Paul McCartney loves writing optimistic songs, but he loves it even more when he can write a song that makes him hopeful, not just fans. Here are five songs that made Paul optimistic.
5. ‘Great Day’
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that his song “Great Day” made him feel optimistic following The Beatles’ split. After the group’s split, Paul would often sit around in a rut. It was a dark time for him. However, he found the track’s chords while sitting in his kitchen with his children.
“I liked the idea of a song saying that help is coming and there’s a bright light on the horizon,” Paul wrote. “I’ve got absolutely no evidence for this, but I like to believe it. It helps to lift my spirits, to move me forward, and hopefully it might help other people move forward too.
“Uplifting music is very valuable, so I like the idea of creating that, and I think that’s been a lot of what I do,” he wrote.
4. ‘Get Back’
In The Lyrics, Paul wrote that writing The Beatles’ “Get Back” made him feel optimistic that the group would repair their broken relationship and not split up. Paul thought that if The Beatles “got back to where they once belonged” and returned to their roots playing little clubs, it would save the band.
“So there’s a wistful aspect to ‘Get Back,’” Paul wrote. “The idea that you should get back to your roots, that The Beatles should get back to how we were in Liverpool. And the roots are embodied in the style of the song, which is straight-up rock and roll.
“Because that was definitely what I thought we should do when we broke up – that we should ‘get back to where we once belonged’ and become a little band again. We should just play and do the occasional little gig.”
“Get Back” might have a longing aspect, but it made Paul hope for a future with The Beatles. However, his hopefulness didn’t last long.
3. ‘Coming Up’
Paul thinks “Coming Up” is a “very positive” song. “Things are going to be good,” he wrote in The Lyrics. “And that reflects my very positive attitude.” He explained that the phrase “coming up” comes from movie trailers, but it also works because good things are coming soon.
According to Paul, his former bandmate John Lennon must have heard that positivity during his break from music. “He’d been lying around not doing much, and it sort of shocked him out of inertia,” Paul wrote.
2. ‘Hope of Deliverance’
Paul recognizes that old religious texts often speak of “getting out of the dark.” There are stories of hope and leaving dark times for better days. In The Lyrics, he wrote that he thinks it’s a “cosmic feeling” that we all want to be “delivered from something.” He noted that this is a “rewarding theme for a song,” and the one he writes about in “Hope of Deliverance.”
“You’re bound to be feeling all the problems of the world, so let me help out, and here’s how I’d like to do it,” Paul wrote. The singer-songwriter sings the song with his band before concerts to make them feel optimistic.
1. ‘Getting Better’
In the 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now, Paul told Barry Miles that “Getting Better” is an optimistic song. “I often try and get on to optimistic subjects in an effort to cheer myself up and also, realizing that other people are going to hear this, to cheer them up too. And this was one of those,” he said.
With lyrics, “Getting better all the time,” one can imagine better days.
Paul tries to be optimistic in his songs, not just for himself but for the world. There are so many upbeat songs, but here are some honorable mentions that didn’t make the list: “We Can Work It Out,” “Silly Love Songs,” and “Maybe I’m Amazed.”
