight
- This One
- Golden Earth Girl
- Somedays
- Young Boy
- Beautiful Night
- How Kind of You
- At the Mercy
- Friends to Go
- Too Much Rain
- Follow Me
- This Never Happened Before
- Anyway
- My Ever Present Past
- See Your Sunshine
- Alligator
- Appreciate
- I Don’t Know
- Hand in Hand
- Do It Now
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I knew I could count on you to answer, BJ! There are a few on your list (and TommyC’s) that I couldn’t sing a line of even if I had a gun to my head. Sorry! I’m just not well-versed on Paul’s solo career like you guys are. (as you can probably tell from my top 40 list!)
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B J Conlee wrote:
No doubt I'm a Paul McCartney Nerd so this sort of exercise is right down my alley. Also no doubt that this sort of list is a matter of personal opinion. No one is right and no one is wrong.
Because Macca's musical Post Beatles' Catalog is do diverse and huge, I'm going to set some boundaries for this list. With that in mind, I'm going to stick with Paul's original Post Beatles' Pop-Rock Studio albums and A-sided singles. At another time, it would be easy to do a 40 or even 50 Paul tracklist with just unreleased work, B-sides, rare versions etc. Hard to believe but that would be a very good quality list as well.
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Wow...it was hard to keep it to 50. There was approximately another 20 that could have easily made this sort of "my best song" list. Just shows that Paul needs a better, more complete Anthology Box Set done by "Decade". The list above covers every decade from the 70's to the present time and there are so many very good to great songs.
Yes, I agree that it is just too difficult to name your favorites. So so many to choose from.
Not necessarily my favorites but here's a few often overlooked.
Yvonne
Rainclouds
Simple As That
That Would Be Something
Broomstick
Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight
Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People
That Was Me
Down to the River
Little Woman Love
Monkberry Moon Delight
Summer of 59
I Want You To Fly
Souvenir
A Love For You
etc
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TommyC909 wrote:
Here we go. Very difficult exercise but I certainly love each of these songs:
- Maybe I’m Amazed
- Too Many People
- Back Seat of My Car
- Little Lamb Dragonfly
- Band on the Run
- Jet
- Picasso’s Last Words
- 1985
- Magneto and Titanium Man
- Letting Go
- Somebody Who Cares
- The Pound is Sinking
- Wanderlust
- Through Our Love
- No More Lonely Nights
- Only Love Remains
- Back on My Feet
- Loveliest Thing
- My Brave Face
- We Got Married
- Figure of Eight
- This One
- Golden Earth Girl
- Somedays
- Young Boy
- Beautiful Night
- How Kind of You
- At the Mercy
- Friends to Go
- Too Much Rain
- Follow Me
- This Never Happened Before
- Anyway
- My Ever Present Past
- See Your Sunshine
- Alligator
- Appreciate
- I Don’t Know
- Hand in Hand
- Do It Now
Great list Tommy C. I was smiling because several on your list were on my initial list but I had to make cuts since Macca has so many great Solo songs. I also love songs like "Do It Now, Hand in Hand, See Your Sunshine, Anyway, Young Boy, Golden Earth Girl, Pound is Sinking" etc etc.
Two of the songs you also included are perfect examples of what I call "virtually unknown" Paul songs to Beatle Paul fans that don't really know Paul's Solo career (After Wings). They are Back on My Feet and Loveliest Thing. Great songs that would certainly be on my list of "unknown" Paul Solo songs. As I mentioned I would like to see a top 40 list of good to very good Paul songs that were never on original albums or were relegated to B-Sides. I know you could easily have a list of 40 which is astonishing in my opinion considering they were never on original albums.
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Nancy R wrote:
I knew I could count on you to answer, BJ! There are a few on your list (and TommyC’s) that I couldn’t sing a line of even if I had a gun to my head. Sorry! I’m just not well-versed on Paul’s solo career like you guys are. (as you can probably tell from my top 40 list!)
Thanks Nancy. As I mentioned, your topic made me think of a similar list of 40 Paul songs that are virtually "unknown" to Beatle Paul fans that never got into his Solo career. I think I will tackle that next.
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Well here's my list of "Best Unknown Paul Solo/Post Beatles Songs. While Paul wrote some great songs for other artists during his Beatle years (for artists like Peter and Gordon, Peggy Lee, Badfinger, Mary Hopkin etc) with this list I'm sticking to his best "unknown" songs from 1970 forward. While Paul has many very underrated songs from all his Pop-Rock albums, I'm also sticking with songs that were not included on his "original" album releases. Additionally, I'm not including A-sided singles that in many cases are well known (e.g. Live and Let Die).
