A line in Paul McCartney‘s first song has made him cringe several times over the years. Despite his feelings on the lyric, “I Lost My Little Girl” is an essential song in Paul’s catalog. He wrote it shortly after his mother died.
Paul McCartney’s first song has a deeper meaning he didn’t realize until recently
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that you wouldn’t have to be Sigmund Freud to figure out that one of his first songs, “I Lost My Little Girl,” is a “very direct” response to his mother’s death. Mary McCartney died in 1956 of breast cancer. Later that year, Paul wrote the tune. He was only 14.
However, Paul didn’t realize the song’s deeper meaning until he started revisiting his catalog for The Lyrics. During a Q&A on his official website ahead of the book’s release (per the Independent), Paul said revisiting “I Lost My Little Girl” turned into a therapy session.
“I thought I was happily writing a little pop song when I was 14, but if you look at the timing of it I had just lost my mother,” he said.
“I think the whole process of analysing the songs took me to stuff that I hadn’t thought of recently, not because I didn’t want to, but because there was never a clue, never a prompt, never a trigger to think about those things,” he said.
A lyric in Paul McCartney’s first song makes him cringe
The chords for “I Lost My Little Girl” are pretty advanced for a 14-year-old. The song goes from G to G7 to C, descending and making a “ding-ding-ding effect.” Paul wanted the melody to “go upwards as the chord progression was going down.” He was already thinking of interesting sounds, most likely because his parents always played music around the house.
However, “I Lost My Little Girl” is a basic blues song. The opening line, “Well I woke up late this morning,’ or some variation of it, is a “staple of American blues” or “Blues 101.”
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That isn’t the line that has made Paul cringe for years, though. It’s the line “Her hair didn’t always curl.” It’s made Paul uncomfortable “a few times over the years, but come on, I was fourteen. And that, as they say, was the start of it.”
The lyric appears in the second verse: “Well, her clothes were not expensive/ Her hair didn’t always curl/ I don’t know why I love her/ But I love my little girl.”
Later, Paul had to pluck up the courage to show the tune to John Lennon
During an interview on The Howard Stern Show, Paul said no one had been interested in his songwriting until he met John Lennon. The pair met a year after Paul wrote “I Lost My Little Girl” at a church festival and instantly connected. Weeks later, John invited Paul to join The Quarry Men.
When Paul joined, he and John became inseparable, living inside each other’s pockets. Paul showed his new friend how to tune his guitar and play their heroes’ songs. Then, Paul plucked up the courage to show John the songs he’d written, including his first.
“I would have played him ‘I Lost My Little Girl‘ a while later, when I’d got my courage up to share it, and he started showing me his songs,” Paul wrote. “And that’s where it all began.”
“I Lost My Little Girl” is a simple song, but it means a lot to Paul. Even at 14, songwriting was a means of catharsis for him.
