Your Loving Flame

‘Your Loving Flame’ is the 13th song on Paul McCartney’s 2001 album Driving Rain.

The song was written in New York in November 1999, for McCartney’s then-partner Heather Mills. He later described it as “the first song I wrote for her”.

‘Your Loving Flame’ was written on the 36th floor of the Carlyle Hotel in New York, just because I thought I was walking into a Cole Porter movie – the room had a grand piano and a plate glass window overlooking Central Park. I wrote that really fast.

‘Your Loving Flame’ was recorded at Henson Studios in Los Angeles in June 2001, after the bulk of the Driving Rain songs had been completed. Also recorded around that time were ‘Vanilla Sky’ and ‘Washington’, the last of which was left unreleased.

Recorded 19th June 2001 onto 16-track analogue tape then loaded into Logic Audio for overdubs. David Leonard mixed this track. Paul played piano then overdubbed Höfner bass, vocal and tambourine. Abe played Paul’s Ludwig drum kit then overdubbed backing vocals. Rusty played Les Paul electric guitar then overdubbed acoustic guitar with a capo on the 1st fret and backing vocals. Gabe played Hammond organ then overdubbed backing vocals. David overdubbed sampled orchestra. String quartet overdub: David Campbell, Viola; Matt Funes, Viola; Joel Derouin, Violin; Larry Corbett, Cello

McCartney performed ‘Your Loving Flame’ during his Driving World Tour in 2002, and Back In The World Tour the following year.

A recording from New York’s Madison Square Garden on 26 April 2002 can be heard on the live albums Back In The US and Back In The World.