Ranking the 30 most essential tracks from Paul McCartney’s solo career
In celebration of the former Beatle's 80th birthday, we look back at the songs that showcase his melodic genius
Music Features Paul McCartney
On Saturday, over 50 years after he supposedly died, the very much still alive Paul McCartney will celebrate his 80th birthday. Few people have cast a shadow over popular music as large as Sir Paul’s, and the Beatles have been even more present in the public consciousness since Peter Jackson’s The Beatles: Get Back aired last year. One of the main takeaways from that documentary series was how naturally songwriting seemed to come to McCartney, melodies and lyrics pouring out of him whenever he sat down at a piano. Some people may have stopped paying attention after the Beatles broke up, but McCartney’s prodigious creativity never flagged.
The prevailing narrative for many years was that John Lennon was the Serious Artist of the Beatles’ main songwriting team, and when Lennon wasn’t around to act as a foil, McCartney’s music became disposable fluff. That narrative is, to put it bluntly, bullshit. McCartney’s solo work has undergone a well-deserved critical reevaluation since the ’90s, with once reviled albums like Ram and McCartney II now hailed as hidden gems and ahead-of-their time masterpieces. Today, on the eve of Macca’s 80th birthday, it’s time to recognize his genius with a list of 30 essential tracks from his solo career that showcase his breadth, his melodic brilliance, his sly humor, and the unerring humanity beneath his songs.
For the purposes of this list, McCartney’s solo career includes things like Ram, which is credited to Paul and Linda McCartney, and the releases with his post-Beatles band Wings. Not included, however, is McCartney’s classical work or the Fireman, his experimental project with Youth. Obviously, these kinds of lists are subjective and intensely personal, and many of you will have issues with this one. You might hate some of the songs that were chosen, and you might love some that were left off. That’s okay. Feel free to voice your displeasure in the comments while you click through to check out Macca’s best bangers and ballads alike.
128 Comments
Some fantastic tracks selected.My Brave Face is one of my favourites of his. It’s a terrific track which just works. I also love the batshit craziness of Temporary Secretary. It’s absolutely bonkers in the best kind of way.I was lucky enough to see him in concert back in December 2017 and it was one of the best I’ve been to. He’s an incredible singer, songwriter and performer and the world will be a much lesser place once he is gone.
Temporary Secretary is such a goddamn blast, that and Check My Machine managed to reverse all my programming. I was under the delusion that Lennon was the “avant garde, experimental” one. I was so wrong.
Its funny he got that reputation because of the extensive experimentation on so many of his songs (which he would later say was Paul trying to sabotage them), but aside from Revolution 9, there’s not much avant garde in Lennon’s repertoire. Most of his post Beatles stuff is very by the numbers pop/rock.
Well done, you have chosen the two worst songs on what is a terrible, terrible list.
Check My Machine is great. I love playing it for my mom and then, when she demands that I turn it off, revealing that it’s a song by Paul McCartney. It’s like Frontier Psychiatrist a decade and a half before The Avalanches.
Save yourself 30 clicks and read the one the Guardian did yesterday.https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jun/16/paul-mccartneys-greatest-post-beatles-songs-ranked
Posting actual journalism on the AVB Club? Bold move.
The Guardian was far too high brow and left out such classics as Let Them In and With a Little Luck
I thought this headline looked familiar.
Very excellent selections, the only one I think you should have included is “Long Haired Lady” which was on Ram I believe.
[Opens ‘List slides’][Ctrl+F][Types ‘Ebony and Ivory’]
You’re my amigo, negro, let’s not fight!
You’re blind as a bat,While I have sight!
Poor Piscopo. He never could get much going without Murphy (Johnny Dangerously excepted).
He became a real scumbag.
Way this place has been going, was honestly expecting ‘”Hope for the Future” to be on here.
WTF? No ‘Wonderful Christmastime’?
Great, thanks, you are making me go watch the Deep Space Nine version. In June!!
I came here to say this.
mother of god
You have to admit, though, Paul’s so gifted that he made what sounds like messing around with a kid’s 80s Casio keyboard into a top 10 hit that gets (over)played every single Christmas.
