There’s a song that Paul McCartney claims has what he calls OSS (Optimistic Song Syndrome). Like many other optimistic songs in his catalog, Paul hopes the song gives people hope.
Paul McCartney thinks optimistic songs are valuable
In his book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul wrote that he likes the idea of a song saying that help is coming and there’s a “bright light on the horizon.” He has no evidence, but he likes to believe it. An optimistic song helps to lift his own spirits and hopes that it might help other people move forward too.
Paul likes writing uplifting songs. He’s often conscious that many people in the world are going through tough times. If he can be a reassuring voice, he thinks that’s incredibly important. For instance, Paul wrote “Great Day” to make himself feel hopeful after The Beatles split, but he hopes the song has helped many others 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,” Paul wrote.
The song Paul claims has OSS (Optimistic Song Syndrome)
The song Paul claims has OSS (Optimistic Song Syndrome) is “Jenny Wren.” When Paul was a kid, he used to go bird-watching. Eventually, he knew the names of all the birds, including his favorite, the little wrens, who were “very little, very private, a very sweet little thing.”
Another of Paul’s favorites was the blackbird, which he later called a Beatles song. In 2005, Paul wrote “Jenny Wren.” Paul based his Jenny Wren on the brave girl from Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend whose “positive attitude allowed her to overcome her painful deformities.”
In Paul’s song, Jenny Wren’s soul has been taken from her. She’s stopped singing as a form of protest. The tune then turns into a reflection of society and “how we screw things up and how we sympathize with the person who protests.”
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Jenny Wren “has seen our foolish ways, and the way we cast love aside, the way we lose sight of life – poverty breaking up homes, creating wounded warriors,” Paul wrote. “She has seen who we are, and like everyone else, she’s just looking for that better way.” No matter what, Paul likes to remain an optimist. Paul is aware of the power that a beautiful, optimistic song can have.
“I’m now the guy saying, ‘Look, things aren’t always bad,’” Paul wrote. “It gives me somewhere to go in a song, and it also gives me somewhere that I’d like to be. This is really like the Charlie Chaplin song ‘Smile.’ It’s OSS – Optimistic Song Syndrome.”
‘Jenny Wren’ is the sequel to ‘Blackbird’
Paul thinks “Blackbird” is an optimistic song. So, when he sat down to write another uplifting tune named after a bird he liked, it was only natural that he made it the sequel to The Beatles’ song.
Paul thinks that tunes are often “in conversation with other songs,” and so “Jenny Wren” is obviously in conversation with “Blackbird.” Paul added, “I think that when you’re sitting down with an acoustic guitar, there are a few ways you can go. With ‘Blackbird,’ it’s a guitar part that you sing against, rather than strumming chords, and I think ‘Jenny Wren’ has the same idea.”
Paul was intentionally writing another “Blackbird.” He said, “I wouldn’t admit that to anyone if I weren’t working on this book – ‘Catching up on life’ – and all because of Jenny Wren.”
Paul will never apologize for writing too many optimistic songs because having too many is impossible. Even sequels of optimistic songs will do.
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