← Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
Paul & Linda: The Love Story Behind “Maybe I’m Amazed”
00:15:10
Find out how Paul McCartney found the inspiration to go on after the Beatles in this episode of the Behind The Song podcast!
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97.1Fm the drive presents the behind the Song Podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda have you ever.
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Been so down that you didn't think you could move forward, doubted yourself and everything you were doing? We all have. For Paul McCartney, those moments came during and after the breakup of the Beatles, the biggest band in the world, a phenomenon that it can't be understated. Never mind his enormous talent or the fact that he can write a great song as naturally as most people breathe air. He too had his doubts about moving forward and what to do with his life and his talent after the Fab Four. Luckily for McCartney, he had the incredible support of Linda, who pulled him out of the darkness and out of the bottle and gave him the confidence to press on with his solo career. And out of that came one of McCartney's best love songs. Let's dig into the story of maybe I'm Amazed in this episode of the behind the Song podcast and if you like it, give it a thumbs up and hit subscribe. Let us know in the comments.
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While the live version of maybe I'm Amazed became the best known version. Recorded with Wings and released as a single from their 1976 live album Wings Over America, the original version of the song had much more intimate beginnings seven years earlier. Let's roll back the timeline. In 1967, the Beatles manager Brian Epstein died at age 32 of a drug overdose that was ruled accidental that had a profound impact on each of the Beatles. And John Lennon told Rolling stone magazine in 1970 that he knew they were in trouble then. Epstein's ability to steer the Beatles career and manage their individual personalities and the band dynamic was unique. Even though he didn't always make the best financial decisions for the band and they struggled in the wake of his passing to deal with his loss and to try to find a new manager. No small task. McCartney argued that Lee Eastman should take up oversight of their business dealings as well as deal with the floundering Apple Corps and Apple Records. Eastman, a prominent New York City entertainment lawyer, was Linda Eastman's father and would become McCartney's first father in law after their marriage. He was outvoted on this by Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, who all wanted Alan Klein for the job, who represented Sam Cooke and the Rolling Stones. So Klein was brought on as their manager while Lee and his son John Eastman were hired to represent McCartney. This didn't last long, with differences between the two camps too contentious, and it all ended in a lawsuit by McCartney to dissolve the partnership. Meanwhile, George Harrison was coming into his own as a solo songwriter. Ringo Starr was so fed up with the tension that he left the band for weeks during the sessions for the White Album. And John Lennon was becoming heavily distracted by his own pursuits, including solo projects with his soon to be wife, Yoko Ono. Lennon privately told the band that he was leaving In September of 1969, and in April of 1970, McCartney released a statement to the press that he was no longer working with the Beatles, which the media immediately jumped on with headlines about McCartney specifically breaking up the band. They were all embroiled in legal disputes after the breakup, up until 1974 when their dissolution was formalized. A long and winding road indeed. Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman in London on March 12, 1969, and John Lennon married Yoko Ono eight days later on March 20 in Gibraltar, after which the Lennons spent their honeymoon staging a bed in for peace demonstration in a hotel room in Amsterdam. In effect, the dream was over for legions of female Beatles fans who were heartbroken that their heartthrobs had gotten hitched. And both Linda McCartney and Yoko Ono would be widely blamed for the breakup of the band. Never mind the financial, interpersonal and creative differences that had privately sprung up between the Fab four. People were going to think what they were going to think and that was that. Because the Beatles were much more than a rock band, they always were. In the wake of all this, McCartney found himself in an uncomfortable position. Happy to be newly married with the love of his life, yet struggling to be sure if people would listen to the music that he created from here on out. Unsure if he would be accepted as a solo artist apart from the Beatles, Linda Eastman, soon to be Linda McCartney, encouraged him to keep going. And in so many ways, it was her free spirited influence that allowed McCartney to free himself up mentally, take chances on music and on himself. Linda was kind of the black sheep of the New York City Eastman family. The Daughter of a lawyer who was herself more interested in art and nature. When she and McCartney first got really acquainted at a club in London, she was in the city on assignment for her job as a professional photographer. She