The fact that it’s McCartney is the ONLY reason that song was ever played more than once. I’ll admit it’s amusing that it does sound like something a kid would perform at a family get-together while everyone smiled politely while sidling towards the bar, yet is now a Christmas staple. It’s like if Christmas Is All Around from Love Actually were real.
I apologize—-not a Casio, it was the famous 70s-era Yamaha CS-80.Although probably a mid 80s general consumer Casio would probably be more advanced than that CS-80—-computerized sound improvements moved like light speed back then.
It’s priceless that those sounds came out of something that looked like this. Bit of overkill, and I’ve never seen an inanimate object express embarrassment before.
“Paul, no! You’re making a fool out of me!” — Yamaha CPU
Some random Macca observations:+ Band on the Run is literally one of the most perfect albums ever recorded IMO. Seriously. Not a wasted second on there.+ Say what you will, but I honestly have a bit of a soft-spot for Macca in “shameless schmaltz” mode. It’s like a strawberry milkshake — mainly sugar and froth, and having it all the time is in no way a sensible or sane foundation for a healthy life, but when he does it well there’s nothing better. “My Love”? “So Bad”? “Pipes of Peace”? Fucking “Once Upon A Long Ago”? I eat that shit up, my friends, and I’m old and dumb enough now to not give a single flying fuck what anyone else thinks about it. + Perhaps related to the above, the first solo album of his I ever bought was, I shit you not, Give My Regards to Broad Street. And I listened to it constantly. + Conversely, I tend to find Macca in “I’m a real artist with something to prove!” mode a little dull. Case in point — on my last Beatles playthrough I found Ram, with a few exceptions, kinda boring. He’s at his true best when he’s off “schmaltzy hitmaker” autopilot but not desperately trying to rebut the last sneery Rolling Stone review. I wonder if that’s why he might be having a bit of a late-career renaissance; he’s old enough, embedded enough in pop culture and knows what works enough to have just let his insecurities go and just run with it.+ Nothing from Off The Ground? Am I the only one who likes that album?
There’s a lot of music hall repertoire in Paul. It comes from such a heart-felt place that I can’t help but appreciate what some might label “schmaltz”.
Paul McCartney inherited his father Jim McCartney’s ( who Paul was named after,Paul is his middle name,and he named his only son,James after his father) natural music talent but to an extreme rare degree,his father was a self taught jazz pianist, at 10 he broke one of his eardrums,and by 14 taught himself to play the piano and he was the leader of his own jazz band Jim Mac’s Band who were popular in Liverpool clubs.But his father wasn’t a poet, and Paul can and did write great lyrics but even when he did,it was his music composing and bass and just about anything else playing that was the most outstanding.
Jim even wrote a really good 1920’s jazz instrumental,Walking In The Park With Eloise that Paul and other musicians recorded in 1974 and it’s on the 1976 Wings At The Speed of Sound album.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDU8BrIhHvwPaul’s father’s father,also was naturally musically talented and he played brass in a band,and is to have had a very good singing voice which is where Paul also got his once great singing voice for rock,love songs and everything in between.Paul has been in The Guinness Book Of World Records since 1979 as the most successful song writer of all time,Paul was also given an honorary doctorate in music from Sussex University in 1988,and another one from Yale University in 2008.Paul even helped his younger brother Michael with his once only somewhat successful music career,but his brother gave it up and was a better photographer instead. Paul is such a rare natural music genius that he woke up with this beautiful masterpiece in his head at only the age of 22 with a piano by his bed. Paul wasn’t sure that he wrote it at first so he went around singing it to a lot of different people and asked them if they had of it before and they all said no and then Paul realized he wrote it.Here in this great TV Guide interview from May 2001 he talks about how he likely wrote Yesterday subconsciously about the sad death of his mother Mary who was a nurse and a midwife and she died of breast cancer at only the age of 47 when Paul was only 14 and his brother was only 12. Paul also said he has music in his genes from his Dad.http://www.maccafan.net/Library/Press/Macca/TvGuideDotCom_01_05_01.htmPaul also wrote a lot of great rock even some hard rock songs both in his Beatles period and in his great solo/Wings period especially in the early -mid 1970’s which was his best post Beatles music 1970-1975.
I know John dismissed most of Paul’s stuff as “granny shit” by the end there, but at least Paul never wrote “Imagine.”
