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5.22pm
31 March 2008
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Tom Jones repeated the Long And Winding Road claim in a webchat for the Guardian earlier today:
Paul McCartney wrote The Long And Winding Road for me, but the timing was off and I couldn’t record it.
Does anyone know if McCartney has ever mentioned Tom Jones in connection with the song? I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say anything about it. It’s interesting that he was giving songs to performers like Cilla Black, Mary Hopkin and (apparently) Tom Jones in 1968, which perhaps shows where he thought popular music was heading. Or maybe he just gave away a bunch of songs that didn’t make the grade to easy-listening performers.
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7.44pm
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1 May 2011
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Joe said
Tom Jones repeated the Long And Winding Road claim in a webchat for the Guardian earlier today:Paul McCartney wrote The Long And Winding Road for me, but the timing was off and I couldn’t record it.
Does anyone know if McCartney has ever mentioned Tom Jones in connection with the song? I don’t think I’ve ever heard him say anything about it. It’s interesting that he was giving songs to performers like Cilla Black, Mary Hopkin and (apparently) Tom Jones in 1968, which perhaps shows where he thought popular music was heading. Or maybe he just gave away a bunch of songs that didn’t make the grade to easy-listening performers.
Not that i can recall but more because i’ve read it so often in so many places that i cannot sort out in my head if any were from Paul himself.
@Joe,
Here’s one BBC article from the 24th December 1999.
Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney has written a song for Tom Jones after the Welsh singer said he once had the chance to record one of the Fab Four’s songs first – but turned it down.The Beatles offered Tom Jones the chance in 1968 to record Long And Winding Road before they did, but although the song is part of Jones’ live set, he turned them down.
But after Jones spoke of his regret on a TV show, Sir Paul resolved to create a new song for the Welsh legend.He said: “He was telling me the story of how I offered him Long And Winding Road and he had to turn it down at the time because I stipulated it had to be his next single and he had something like Delilah coming out, so they couldn’t stop it.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to stop it either, but it meant that he couldn’t do it for one reason or another.”
Sir Paul said Jones was “a bit gutted” to have missed out on the song.
“He was telling it to me in private and said, ‘Come on boy, write us a song then, go on, can you do it for me,'” he added.
“I just think he’s cool and when someone asks like that, if I like them, I’ll give it a try and if something comes, great.
“If not, I’ll just ring them up and say, ‘couldn’t do it’, but something came.”
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7.54pm
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1 May 2011
Offline One weird google translation from Russian to English of ‘The Long And Winding Road ‘;
The road so long, to your door leads it,
And it is not ending, at all times.
This leads me, here, to your door.Dick, cool night, but it will wash away the rain,
Will only the tears that leaked away,
And you should be, the road to find a way to help me.Many times I was alone and many times have suffered,
You never know, I’ve been looking forAnd all roads lead to the road of that, so long,
It has long once you leave me,
And until now, the road leads to your door …
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7.33pm
20 January 2016
Offline An underrated one in my opinion. It’s one of Paul’s more soulful songs. If the band, in their low ebb, refined it instead of turned it in as a demo, it would have been one of their very best. Many criticize the addition of the backing instrumentals, but like Lennon said, the editors weren’t given much to work with.
9.10am
26 January 2017
Offline Does anybody on the forum like TLAWR? Most people seem to hate it. I’m somewhere in between: I can see why people hate it, but I like its Christmas song/ Frank Sinatra vibe. The production is obviously the catalyst for hatred. It also reminds me of You Still Believe In Me by the Beach Boys which is a track I love.
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he was humming to the neon of the universal sound.
10.09am
9 March 2017
Offline It’s a nice song, I like it, although I wouldn’t compare it to Christmas songs, those songs suck and are overplayed 2 months of the year.
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10.10am
26 January 2017
Offline I love playing and singing it on piano. I think it is a great song, but the naked version is better.
