When you think about
Paul McCartney after the breakup of
the Beatles, "Silly Love Songs" is the first song that should come to your mind.
Paul McCartney and
John Lennon's legendary songwriting alliance had been immensely successful, because each contributed things the other lacked: Lennon his thoughtfulness, clarity of purpose, brutal self-honesty, McCartney his sincerity and outright
popular appeal.
This complementarity, unfortunately, led to strains as the two moved in different directions musically. It was certainly the greatest factor in the Beatles' breakup.
As the two pursued their separate careers, it became clear, by any measure, that McCartney was faring better than Lennon -- While Lennon's songs made you think, they became more strident as time progressed. While many were hits, in no way did Lennon match his success from previous years.
Paul, with his popular appeal, was able to churn out hit after hit with his band
Wings.
Although all of the songs that McCartney and Lennon wrote for the Beatles were registered as having been authored by both of them, the McCartney style is undeniably dominant in most the Beatles' love songs. In other words, it appears he was the principal writer of such songs. During the height of the feud between the two writers, Lennon was quoted as dismissing McCartney's love songs as "silly". Lennon later compared McCartney to
Englebert Humperdinck. Lennon's song
How Do You Sleep? off his
1971 album
Imagine actually contains the lines:
So Sergeant Pepper took you by surprise
You better see right through that mother's eyes
Those freaks was right when they said you was dead
Ah, how do you sleep?
This was the situation Paul found himself in in
1976 -- extremely successful but without much respect from fellow artists. Lennon had stopped producing music by this time.
So what did Paul do? He wrote a song about it. It was released on the album
Wings at the Speed Of Sound (
Capitol Records). Both the album and the song eventually reached #1 on their respective charts. I'm sure that each man viewed this as a validation of his own viewpoint.
You'd think that people would've had enough of silly love songs.
I look around me and I see it isn't so.
Some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs.
And what's wrong with that?
I'd like to know
'cause here i go again......