I don’t really like “Off The Ground,” but ‘Hope Of Deliverance’ is one of his all-time greatest songs and it’s a shame it doesn’t get much love.It’s weird, I fully agree with you that I like McCartney when he isn’t trying to be an Artiste, which is exactly why I love “Ram” and have never been able to truly love “Band On The Run.” It’s a banger of an album but I love funky weird McCartney so much more.
I’m glad we as a culture have moved past thinking that John was the Serious Beatle. Paul was every bit the genius that John was; he was our Mozart.
The “Beware My Love” alternate take with John Bonham on drums is flipping excellent. I gotta say “Soily” is solid too.
Most of Tug of War is a really good, mature album. Take it Away, Ballroom Dancing, and Wanderlust could all slot in here pretty easily as well. [though no issue, picking Here Today, of course]
I believe Sir George once claimed that Sir Paul’s best vocal performance was on Wanderlust. And let’s face it, The Pound is Sinking is one of the best “rich man complains he’s losing a small portion of his vast fortune” songs committed to tape.
No way in hell am I clicking through 30 slides so I’ll just go ahead and assume this is #1
It’s better than the film, to be fair. See also Give My Regards to Broad Street.
One of the four worst songs ever recorded by a Beatle, along with “Crackerbox Palace,” “Stop And Smell The Roses” and “Power To The People.
I love Crackerbox Palace. It’s about LIFE, man!
WTFCrackerbox Palace is amazing. Weird, funny and very melodic.
Oh yeah, and Jenny Wren is 2005 , not 1975 as written.
Absolutely underrated film.
It’s 30 slides, but judging from the title, all of them are blank. #hottake
That’s an easy 30 clicks for me.
Good call on “Arrow Through Me” – I’ve always loved that song. All of Back to the Egg is pretty great, and completely underrated. I’ve loved that album since it came out, and went back to it recently and it’s held up remarkably well.Also, I love the Ron Mael tribute in the “Coming Up” video.
There are a few songs on here I would have gladly bumped to get “Getting Closer” on. Also, “Flaming Pie” itself is a better Flaming Pie song than either of the ones listed.
No “Helen Wheels?” For shame.
Number one for me.
Agreed! And where are “Nineteen Hundred Eighty-Five” and “Hope And Deliverance”??
Forgot all about “Nineteen Hundred Eighty-Five” but yeah, definitely.
And no “Mrs Vanderbilt” or “Ballroom Dancing”! And I almost forgot about “Take It Away”.
Mrs Vanderbilt is great, though I’m chuffed that Band on the Run made number one. It’s one of the few post-Beatles songs that could stand alongside his Beatles tracks, and it always makes me think of that scene in Boyhood where Ethan Hawke is forcing his kids to listen to it.
Wanderlust is the big Tug Of War absence here (not that Ballroom Dancing and Take it Away aren’t great. Tug of War is such a fucking great album).
“Helen Wheels” and “Junior’s Farm” instead of “No More Lonely Nights” and “Say, Say, Say.”
“Helen Wheels” should have been #2 on the list.
I was prepared to jokingly comment “Where’s Temporary Secretary?”, but to my horror, it’s actually on this list.Anyway, Ram fucking slaps.
I really liked My Brave Face. I read something recently that speculated Elvis Costello sort of took the John Lennon role in writing songs with McCartney. I guess it makes sense because Elvis is more cynical and bitter as compared to Sir Paul.For my money, Silly Love Songs is one of the all-time great pop songs. Period.I would have liked to hear Thelma Houston sing Live & Let Die. The Wings version was good, but that version would have worked too.
Always interesting that “So Like Candy”, one of the best things Costello ever did in my view, was a co-write with McCartney but Costello thought it was too good to let McCartney put it out himself on ‘Flowers in the Dirt’.
They did some good stuff together but I can understand Elvis’s horror at the production job.
Where is “Love Take Me Down (To The Streets)?” The oversight renders the whole list invalid.
Nobody sings that song.
