Back In Brazil

‘Back In Brazil’ is the eleventh track on Egypt Station, Paul McCartney’s 17th solo studio album.

So I was in Brazil on tour. We had one of those nice free days where there is nothing planned. And I had a piano in the room, of the hotel room. So I got this little riff, and got this idea of: back in Brazil, there was this girl who dreams of a future, a far, far better world. She meets a man, he fits in with her plan.

So it’s a story about a couple, and trials and tribulations. Things are going well and she plans a date, but he can’t come ’cause they’ve got him working late.

And so it was just an imaginary story of two young Brazilian people. And it’s kind of dancey, so I wanted to put Brazilian rhythms to it and get the flavour.

I’d written it on a day off in Brazil, when I just happened to be on my own. Nancy had gone to New York for something, so I happened to be just there on my own. I’d done everything I wanted to, I’d had a breakfast, I’d been to the gym, so now I was just lounging around and there was a little piano in the, little Wurlitzer in the suite I was staying in, so I started playing with that and so I knew the basic thing, so I wrote the song there in Sao Paulo. Then we came to record it and we couldn’t kind of get it right, we tried quite a few things on the rhythms to get the feel and in the end, we got the one that’s on the record and we were pleased with it. Greg put that sort of, [makes beeping sound], little sort of thing and we put some percussion on it and suddenly it just fell into place.