The Lovely Linda

The first song recorded for Paul McCartney’s début solo album, ‘The Lovely Linda’ was a tribute to his wife lasting less than a minute.

When the Studer 4 track was installed at home, this was the first song I recorded, to test the machine. On the first track was vocal and guitar, second – another acoustic guitar – then overdubbed hand slaps on a book, and finally bass. Written in Scotland, the song is a trailer to the full song which will be recorded in the future.

‘The Lovely Linda’ was recorded just before Christmas 1969 at 7 Cavendish Avenue, McCartney’s home in St John’s Wood, London.

It was very hands-on, primitive way of working. In the opening track, ‘The Lovely Linda’, you can hear the door squeak as Linda came in while I was recording. It was a good take, so we left it in.

Although in the press release issued with promotional copies of the album McCartney claimed a fuller song would be recorded and issued at a later date, nothing was ever released. When interviewed in 2001, however, he explained his original plans for the song.

I was always going to finish it, and I had another bit that went into a Spanish song, almost mariachi, but it just appeared as a fragment and was quite nice for that reason.

A reworking of ‘The Lovely Linda’ was the final tune on McCartney’s 1999 orchestral album Working Classical.