Thanks for playing, but the correct answer was:
This is one of those things where UK charts were very very different from US ones. And yeah I remember liking We All Stand together /Aka the frog chorus song as a kid.Also I thought Mull of Kintyre was a song actually called Mulligans Tire , about an old guy and his tyre swing. It a good song , and barring ACDC and John Farnham you dont get too many bagpipe solo’s in songs.Also Also , thank christ Give Ireland back to the Irish isn’t on here , I mean the thought behind it was good , but the song…Also Also Also . I think McCartney is the only Beatle who was a character in a Commodore 64 game (you can play it here). No Ringo , Thomas the Tank engine doesn’t count.https://c64online.com/c64-games/give-my-regards-to-broad-street/
Mull of Kintyre is such a great song that I can’t understand why it didn’t get much radio play in the US (I had never even heard it until I lived in Europe, despite listening to classic rock and oldies stations regularly in my youth in the US). Did someone just decide “Meh, Americans don’t like bagpipes” and choose not to promote it?
It’s the reason my ancestor left England as an indentured servant to work on the expansion of the Plymouth colony. Pilgrims didn’t play bagpipes.
Or any music at all. Or cardplaying. Or bowling, Basically they were the Christian Taliban. But at least they didn’t have to deal with bagpipes (or the accordion).
I actually like both bagpipes and the accordion, although they might not work so well together.I think the closest Paul ever came to using an accordion was the harmonium in We Can Work It Out, unless I’m forgetting something.One word of support for the Pilgrims (and Puritans), though. For all their other faults, they did at least believe in absolute equality before the law for members of their group, which was light years more radical than the prevailing social order in England at the time. So in that case, not really Christian Taliban. Just not a whole lot of fun.
It reached #33 on the US Hot 100. Back when there was no consolidation, its entirely possible that your local pop or rock stations were not playing charting songs at all, for whatever reason. Especially for a song that barely made the Top 40.The last song I ever heard on the radio from Boston was “Amanda”. I was…..11 or 12. It reached #9 on the Hot 100. I was one of those radio geeks who religiously listened to Kasey Kasem every weekend. Not one time did the ‘pop’ station where I grew up play that song. And I wasn’t listening to rock radio then. Never quite figured out why that one wasn’t played in my area.(This weird dissonance between when the countdown shows were playing and what I was hearing locally bothered me so much, I called and asked DJs about it. I had a subscription to Billboard with my paper route money. This obsession turned into a 16 year stint in radio, both commercial and non-commercial, from 1991-2006.)
The song’s original run was before my time. But when I was a teenager, it was absent from the type of radio stations that would regularly play stuff like Band on the Run, Jet, Live and Let Die and even Junior’s Farm.
It’s literally one of the biggest selling singles ever in the UK. It outsold every Beatles single.
More than that. It’s the biggest selling UK single of all time that isn’t either a charity record or a re-release (so Candle In The Wind, for example, sold more, and so did Bohemian Rhapsody but BH’s second release the proceeds went to charity).
I remember it being very big in Canada, I had no idea it wasn’t in the US.
Always had a soft spot for ‘Sally G’…b side of ‘Helen Wheels’ IIRC
30. “Mull Of Kintyre” (1977)29. “With A Little Luck” (1978)28. “This One” (1989)27. “Say Say Say” (1983)26. “Ever Present Past” (2007)25. “More Lonely Nights” (1984)24. “Arrow Through Me” (1979)23. “Jenny Wren” (1975)22. “Let ’Em In” (1976)21. “The World Tonight” (1997)20. “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” (1971)19. “Here Today” (1982)18. “My Brave Face” (1989)17. “Fine Line” (2005)16. “Another Day” (1971)15. “Young Boy” (1997)14. “Every Night” (1971)13. “Too Many People” (1971)12. “Silly Love Songs” (1976)11. “The Back Seat Of My Car” (1971)10. “Temporary Secretary” (1973)9. “Jet” (1973)8. “Rock Show” (1975)7. “Dear Boy” (1971)6. “Junk” (1970)5. “Coming Up” (1980)4. “Live And Let Die” (1973)3. “Let Me Roll It” (1973)2. “Maybe I’m Amazed” (1970)1. “Band On The Run” (1973)
“Listen To What The Man Said” is amazing and should be on this list.
No real quibbles with this list. And thank god no “Waterfalls”.
I heard it ran away and they were told not to chase it.
