Paul McCartney says one of his best songs was inspired by ‘surrealist’ period and his children

An all-time great song from Paul McCartney was inspired by his children and a “surrealist” period following The Beatles‘ break-up.

The Wings frontman would release both McCartney and Ram in the months to follow the split of the Fab Four. But a song which featured on Ram is McCartney’s take on “surrealist” art, something the veteran performer shared was a huge interest of his. Part of the process for writing Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey came from making up stories for his children and putting that surrealist spin on the writing. Speaking in a Q&A session on his website in 2021, McCartney confirmed there was a desire to create surrealist art at the core of his Ram work, which came out clearest of all on Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey. He would also note Monkberry Moon Delight as a surrealist piece of music which was influenced by his children.

Speaking of the song, he said: “I’d always liked writing love songs, ballads, and rock ‘n’ roll songs, but then one of my other little side interests was to invent surrealist stuff. Admiral Halsey was someone I’d read about – he’s a character from American history – and I just liked the name.

“I was very into surrealism at that particular time, so I wrote songs like Monkberry Moon Delight which is again totally surreal. The word ‘monkberry’ actually came from our kids! That was how they said milk when they were little – ‘can I have some monk?’ – you know, in the way that kids get funny names for things. So, Monkberry Moon Delight to me was like a milkshake!”

McCartney would also single out the “butter pie” lyric of Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey as an example of writing with surrealism in mind. He said: “No, there’s no meaning behind it. Because I like surrealist art, I also like surrealist words. 

“A great example of this is Lewis Carroll writing Alice in Wonderland – it’s a crazy thing, you’ve got a cat sitting in a tree that grins and talks, and you’ve got Alice falling down a hole and meeting the red queen, and so on. That whole tradition was something that I loved, and when I met John I learned that he loved it to. So, it was something that became a bond between us.

“I was playing around with that and making up a fictional story, and I just ran into the words ‘and butter pie’. Well, there’s no such thing as a butter pie, that I’ve ever heard of anyway. So, it was a surrealist image, like in surreal art where you have a thing called a ‘hair cup’, which is just a cup that’s made out of fur.

“You wouldn’t think to drink from it, it’d be disgusting, but as an image it’s interesting and shocking. ‘Butter pie’ is that kind of equivalent, but in a song.” McCartney would also suggest revisiting the surrealist portion of his career in the interview, saying it made a nice difference to the love songs.

He added: “If you’re not in the mood for writing a love song then it’s not wise to try and write one, but you might be in the mood to write something a little crazy.”