I find it incredible that you can easily come up with 40 or even 50 good to very McCartney penned songs that are so"unknown" to many people including Beatle fans. To make it easy for me, I'm going generally in the order these songs were written. Here is my list:
1. Oh Woman, Oh Why
2. Give Ireland Back to the Irish
3. The Mess
4. I Lie Around (co penned with Denny Laine)
5. Country Dreamer
6. A Love For You
7. Best Friend
8. Little Woman Love
9. Zoo Gang
10. Thank You Darling
11. Night Out
12. Soily
13. Seaside Woman (with Linda)
14. I'll Give You a Ring
15. Sally G.
16. Waterspout (unreleased from London Town Sessions)
17. Girls School
18. Daytime Nightime Suffering
19. Cage (unreleased - Back to the Egg Sessions)
20. Ode to a Koala Bear
21. Yvonne (unreleased from the Press to Play sessions)
22. Back on My Feet (co-written with Elvis Costello)
23. Loviliest Thing
24. Flying to My Home
25. Same Time Next Year (B-side to Put It There)
26. Did We Meet Somewhere Before
27. Broomstick
28. Mama's Little Girl
29. Long Leather Coat
30. I Can't Imagine
31. Love Come Tumbling Down
32. Sweet Sweet Memories
33. Style Style
34. Kicked Around No More
35. Big Boys Bickering
36. Down to the River
37. Broomstick
38. On the Wings of A NIghtingale (unreleased and written for the Everly Brothers)
39. Why So Blue
40. Comfort of Love
41. This Loving Game
42. She is So Beautiful
43. Summer of 59
44. Growing Up, Falling Down
45. Vanilla Sky
46. Same Love
47. I Want to Go Home
48. Hope for the Future
49. Celebration (great song from his Classical Collections)
50. Lindiana
I'm sure I've missed some basically unknown gems and my chronological order is off here, but what a list!!
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B J Conlee wrote:
Well here's my list of "Best Unknown Paul Solo/Post Beatles Songs. While Paul wrote some great songs for other artists during his Beatle years (for artists like Peter and Gordon, Peggy Lee, Badfinger, Mary Hopkin etc) with this list I'm sticking to his best "unknown" songs from 1970 forward. While Paul has many very underrated songs from all his Pop-Rock albums, I'm also sticking with songs that were not included on his "original" album releases. Additionally, I'm not including A-sided singles that in many cases are well known (e.g. Live and Let Die).
I find it incredible that you can easily come up with 40 or even 50 good to very McCartney penned songs that are so"unknown" to many people including Beatle fans. To make it easy for me, I'm going generally in the order these songs were written. Here is my list:
1. Oh Woman, Oh Why
2. Give Ireland Back to the Irish
3. The Mess
4. I Lie Around (co penned with Denny Laine)
5. Country Dreamer
6. A Love For You
7. Best Friend
8. Little Woman Love
9. Zoo Gang
10. Thank You Darling
11. Night Out
12. Soily
13. Seaside Woman (with Linda)
14. I'll Give You a Ring
15. Sally G.
16. Waterspout (unreleased from London Town Sessions)
17. Girls School
18. Daytime Nightime Suffering
19. Cage (unreleased - Back to the Egg Sessions)
20. Ode to a Koala Bear
21. Yvonne (unreleased from the Press to Play sessions)
22. Back on My Feet (co-written with Elvis Costello)
23. Loviliest Thing
24. Flying to My Home
25. Same Time Next Year (B-side to Put It There)
26. Did We Meet Somewhere Before
27. Broomstick
28. Mama's Little Girl
29. Long Leather Coat
30. I Can't Imagine
31. Love Come Tumbling Down
32. Sweet Sweet Memories
33. Style Style
34. Kicked Around No More
35. Big Boys Bickering
36. Down to the River
37. Broomstick
38. On the Wings of A NIghtingale (unreleased and written for the Everly Brothers)
39. Why So Blue
40. Comfort of Love
41. This Loving Game
42. She is So Beautiful
43. Summer of 59
44. Growing Up, Falling Down
45. Vanilla Sky
46. Same Love
47. I Want to Go Home
48. Hope for the Future
49. Celebration (great song from his Classical Collections)
50. Lindiana
I'm sure I've missed some basically unknown gems and my chronological order is off here, but what a list!!
In looking at this list, I not sure it would be accurate to call "Vanilla Sky" an unknown Paul song as it was the title song to a pretty popular Tom Cruise movie. That being said, I think another song from the Chaos and Creation sessions...I Want You to Fly (B-side to the Jenny Wren single) would be a better choice. As I said, what a list of songs that most of which are virtually unknown to people that certainly know Paul McCartney.
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I noticed that I inadvertently listed "Broomstick" twice on my "Unknown" Paul Solo list. At the same time, Oobu mentioned 2 "not my list" that are very good "unknown" Paul songs including "Simple As That" (a single charity song Paul wrote in the early 80's I believe) and Rainclouds (a B-side from the Tug of War sessions I believe). Just unbelievable you can easily come up with 50 very Rare Paul Post Beatles' songs.
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B J Conlee wrote:
4. I Lie Around (co penned with Denny Laine)
Although Denny sang lead on this 'Ram' era recorded track, I don't think he had any involvment with the writing of it. He certainly didn't receive any officially writing credit for anyway.
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Kestrel wrote:
B J Conlee wrote:
4. I Lie Around (co penned with Denny Laine)
Although Denny sang lead on this 'Ram' era recorded track, I don't think he had any involvment with the writing of it. He certainly didn't receive any officially writing credit for anyway.