Band on the Run also deserves praise for randomly having Christopher Lee and James Coburn on the cover for no apparent reason.
I like a lot of Beatles songs that I know were mostly McCartney’s, but I’m at best indifferent to almost everything on this list. Whether it was Lennon acting as a check on McCartney’s music hall instincts or something in the production process, I think all of his ”essential” music was made pre-1970.
Yeah, I remember thinking along those lines back when I was a teenager and still cared about looking cool.
I’m long past being teenager and I have to agree that nothing McCartney did after the Beatles was as good as his Beatles works. And apart from maybe a couple of songs I would say the same about Lennon. They were better together.
There’s a couple of notables on this list, but .. yeah, it’s actually kind of remarkable that one of the two main songwriters of what is largely considered the greatest rock and roll band of all time has not, in the time since, managed enough genuinely solid songs to fill a 1-LP “Best Of”.
How the fuck was this one missed?!
Justice for “Monkberry Moon Delight”!
Went through the slideshow and played them all in unison as they came up. Just Paul being Paul.
I have always been a fan of McCartney. I saw him twice in 1990 and I just saw him at Fenway two weeks ago. McCartney has always gotten the short shrift “versus” Lennon.I’ll be 55 in a few months. I’ve always been a fan of the Beatles and their respective solo careers. But the Lennon versus McCartney thing was very raw for me. Growing up in the 80s, when I was a teenager; I identified more with Lennon because he was a fucked-up, dysfunctional abusive dude. But I wanted to be like Paul, because he was a trifle. He loved silly love songs…he was fucking happy. (Lennon finally got happy and then he gets frigging blown away.)And as a shout out, I love Off the Ground and Press to Play.
“Silly Love Songs” is awful. “Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five” should be there.
Assuming this is #1
Calico Skies. Get On the Right Thing. Mr. Bellamy. Magneto and the Titanium Man. Some People Never Know. After the Ball/Million Miles. Run Devil Run. Talk More Talk. Take It Away. One of These Days. Daytime Nighttime Suffering. Bluebird. Don’t Let It Bring You Down. I could go on. His has been the best of the four solo careers, hands down. I’ve evangelized this before and I’ll evangelize it again. For fans, Take It Away: The Complete Paul McCartney Archive Podcast is essential listening. One of the hosts tragically died a couple years ago, so it’s slightly eerie listening now, but it’s enjoyable, insightful deeeeeep dive into his solo/Wings career, and soothing as hell when you got dishes to wash.
Calico Skies is beautiful.
Honest question. Is “Take It Away” just not very good? It charted #10 in the US but never makes these lists.Being born in 1970 I grew up with later post-Beatles solo singles on the radio instead of actual Beatles. Take It Away was my first introduction to infectiouls joyful Paul McCartney. But maybe I only still love it because it playing on the radio (no songs on demand back then) was a happy memory for pre-teen me.
I think it’s good, but people who like post-Beatles McCartney are not to be trusted.
We trust ourselves thank you very much…..
It’s not like voting for the Nazis or listening to Coldplay.
I think it’s wonderful and it’s one of my faves. I read somewhere that he originally wrote it for Ringo but decided to keep it.
I won’t claim it’s a personal favourite, but it’s perfectly solid ‘80s (‘80s? I’m assuming ‘80s purely by John Hurt’s look in the video) McCartney.
