Follow Me

‘Follow Me’ is the tenth song on Paul McCartney’s 13th solo album Chaos And Creation In The Backyard.

I was thinking of ‘Let It Be’, and that was almost a religious anthem. I was getting a great vibe about many people; I could mention God, my parents, my best friends. They’d all be, ‘You lift up my spirits, you shine on my soul.’ All the people who really can do that thing, starting with God onwards.

The song was recorded at RAK Studios in London in September 2003. The initial sessions involved McCartney’s band, but producer Nigel Godrich was unhappy with the results and convinced McCartney to record a predominantly solo album.

‘Follow Me’ and ‘This Never Happened Before’ were the only songs from the RAK sessions to make it onto Chaos And Creation In The Backyard.

‘Follow Me’ was one of those songs that kind of almost wrote itself. You know, sometimes you’re feeling great about your life, not always, but you’ve been lucky. You’re feeling great. I actually had done something where I had sung ‘Let It Be’ and I was thinking, ‘It’s kind of nice having a song like that because it’s kind of quasi-religious but it’s very uplifting, you know’. ‘There will be an answer, let it be,’ and stuff, you know. (Plays) It’s in C, a very sort of open key. (Sings) ‘When I find myself, in times of trouble,’ so I was sort of messing around in that region and thinking of the same sort of thing, you know. What is it? It’s just somebody very important in your life or is it spirits of goodness or whatever it is, something kind of great so it was just like, (sings) ‘You lift up my spirits, you shine on my song, whenever I’m empty, you make me feel whole, I can rely on you to guide me through any situation, hold up the sign that reads Follow Me.’ Come on, boys, everybody in. It was one of those that just kind of wrote itself once you got there. It was like you do this, you’re great, you just give me direction, it just inspired.

Paul McCartney performed ‘Follow Me’ during the majority of his US Tour dates in 2005.