No Values

‘No Values’ is a song on Paul McCartney’s soundtrack album Give My Regards To Broad Street.

There are not many incidents in the film that I have actually dreamed myself, but this song I really did dream about. I was on holiday and just as I was waking up I was in a dream and I was watching The Rolling Stones.

They were all there, Bill, Charlie, Keith and all the lads; and Mick was up there singing, ‘No values, seems to me that you’ve still got no values…’ I couldn’t quite hear all the lyrics but I heard all the chorus and I woke up and thought I really like that song that they do. Then I thought, Hey, wait a minute – there is no song called ‘No Values’. They don’t do that song. My brain had just created it, or however it happens.

So I thought well, there it is, I’ve got this new song called ‘No Values’, and I checked that the Stones really hadn’t done it, and just set about writing it.

I haven’t told Mick Jagger – he’d probably claim the copyright!

‘No Values’ was rehearsed by Wings in October 1980, although the lyrics were unfinished. McCartney also recorded the song during the Tug Of War sessions in February 1981 at AIR Studios on Montserrat.

The Give My Regards To Broad Street version was taped in December 1982 at AIR in London, using the same set of musicians as on ‘Not Such A Bad Boy’. McCartney enjoyed the experience, later saying it made him want to perform live again.

Yeah, it really whetted my appetite. The next thing on my agenda is writing new songs and making a new album, but in truth, I think at some point I probably will get back out there again. That Spedding-Edmunds-Ringo lineup wasn’t a bad little band, for example – not bad at all.

The vinyl edition of Give My Regards To Broad Street contained an edit of ‘Not Such A Bad Boy’ lasting 10 seconds less than the CD and cassette version. Since the vinyl edition omitted ‘So Bad’, that version crossfades from ‘Not Such A Bad Boy’ to ‘No Values’.