And it was Paul who wrote a lot of rock including hard rock in the 1970’s not John and George (no knock on them though) and most of it was great.I know I’m really in the minority about how I feel about the Ram album but, Paul’s 1975 Venus and Mars Wings album is a great rock album and out of the majority of great reviews on amazon.com it gets a well deserved 5 stars out of over 100 reviews for this album. This is the *GREATEST* Wings and one of the best post Beatles albums Paul ever did. It’s great and it’s Beatles quality because every song is very good and if anyone wants to know what a true music genius Paul really is, just listen to the *music* in the great Letting Go. My mother only liked classical music, Beethoven, Bach and Mozart, no rock and she played their music on the piano. When I was playing this album and she came into the room when Letting Go was on, she asked me is that Paul McCartney and I said yes and she said Oh that music is brilliant, he’s a music genius like Beethoven! My mother was also a talented artist who sculpted, and drew with charcoal pencils and pastels, and she even sold some of her sculptures at a few local galleries. She said she now loved most of The Beatles music and said they were brilliant. And my sister who is 4 years older than me and had a big diverse music collection since she was a mid teen, bought Venus and Mars when it came out, and I remember listening to it with her, and her friend and my best friend and we all loved it. My sister still says years later that Venus and Mars is one of the best rock albums she ever heard and that it’s unique and she knows no album like it.She always said his 1971 Ram album was a very good album too, although I like this album much better and I really don’t understand all of the love everywhere for his Ram album I think it only has 3 great songs on it, the great rocker Too Many People, Uncle Albert and Back Seat of My Car. Paul’s best post Beatles sounding music was from 1970-1975,with Venus and Mars being his last true great album.His first solo album McCartney where he played every instrument by himself (and he played them all great) is very good, Red Rose Speedway and Band On The Run are very good albums too, and he produced all of these great albums by himself and co-arranged the music on Venus and Mars by himself.
The best McCartney song right here lol
Trivia question from the National Lampoon Beatles issue, 1977:Q: When did Paul McCartney write Silly Love Songs?A: 1963 – present
Even if you love Paul, there’s no way THIRTY of his solo songs belong on any “essential” list.
I love this track from him. It’s so British.
Thanks for giving My Brave Face the love it deserves. Its my all time favorite Paul McCartney track. McCartney and Costello make a superb duo.
I like Band on the Run and Jet, and you can keep the rest.
My personal fave
I don’t know if they’re considered essential but I really love Vintage Clothes and Pipes of Peace.
fuck sakes, anytime I see a name in a headline with a “top whatever” list I think they died and I missed it.
“Dear Boy” is a fantastic one and definitely deserves to be right by the top. I also really love “Mistress and Maid,” but I’m an Elvis fan, so of course I’m going to be partial to the stuff he co-writes. Also going to second someone above with “Calico Skies.” It’s a little cheesy, lyric-wise, but, you know, it’s Paul. It’s a beautiful melody, though.
Sad not to see anything from Driving Rain (2001) on here. Maybe I’m just really off, but it’s legitimately one of my favorite albums. But then again Paul has so many great songs.
My brother got me “Flaming Pie” for my birthday and I love it so. Beautiful Night is a gorgeous song.So I love Eleanor Rigby, “Another Day” always spoke to me personally because it catches the mundane of daily life.
The Wings Over America live album from the mid 1970’s is one of the best live recordings I’ve ever heard! The album packaging was glorious! All his early songs sounded better in concert-he really fleshed them out! A great 3 disc set!
Counterpoint: Highschool marching band killed BotR for me and there’s no saving it. Few songs make me change the radio station faster, one being Nights in White Satin. Shudder.
Simply having a wonderful…
No “Take it Away”?
“Silly Loves Songs.” “Later ended up.”O editor, where art thou?
What, no “Biker Like an Icon”?
Someone else may have said this, but when did “Macca” become a thing? And can it stop?
Hmmm…I was expecting ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ to be #1, if for no other reason that the incredible vocal performance. It always bugs the hell out of me when radio stations play the lesser live version, which is still great, but nowhere near as good as the album version. Gives me chills every time.And I had a conversation recently with my songwriter brother…I made the assertion that the most FUN bassline of all time has to be ‘Silly Love Songs’. Paul has a whole lot of really great basslines (the one on ‘The Word’ is so, so good), but this one is just plain fun.Speaking of fun…fun list. Of course, I have my own (all fans do), but this one is pretty interesting. Thanks!
I have always wanted to die a little when hearing“In this ever changing world in which we live in”That redundant “in” at the end. Just drop it.Just drop it.It’s Macca’s “things they would not teach me of in college”
If anybody on here hasn’t seen his Glastonbury show yet, stop what you are doing and find it now. Enjoy him while you still can. Beatles, solo stuff, Wings…all of it fantastic.
This is horrible.
Damn, now I’m that “where’s ?” guy.
But yeah. “Helen Wheels”.
My late Siamese cat’s full name was Bandit On The Run. The older friends all get the reference, but few young ones do and I am amazed when someone that young age does get the reference.