Be What You See (Link)

Written by: Paul McCartney
Recorded: 29 December 1981
Producer: George Martin

Released: 26 April 1982

Available on:
Tug Of War

Personnel

Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar, vocoder

‘Be What You See (Link)’ is the tenth and shortest track on Tug Of War, Paul McCartney’s third solo album.

Lasting just 34 seconds, it acts as a bridge between the rockabilly Carl Perkins duet ‘Get It’ and ‘Dress Me Up As A Robber’.

‘Be What You See (Link)’ was recorded at AIR Studios in London on 29 December 1981. It featured McCartney on acoustic guitar and vocals fed through a vocoder.

McCartney had recorded linking tracks from his earliest days with Wings. Others included ‘Bip Bop Link’, ‘Mumbo Link’, and ‘Cuff Link’.

The idea originally was that I wanted a few moments on the album where, like on a Pink Floyd album, you’ll get a sound developing into another sound, and I like that kind of thing, like where a radio play atmosphere develops. Carl [Perkins] and I had a joke at the end of ‘Get It’ and he started laughing. It was a nice way to end the track. It was genuine laughing but I wanted the laughing to go on into something more mystical. So I got on a vocoder, which Herbie Hancock, the musician, uses, where you play the actual notes with your mouth. And I got into this and it developed like the way you hear on the album, mixed into the next track. It’s difficult because if you start a short track and it starts to sound good, how do you finish it? It’s only a link you’re making, but you’ve got to get out. You can’t stay there forever, because it was only meant to be a link. We kept it like that with the laughing.

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