found a niche shooting rock bands because it became apparent that they had an ease with her behind the camera and vice versa. She was the unofficial photographer for Bill Graham's Fillmore east club, photographing everybody from Jimi Hendrix to the Grateful Dead. And she was the first woman to ever have a photograph make the COVID of Rolling Stone magazine with a photo she shot of Eric Clapton in 1968. She was also divorced from her first husband, an academic she met in college, and she had a daughter, Heather. As the love affair bloomed between the two, McCartney's bond with Heather grew as well, singing her to sleep at bedtime. In August of 1969, their daughter Mary was born, adding to their growing family. Despite all of this happiness, by the late part of 1969, McCartney's depression over what to do next with his musical career grew, and he began to turn to the bottle, drinking heavily and sometimes refusing to get out of bed. Finally, Linda's encouragement for him to get up and get back to making music, as he had done all his life took hold, and that's what he finally did. In the Beatles Bible, McCartney recalls that maybe I'm Amazed was written in London, sitting at a black Steinway piano they got after their wedding. He said the song came to him with the idea being that there's so often a split between the inner and the outer, the inner turmoil that goes on even when things on the outside look rosy. The lyrics go like, maybe I'm amazed at the way you love me all the time maybe I'm afraid of the way I love you maybe I'm amazed at the way you pulled me out of time Hung me on a line maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you. McCartney said that the idea of the line maybe I'm afraid of the way I love you is troubling enough. And in his book, the lyrics he wrote, that one thing that he and Linda shared was a need to escape. He needed to get away from the Beatles while she was fleeing the constrictions of the Manhattan society life that she grew up in. And together they found that escape, pulling each other out of time. He's also said that it's the job of the songwriter to go to places where others might not feel comfortable, as in this case, writing about some of the contradictions that come from being in love and the song goes on, maybe I'm a man, maybe I'm a lonely man who's in the middle of something that he doesn't really understand. Maybe I'm a man, maybe you're the only woman who could ever help me. Baby, won't you help me to understand? When McCartney wrote about a lonely man who's in the middle of something, he was still so young, just 26 years old in 1969. Far from being middle aged, he, he was a young man who had done a remarkable amount of living part of an unprecedented group with almost terrifying fame in his young life. Up to that point, he was in the middle of coming to an understanding about where to put his significant talents on his own. Good thing he wasn't on his own really at all. In another part of the song, Linda's support and companionship is noted for anchoring him and his abilities with these lyrics. Maybe I'm amazed at the way you're with me all the time. Maybe I'm afraid of the way I leave you. Maybe I'm amazed at the way you help me sing my song. You write me when I'm wrong. Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you. And the song ends with the lyrics I'm amazed with you. On the original recording of maybe I'm Amazed, released on his debut album McCartney, in April of 1970, Linda McCartney really did help him sing his song. As she would come to do on future hits, it's her voice singing the backups. He played everything else on that recording, guitar, bass, piano, keyboards and drums. And it was recorded and mixed in Studio 2 at Abbey Road, where so many Beatles sessions had taken place. It was not released as a single in the UK or the US and it wasn't until the live version from Wings Over America was released that years later that it became an international hit. By that time, Linda McCartney was a full blown member of Wings, helping him sing many more of his songs, although sometimes to the chagrin of McCartney fans. Either way, Wings Over America was the first triple album released by any group to go to number one in the US and the live version of the single went to number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was the first song with the word amazed in the title to do that. The McCartneys had two more children together. Stella and James traveled the world as a family and as a band, and were together until she passed away in 1998 from breast cancer. Paul McCartney said in the liner notes for the Wingspan compilation album in 2002 that he wrote. Maybe I'm amazed in his early days with Linda that the song kind of wrote itself, reflecting his feelings towards her, he said. It's remained a favorite of mine. So what other love songs express a kind of wonder felt toward a person like this one that Paul wrote for Linda. Something to think about. Until next time, I'm Janda and this has been behind the song. If you like this episode, give it a like and subscribe to the channel. Special thanks as always to Christian Lane for the music you hear on these podcast episodes. You can find me on the air at 97.1fm the drive in Chicago and at wdrv.com on the way. Much more classic rock and roll.