Paul McCartney had so many hit songs with The Beatles that it becomes hard to count. However, his best-selling single in the U.K. debuted years after the band had disbanded, and it outsold anything he did with The Beatles.
Paul McCartney wrote a song as a tribute to his farm in Scotland
The Beatles shocked the world when they split in 1970. Following the breakup, Paul McCartney and his wife, Linda, wanted to get back to basics. McCartney bought a farm in High Park in Scotland in 1966, and the two spent plenty of time there with their family after The Beatles ended. The area High Park was located in was known as Mull of Kintyre, and McCartney decided to write a song about it in 1977.
“Mull of Kintyre, the whole area of Kintyre and Argyllshire, is very special because of the memories it holds for me and the family,” says McCartney, speaking to Big Issue 40 years after the song’s release. “It’s really nice to think that the love we have for the area was captured in a song and brought to the attention of many people around the world.”
‘Mull of Kintyre’ became the best-selling single ever in the U.K.
“Mull of Kintyre” was released on Nov. 11, 1977, as a double A-side with “Girls’ School.” The song was a pre-Christmas release and became a No. 1 Christmas song in the U.K. It remained at its peak for nine weeks. It became the first single to sell over two million copies in the U.K. and was the best-selling single of all time, passing The Beatles’ “She Loves You.”
However, “Mull of Kintyre” would be surpassed by Band Aid’s “Do They Know it’s Christmas” in 1984. The McCartney track is still the U.K.’s best-selling non-charity song ever. While the song was a massive hit in the U.K., it did not reach the same level in the U.S. The song peaked at 45 in the U.S. but still hit No. 1 in other countries, such as Australia, Ireland, South Africa, Austria, and the Netherlands.
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McCartney used bagpipes to make the song feel more authentic
Big Issue spoke to former Wings member Denny Laine who co-wrote the song “Mull of Kintyre” with Paul McCartney. Laine recalled the former Beatle being hesitant about writing a Scottish song because he wasn’t sure how it would play for that audience. So, to add authenticity, they recruited the local pipe band from Campbelltown to play on the song.
The song had been written and recorded in the key of A, but bagpipes can only play in B flat or E flat. So, the two had to make quick changes to accommodate the instruments.
“That was like an act of nature and magic that happened, really,” Laine recalled. “That was not something we could have worked out – they kind of brought that to us. And that’s what gave the song a boost. The hairs on the back of the neck…as soon as the pipes came in, away they went. When the pipes went on to the recording, I just thought, ‘that’s it, this is going to be huge.’”
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