In fact, Linda is listed as the co-writer. And the 1st 2 verses are sung by Denny, the 3rd verse by Paul.
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Nancy R wrote:
Kestrel wrote:
B J Conlee wrote:
4. I Lie Around (co penned with Denny Laine)
Although Denny sang lead on this 'Ram' era recorded track, I don't think he had any involvment with the writing of it. He certainly didn't receive any officially writing credit for anyway.
In fact, Linda is listed as the co-writer. And the 1st 2 verses are sung by Denny, the 3rd verse by Paul.
I'm not sure when Linda was added as a co-writer as all the 1973 record labels for this release simply stated McCartney as being the composer.
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Kestrel wrote:
Nancy R wrote:
Kestrel wrote:
B J Conlee wrote:
4. I Lie Around (co penned with Denny Laine)
Although Denny sang lead on this 'Ram' era recorded track, I don't think he had any involvment with the writing of it. He certainly didn't receive any officially writing credit for anyway.
In fact, Linda is listed as the co-writer. And the 1st 2 verses are sung by Denny, the 3rd verse by Paul.
I'm not sure when Linda was added as a co-writer as all the 1973 record labels for this release simply stated McCartney as being the composer.
Full disclosure - I was going by Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Lie_Around
Btw, couldn’t just copy & paste - had to use the clip icon above. I thought they had fixed that!
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Nancy R wrote:
Full disclosure - I was going by Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Lie_Around
Btw, couldn’t just copy & paste - had to use the clip icon above. I thought they had fixed that!
I guess it depends on where the Wiki contributers got their info from. Maybe its on the sheet music credits that Paul & Linda wrote the song?
I'll see what happens the next time I post a link.
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Maybe I’m Amazed
Every Night
Too Many People
Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey
Monkberry Moon Delight
My Love
Hi Hi Hi
Live and Let Die
Band On the Run
Jet
Let Me Roll It
Helen Wheels
Nineteen Hundred Eighty-Five
Venus and Mars
Junior’s Farm
Listen to What the Man Said
Silly Love Songs
Let ‘Em In
With a Little Luck
Mull of Kintyre
Coming Up
Tug of War
Here Today
Ebony and Ivory
Wanderlust
Say Say Say
Press
My Brave Face
This One
Off The Ground
Flaming Pie
Little Willow
Beautiful Night
Your Loving Flame
Freedom
Fine Line
Dance Tonight
My Valentine
Queenie Eye
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It's so hard to reduce this to just 40, but I'll give it a go.
1. Maybe I'm Amazed
2. Band on the Run
3. Junk/Singalong Junk
4. Calico Skies
5. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
6. Another Day
7. Every Night
8. Venus and Mars/Rock Show
9. Mrs Vanderbilt
10. My Love
11. The Pound is Sinking
12. Call Me Back Again
13. Dear Friend
14. Heart of the Country
15. My Brave Face
16. Jenny Wren
17. Too Many People
18. Let Me Roll It
19. Live and Let Die
20. Big Barn Bed
21. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five
22. Little Woman Love
23. C Moon
24. Jet
25. Love in Song
26. Hi Hi Hi
27. Tomorrow
28. One of These Days
29. The Lovers That Never Were (demo version)
30. No More Lonely Nights
31. Bluebird
32. Junior's Farm
33. Winter Rose/Love Awake
34. Ballroom Dancing
35. Here Today
36. Take It Away
37. Monkberry Moon Delight
38. Back Seat of My Car
39. Soily (live version)
40. Daytime Nighttime Suffering
I've had to leave out so many great songs. The older songs outnumber the more recent songs, but I can't help that - those are the songs I grew up with. And my two favourite Beatles era demos (which are almost solo) are the lovely voice/guitar demo of Goodbye for Mary Hopkin, and the one-man band demo of Come and Get It for Badfinger (both of those are gems).
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1. Band on the Run
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taylormick wrote:
1. Band on the Run
What are the other 39?
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Nancy R wrote:
taylormick wrote:
1. Band on the Run
What are the other 39?
...and its not even a solo song, having been a Wings recording written by Paul and Linda.
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Kestrel wrote:
Nancy R wrote:
taylormick wrote:
1. Band on the Run
What are the other 39?
...and its not even a solo song, having been a Wings recording written by Paul and Linda.
No, it’s okay. My OP said any Paul song from 1970 and on, including Wings.
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1. Who Cares
2. She's Given Up Talking
3. Come On To Me
4. Lonely Road
5. Freedom
6. Mr. Bellamy
7. Dance Tonight
8. Save Us
9. Appreciate
10. Everybody Out There
11. Follow Me
12. Too Much Rain
13. C Moon
14. Tug of War
15. The Other Me
16. Letting Go
17. Live and Let Die
18. The Songs We Were Singing
19. In The World Tonght
20. Calico Skies
30. Put It There
31 We Got Married
32. 1985
33. Darkroom
34. English Tea
35. Friends To Go
36. Fine Line
37. Now Your Head
38. Rinse the Raindrops
39. Let Em In
40. Pipes of Peace
