Through Our Love

‘Through Our Love’ is the final song on Paul McCartney’s fourth solo album Pipes Of Peace.

It was recorded at AIR Studios in London on 14 September 1982, with the strings and horns added at an unknown later date.

It seems to recall Phil Spector’s style in ‘The Long And Winding Road’. It doesn’t matter if you do it yourself. It’s true, the difference this time is that it’s my choice!

The line-up included producer George Martin on electric piano and bicycle wheel. According to McCartney’s magazine Club Sandwich, it “involved him striking a revolving cycle wheel with a ratchet to obtain a particular percussive effect! That was only one example of Paul’s search for new sounds to include on record.”

Also on the recording was session musician Geoff Whitehorn, who later joined Procol Harum. Whitehorn brought a cheap acoustic guitar to the session, so McCartney lent him his Gibson J-200 to use.

The strings at the song’s start spell out the letters ‘P E A C E’ in Morse code: “.–. . .- -.-. .”.

‘Through Our Love’ is a love song, although McCartney was keen to stress its universal sentiments.

Yeah, well, in my case it would be to Linda. If it was Guy Mitchell singing it – that’s going back, let’s get a bit more modern for the younger readers – if it was Manilow or somebody singing it, you wouldn’t think ‘Oh, it’s for his girlfriend.’ Because it’s me, you think it’s for Linda. Which, as I say, for me it is, but I don’t write songs like that, I don’t write them as diaries. I remember George Harrison saying ‘I can’t write stuff like you. You write stuff like ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ about Desmond and Molly, what’s it mean? But to me its just the same as someone wrote ‘They’re having a Heatwave,’ it might have been winter when he wrote it… Songs don’t have to mean anything actually, it’s allowed to make it up. All the best stuff doesn’t mean anything… I’d like a young married couple to take it for themselves, Fred and Ena, ‘Through Our Love’ is for them as well as being my thing to Linda.