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11.05am
20 July 2014
Offline I love, love, LOVE this song! I’ve heard a few of the different versions of it and I just can’t pick which one is THE top one. Paul’s vocals are just perfect, wonderful, ahh! I just can’t stop at one word to describe him. 
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oldfannz11.43am
14 June 2016
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I love this song! I can see how some people might think the song is boring, but I find it nice to listen to. I agree that it is better without the orchestra, since that is how it was meant to be.
I also love the “cha cha” version from the Let it Be movie. (Will find and post a video later when I get home.)
*Edit: Sadly I cannot find a video on YouTube of that version. If you’ve seen the LiB movie you might know what I’m talking about. If I come across it, I will post it up here.
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11.57am
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1 May 2011
Offline It’s a nice song overproduced but has good moments.
I do adore the naked ‘Anthology’ take whilst the ‘Naked’ naked version is lame with a horrendously naff solo by Billy.
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2.36pm
1 December 2009
Offline I was thinking about this song recently – it’s maybe my least favorite – and musing that I’d like it maybe 40% more if it had Beatles harmonies in the arrangement. As it is, it’s never really felt like a Beatle song; and the fact that it was their final single (not in the UK) makes it extra depressing for me.
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6.15pm
7 May 2017
Offline Put me in the “love this song” club. When Paul combines his voice, melody, and framework with this particular sentiment – yearning – I find the results can be devastatingly beautiful, with strings or without. I think he hit the same sweet spot with I Will .
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William Shears Campbell, sir walter raleigh6.27pm
1 January 2017
Offline I reckon some might disagree with me on this – but I think Spector made the song absolutely brilliant and a wonderful piece of emotion fuel by adding the orchestra and so called ‘mystery guitarists’. Even if The Beatles (specifically Paul) was annoyed about what they had done to the song, I very much like it!
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7.34pm
9 March 2017
Offline Actually, Paul has grown to like it over the years and has even used it when playing live.
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8.00pm
14 June 2016
Offline @Dark Overlord, it has been brought up on this site before that Paul uses orchestras when he play TLAWR live despite disliking the addition of the orchestra in the recording. The spectulation is that he does that because that is how the official version of the song is and it is how most know the song.
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8.14pm
9 March 2017
Offline It’s weird he did that, you’d think that if he didn’t like the orchestras, he’d just play it the way he wants people to hear it, I know that there’s several songs he plays live that he alters or has altered in the past, such as how he uses an accordion when he played Michelle live at The White House or how on Give My Regards To Broad Street , there are trumpets in Here, There, And Everywhere.
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8.43pm
14 June 2016
Offline @Dark Overlord said
It’s weird he did that, you’d think that if he didn’t like the orchestras, he’d just play it the way he wants people to hear it, I know that there’s several songs he plays live that he alters or has altered in the past, such as how he uses an accordion when he played Michelle live at The White House or how on Give My Regards To Broad Street , there are trumpets in Here, There, And Everywhere.
But TLAWR is more popular than Michelle , and on GMRTBS a lot of instrumentation is changed, because they are rerecordings. TLAWR has a bloody saxophone in it for crying out loud.
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9.22pm
10 August 2011
Offline A perfectly wistful song. Never had a problem with any of the arrangements.
If you didn’t know all the drama and sub-plots surrounding this album and you just heard it for the first time you would think of it as a perfectly excellent album.
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1 May 2011
Offline Into the Sky with Diamonds said
A perfectly wistful song. Never had a problem with any of the arrangements.If you didn’t know all the drama and sub-plots surrounding this album and you just heard it for the first time you would think of it as a perfectly excellent album.
I first heard it on ‘Love Songs’ and thought it was overproduced; I would have been about 8 at the time. This and ‘She’s Leaving Home ‘ were the two weakest tracks on the album at the time.
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8.38am
9 March 2017
Offline What year did you first hear this song, Love Songs came out in 1977 but you were born in the early 1980’s, so it wasn’t when the album first came out yet if you didn’t hear the album until you were 8, that must mean your parents didn’t buy it until the late 1980’s.
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