Paul McCartney’s New Album, ‘Egypt Station’, Tops The Billboard Charts — His First Time in 36 Years

“Opening Station” (Track 1)

“We decided we were going to call the album Egypt Station. I liked the idea of making a montage of sounds that were sort of like a station. So we found one station and then we added another one to it — the sound effects of real stations, like a train station. Then we started to make up some little noises that we added to make it like a dreamscape, the idea being that this kind of dream location was where all this music was going to emanate from.”

“I Don’t Know” (Track 2)

“[It’s like] going through a difficult period, like people have — nothing sort of madly serious or anything, but just one of those days when it’s, like, ‘Oh my God, what am I doing wrong here?’ Sometimes that’s a good way to write a song, because you’re coming from your soul. We often used to say that writing a song was like talking to a psychiatrist or therapist or something, but you’re saying it in a song rather than in a room to a therapist. So it was me just thinking this problem out and putting it into a song.”

“Come On to Me” (Track 3)

“‘Come On to Me’ is sort of a pickup song and I’m imagining myself — probably in the sixties — going to a party and seeing someone and thinking, ‘Oh, okay, how do I make an approach here?’ It’s an imaginary song, a fantasy song about a guy seeing someone and thinking, ‘Oh, we should try and find a place to be alone here, maybe exchange information and stuff’ and ‘Hey, you look like you flashed a smile and said to me, you wanted so much more than casual conversation. So will you come on to me or am I gonna come on to you?'”

“Happy With You” (Track 4)

“I was on holiday and was just noodling around on my guitar and thinking about the days when I had a lot of free time, and used to just sort of lie around basically doing nothing all day, getting a bit stoned. And so I got this little riff on the guitar and the words came to me. You know, ‘I used to lie around all day. I used to get stoned or used to like to get wasted, but these days I don’t.’ So it’s a song about growing up. There was a period in your life or in some people’s lives when they’re not being as productive or not being as organized or disciplined as they may later turn out to be. This was basically a response to that.”

“Who Cares” (Track 5)

“I was thinking about a song where you actually are talking to the people who may listen to it, and in my case I was imagining young people who are going through some sort of problem where they’re picked on. These days it would be internet bullying, trolls, and all that. In my school days, it would’ve just been bullies and people just generally picking on each other. I know that that happens all over the world to millions of people, so my thing was to kind of try and give some sort of advice. The song says, ‘Have you ever been fed up with people bullying you? Has this ever happened? Have people called you names and done all these mean things? Well, who cares?’ And then, in a twist, at the end of that chorus, it’s like, ‘Who cares? I do.'”

“Fuh You” (Track 6)

“Certain songs you kind of write in advance of your recording sessions and then certain other songs you make up in the studio, just thinking of ideas as you go along. So with this one, I was in the studio with [producer] Ryan Tedder, whereas the rest of the album has been made with Greg Kurstin, but for this one we were just thinking of ideas and little pieces of melody and chords, and the song just came together bit by bit. Then I would try and make some sort of sense of the story. So it was, like, ‘Come on baby, come on baby. Now talk about yourself. Try and tell the truth. Let me get to know you. And basically I want to know how you feel. You make me want to go out and steal. I just want it for you, too.’ That was the basic idea and it developed from there. That’s sort of a love song, but raunchy love song.”

“Confidante” (Track 7)

“I happened to be at home and I was looking in the corner of the room, where propped up was my old Martin Guitar that I normally just have there so if I feel like playing guitar, I’ll take it down and play it or try and write a song. And I thought to myself, I haven’t had time lately to play guitar. It reminded me that when we first got guitars years and years ago, they would be like a friend. It would be like a confidante. You’d go off into a corner and you’d write a little song and sort of tell your troubles to your guitar. So it’s a love song to the guitar, how the guitar was my confidante. ‘In fact, unlike my other so-called friends, you stood beside me while I fought.’ So it became a symbol of the guitar as a mate, as a friend, as a confidante.”

“People Want Peace” (Track 8)

“We played a Gig in Israel quite a few years ago and I wanted to go to Palestine before I went to Israel, because I was very aware of the political situation there. I didn’t want to just look like I was ignoring Palestine playing in Israel, although that was where the gig was. So I made arrangements to go into Palestine across the border and go to a little music school and shake hands with the kids and hang out and listen to them playing some music, again just to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. And then when I came back into Israel, I met with some cool people from a group called One Voice. A political group kind of thing or a movement, and we ended up wearing the badges on our show in Tel Aviv. So the whole idea was a peace mission, really, because these kids were great. Actually, they’re kind of young adults.
“And I’d say, ‘What do you want to do?’ They say, ‘All we want to do is just live in peace, raise our families, and be able to just get on with our lives in peace.’ That tied in with something that, when I was a kid, I’d asked my dad, ‘We’re seeing all the wars and stuff in the newspapers and on TV. Do people want peace or do they just like to to fight?’ And he looked at me and very quietly said, ‘No, some people want peace. It’s the politicians and the leaders who get into wars. It’s not the people.’ So it always struck me as a great phrase.”

“Hand in Hand” (Track 9)

“Sometimes songs just come to you sort of late at night. I’ve got a piano at home and the actual fact is that this particular piano happens to be my dad’s old piano, so it’s special to me. I was sitting there one night and I just started to find these chords that are the beginning of ‘Hand in Hand.’ It’s basically a love song and as I wrote it, I was imagining me and [my wife] Nancy about to go through life hand in hand. It was written early stage of our relationship, and then I started to think, ‘There are millions of people in that situation where they’ve got someone they love and they want to go through life hand in hand and to be a partnership of some kind.’ When we recorded it, we had two lady cellists. They were the only ones outside of the band, and it was very sweet because at the end of it, we liked what they’d done. Then one of them said, ‘You know what? I’m getting married for the second time and I’m a little bit nervous, too, but this song made me think it’s going to work out.’ Well, alright! That’s a reason right there for writing that song.”

