Tug Of Peace

‘Tug Of Peace’ is the penultimate track on Paul McCartney’s fourth solo album Pipes Of Peace.

It was recorded on 29 January 1982 at AIR Studios in London, with McCartney playing almost everything.

The lyrics are almost entirely taken from ‘Tug Of War’. Pipes Of Peace and the Tug Of War album were mostly recorded at the same time, with many songs from the latter being discards from the sessions.

The percussive sounds were partly created by McCartney and producer George Martin banging garden canes on the studio floor.

The great thing about working with Paul is that you can try anything, he’s great for experimenting. For example, on ‘Tug Of Peace’ I had the idea of having a kind of Zulu sound, and I wanted to get the noise of thumping assegais on the ground. So we got a whole stack of garden canes, and Paul and I ended up with about 15 each, holding them, and chomping them down, which is that tremendous sound you hear on the off-beat. Just a noise that I had in my mind, which he thought would be fun to do.