A performance saw music legend Paul McCartney completely lose it when performing a “very emotional song” dedicated to John Lennon.
McCartney still performs the song in his live shows, though he did recall a time he “totally lost it” after a performance. His first show on the 2004 tour in Gijón, Spain featured the track Here Today, which had him thinking about his “great mate” Lennon. The emotional performance would get McCartney “once a tour” and the first date of his 2004 shows caught him out. It wasn’t until towards the end of the song that McCartney started to break however, with the Wings frontman managing to get through until the last verse.
Speaking to The Guardian, McCartney shared: “At least once a tour, that song just gets me. I’m singing it, and I think I’m OK, and I suddenly realise it’s very emotional, and John was a great mate and a very important man in my life, and I miss him, you know?
“It happened at the first show, in Gijon: I was doing fine, and I found myself doing a thing I’ve done in soundcheck, just repeating one of the lines, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ I did that and I thought, ‘That’s nice – that works.’ And then I came to finish the song, to do the last verse, and it was, ‘Oh shit – I’ve just totally lost it.'”
Footage of the show is available, with the crowd bursting into applause as McCartney repeats the “I love you” line. The teary moment is a huge contrast to McCartney and Lennon’s relationship following the breakup of The Beatles. Both Lennon and McCartney would take swipes at one another in their songs, with the latter man taking aim on the Ram song, Too Many People.
The former members of The Beatles spent time in the studio recording songs aimed at one another, with the back and forth coming to a head when Lennon released How Do You Sleep?, a song which featured on his 1971 album, Imagine. Lennon wrote it as an attack on his former bandmate after believing McCartney’s track Too Many People, which features on Ram, was aimed at him. George Harrison appears on How Do You Sleep?, playing slide guitar, and McCartney very nearly wrote a response to Lennon’s venomous song.
According to McCartney, who spoke on Ramming: The Making of Ram, a follow-up song was planned. McCartney also confirmed the title of his album, Ram, was related to “ramming on” after the break-up of The Beatles. He said: “I just hit upon the word ram. It’s strong, it’s a male, animal. And then there’s the idea of ramming. Pushing forward strongly. Very short, very succinct kind of title you wouldn’t forget. I was in the middle of this horrendous Beatles breakup and it was like being in quicksand.
“The lightbulb went off one day when we realised we could just run away and just go to Scotland where we knew we loved it and go and hang out. So you know, you find me mowing a field on my tractor or shearing a sheep with old-fashioned hand shears, just to keep myself amused I would sit around making stuff up on the guitar. We thought that’s maybe the way to go, see what forms out of the bare elements.”
Lighter songs relating to Lennon were written following his death, with McCartney penning Here Today for his album, Tug of War. You can see the performance from 2004 below.