“Dominoes” (Track 10)

“One of the interesting things about songs is they often come from something that happens in your life, and your song is the reaction to it. It can be something very small. You can just sort have an argument with someone and you can just go off and think, ‘Oh, I’ll play guitar for a while and get over it.’ And this kind of started like that. So it was just a people song about how things are really alright, but they don’t always seem to be. And then I got this image of when people line up those millions of dominoes, then they drop the first one that starts this whole sequence. So I imagine that as being symbolic of life; how one little action can have such a big effect on this huge line of dominoes. And, you know, even though we go through all this stuff, even though all these dominoes fall over, life goes on. And in fact, in the end it’s okay.”

“Back in Brazil” (Track 11)

“So I was in Brazil on tour, did one of those nice free days where there was nothing planned, and I had a piano in the hotel room. So I got this little riff and got this idea of picking Brazil. There was this girl who dreams of a future and a far, far better world. She meets a man and he fits in with that plan, you know. So it’s a story about a couple and their trials and tribulations. Things are going well, when she plans a date, but he can’t come because they got him working late. And so it was just an imaginary story of two young Brazilian people and it’s kind of dancey. I wanted to put in Brazilian rhythms and get the flavor.”

“Do It Now” (Track 12)

“‘Do it now’ is an expression my dad used to say. It’s funny, how, as you get older, you remember things that your parents or teachers or friends said. My dad’s big catchphrase was, ‘Well, do it now,’ and you’d sort of say, ‘No.’ He also used to say DIN — which I always thought was a great name for a record label. So, anyway, this has always been in my mind, this ‘do it now’ thing. I was looking for an idea to write a song about, and I thought, ‘Okay, I’m on a journey; I’ve been invited to go somewhere,’ and the idea is if I don’t do it now, I may never get to this place. So it’s an imaginary journey suggested by the words of my dad. Don’t leave it until it’s too late.”

“Caesar Rock” (Track 13)

“There’s some times when I get in my studio with my engineer, Steve, and we just start making up stuff. We’ll just have no idea what we’re going to do, but we’ll play with things we’re interested in. So I might just start off with a drum machine or something and put a little piano on it or put a bass on it. I went in one day and we started making this song, and then I was playing with a little autotune thing that I’d been familiarizing myself with by working with Kanye. I fancied having a go at this and in a way it’s a bit sacrilegious. But then I started thinking, ‘Are you kidding me? You listen to some of the Beatles records, ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ — nothing was that sacred.
So it was, ‘She’s a Rock,’ but then we started referring to it as ‘Caesar Rock,’ because we were just having fun. And so we just built it up. I liked this song, because it’s slightly oddball, you know? It’s a song where anything goes and I like it because of that. Then we got in a group of people in the studio, some of the engineers, some of the guys who were hanging around. I said, ‘Okay, come on, we’re all going to go in and just be this big chorus thing.’ And the other thing I love about it is right at the end of the track. I still don’t know how this happened, but it must have been me that shouted, ‘She’s got matching teeth!’ Matching teeth? I mean, I was playing with that as an album title. We had a lot of fun with that one.”

“Despite Repeated Warnings” (Track 14)

“I was in Japan and I was reading a newspaper, I think it was like the Tokyo Times, Japan Times or something, and there was something about climate change where it’s the typical thing where people are kind of not doing anything about it. You know, ‘It’s all gonna be fine, don’t worry. Oh yeah, sure there’s icebergs melting, but they’re not melting in London, so don’t worry about it.’ The phrase was in this article that started ‘despite repeated warnings, they’re not listening.’ I liked that phrase and I thought that sums up a lot of people’s feelings. I thought I’d do a kind of song where I use symbolism, and the person at the center of it becomes symbolic of certain politicians who argue that climate change is a hoax, and we know a few.”

“Station II” (Track 15)

“This is a continuation of the opening soundscape that takes us back to the station. It’s an imaginary station, just some imaginary place. So we had fun just making up a soundscape and then at the end of this we thought, well, it’d be nice idea that in this big station there’s someone plugging in a guitar, like a Busker who’s come to play some songs and earn some money. He plays a riff that’s the beginning of one of our songs and then it gradually gets louder until it becomes the real song.”

“Hunt You Down”/”Naked”/”C-Link” (Track 16)

“That’s a three-part song, which goes from this sort of rocker, ‘Hunt You Down’ and the words, ‘I can’t find my love, no matter how hard I try.’ You know, it’s giving me the run around, just kinda like blues complaining lyrics, ‘Yeah my woman done hurt me, I can’t find my love’ — it’s that kind of thing. Then it goes through into another song called ‘Naked’, and again it links through, ’cause it’s like a tempo change at the end of ‘Hunt You Down,’ it goes from 4/4 into 3/4, and goes into this other song, which is a very simple song that I recorded pretty much on my own. It’s a simple song about I’ve been naked since I was born, and this thing we go through that’s life where there are many situations that you find yourself in where you’re kind of naked, socially.
Then that links on to another thing we called ‘C-Link’ in the end, which is just me totally indulging myself in wanting to play guitar, and an original take on it. It’s about 11 minutes, I think. But it’s just me really enjoying playing electric guitar, ’cause people often say, ‘Why do you still do it?’ I say, ‘Well, ’cause I love it, I love this thing.’ And I’m still thrilled with having the privilege of being able to go up to an amp, turn it on, get my guitar, plug it in, and play it very loud. It’s never stopped being a thrill.”

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