In the evening of 25 June 1974, Wings went out in Printer’s Alley, Nashville’s former newspaper district. They had dinner at the Captain’s Table before going to the Hugh X Lewis Country Club.
Performing at the club were the Nashville Cats, Randy and Sandy Brunette, Bobby Borchers, and Josie Brown. Country stars Chet Atkins and Waylon Jennings were also in attendance.
Wings stayed there till the small hours of 26 June, and on their way back to the Putman farm Paul McCartney wrote the song ‘Sally G’. According to drummer Geoff Britton, McCartney wrote it between 3am and 11am in the morning.
When I’m in a place, it’s not uncommon for me to want to write about where I am. Elton John did ‘Philadelphia Freedom;, you know. You see a lot of that, someone will turn up and write a song the next day. Being in Nashville, I wanted to use a couple of local guys. I never worked with a Nashville steel guitar player, and I had to have a bit of material I could bring in and ask them to do. This bloke named Buddy took us out to Printer’s Alley, which is a little club district. There were a few people just playing country music, and we imagined a bit more than we had seen for ‘Sally G’.A lot of people do that. I saw the documentary on David Hockney last night in which he saw a Macy’s ad, which to him seemed a perfect room. So he took the room and just painted a nude boy on it. He made one of his pictures out of it.
I didn’t see anyone named Sally G when I was in Printer’s Alley, nor did I see anyone who ran her eyes over me when she was singing ‘A Tangled Mind’. That was my imagination, adding something to it, the reality of it.
Paul McCartney In His Own Words, Paul Gambaccini