Paul McCartney at Bridgestone Arena, 10/16/2014
Sir Paul McCartney returns to Nashville Thursday, playing The Pinnacle. The long-sold-out, underplay-is-an-understatement show is his first in Music City since a 2014 performance at Bridgestone Arena. Macca’s affection for Nashville is well-known. He spent a summer on Curly Putman’s farm outside of Lebanon in 1974 — as detailed by, among others, a very handsome and smart then-Scene writer in his final cover story for the esteemed publication in 2022.
“I rather fancy the place,” McCartney told the Nashville Banner from the tarmac at the airport upon his arrival. “It’s a musical center. I’ve just heard so much about it that I wanted to see for myself.”Â
Ultimately, Wings recorded seven songs in Nashville. (Illicitly, that is: The band’s British subjects did not have the appropriate visas to work in the United States, a factor that also canceled a planned surprise appearance on Hee Haw, a show many Wings members were big fans of.) Now, whether any of that septet gets played when the tour — called Got Back — stops at Nashville Yards is anyone’s guess. However, the set list for this leg of the tour has been very consistent and very Beatles-heavy, with Paul performing, for example, “Help!” in full for the first time since 1965.
But hey, Nashvillians can dream, right? Here are seven tunes from Sir Paul’s prodigious 62-year output that we’d really like to see from the stage at The Pinnacle to show just how much Paul fancies the place.
"Junior's Farm"
A typically McCartneyian cavalcade of characters peppers this tribute to Wings’ summer in Wilson County. To wit, we meet the poker man, the Eskimo, a sea lion, Junior himself — farm owner Putman’s government name was Claude Putman Jr. — someone called Jimmy, the president at the House of Commons for some reason, comedy legend Oliver Hardy, an old man and a grocer. The non-album single went to No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100.
"Sally G"
Much more explicitly about Nashville — the city is mentioned right at the top of the song, located “somewhere south of New York City,” which is correct in a very capacious way — the B-side to “Junior’s Farm” has one of the more controversial backstories in the McCartney catalog. Depending on who you ask, it was written by a smitten McCartney about a singer named Diane he saw at Skull’s Rainbow Room. Or maybe he’d already started the song and finished it up after his trip to Printer’s Alley. Or maybe it sprung forth from his brain fully formed as he scribbled down lyrics from a corner table as the singer swooned onstage. Or maybe it’s actually named for Putman’s housekeeper. No one knows for sure. (Well, except maybe Paul himself, but he’s cagey about the whole thing.)
In any case, the song has credited performances from some stone-cold Nashville sidemen, though even the veracity of some of those appearances is disputed. And it nearly cracked the country charts, an achievement that McCartney — like many Brits of a certain age, he is a big fan of country music — was especially proud of.
"Walking in the Park With Eloise"
It will truly be a night of deep cuts if McCartney pulls this one out. Recorded during the Nashville sessions and credited to The Country Hams — Paul himself played a flea market washboard and was joined by Chet Atkins, Floyd Cramer and Vassar Clements on guitar, piano and fiddle, respectively — the song was written as a Dixieland number in the 1920s by McCartney’s dad. Paul had to do some additional arrangement and a little cleanup work, but nevertheless assigned sole writing credit to his father. Another nonalbum single, it did eventually make it on an Archive Collection version of Venus and Mars in 2014.
"Heart of the Country"
From Paul and Linda’s 1971 album Ram, “Heart of the Country” is, in its way, the first step on the journey that eventually led McCartney to Nashville in the first place. As The Beatles wound to their end, Paul often mused about his desire to get out of the city and spend time in pastoral reflection. “Heart of the Country” is the most profound expression of that feeling, as he romanticizes horses and grass and sheep, in a sort of English version of what John Denver would do with “Country Roads” and “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.”
"Country Dreamer"
Another nonalbum Wings tune, this one comes from 1973. Though it certainly sounds like it could have been recorded in early 1970s Nashville, it was cut the year before the fateful trip. In any case, it’s a sweet little low-key slide-guitar ballad that could have easily made it as a George Jones number.
"Rocky Raccoon"
The Beatles of 1968 get a little more upbeat than Marty Robbins did in 1959 and move the location from the Mexican border to closer to the Canadian one. But the basic structure of “Rocky Raccoon” follows the plot of “El Paso” — that’s “scorned lover gets in a gunfight that goes wrong” — just the same. Plus, the title alludes to Tennessee’s beloved state animal.
"I've Just Seen a Face"
Capitol Records kept this one off the North American release of Help! and saved it for Rubber Soul, part of the label’s weird strategy of making Help! a combination soundtrack and score album for release on this side of the Atlantic. Full of rapid-fire acoustic finger-picking with some lilty Scouse singing that plows close to folk-country cotton, it would fit right in if Paul plays a late-night aftershow at the Station Inn.
Former Scene staffer J.R. Lind is now the senior writer for Pollstar.
