McCartney's Secret with Pop Songs (1991)

 McCartney's Secret with Pop Songs

By Huw Rossiter

Norwich Evening News

October 3, 1991

    It's easy writing hit songs. Just ask Paul McCartney. 

    "The first thing you need is a good title," says the man whose effortless ear for a tune has made him one of the wealthiest names in pop. "Then you need a first verse, a second verse, a chorus, and a middle eight. You repeat your verse, chorus again, probably repeat your chorus twice, and you fade out. That's pretty much it."

     Now we know McCartney's potted masterclass can make millionaires of us all, enabling us to write such classics as "Yesterday" and "Hey Jude." He admits to having broken those rules with partner John Lennon. "Those are tricks to make a pop song, but I love it when I don't stick to them. John and I were pretty good at breaking out of that mould."

     Maybe it was McCartney's mastery of his medium that prompted him to take a new musical direction. His Liverpool Oratorio premiered in the city's Anglican Cathedral in June, and will be released by EMI next month. It is his first classical work written with American composer Carl Davis, performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, two choirs, and top international soloists, including Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. 

    The oratorio explores McCartney's Liverpudlian childhood and celebrates the themes of peace, love, and marriage. The making of the oratorio is charted in Ghosts of the Past, a 65-minute documentary to be shown on BBC One on Tuesday at 10:50 p.m. The program traces the improbable musical collaboration between McCartney and Davis. 

    McCartney, 49, is the first to admit that composing a full-blown oratorio in eight movements was quite different from penning a four-minute pop song. The oratorio was conceived over a two-year period during which time McCartney also recorded an album and undertook a world tour with his new band, captured in a new film, Get Back. "Why did I do it? Because I was asked, and it was nice to try something big, really big. It was a challenge, but I enjoyed it."