The main highlight of Paul McCartney’s début solo album, ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ was a song of love and thanks to his wife Linda.
Written in London, at the piano, with the second verse added slightly later, as if you cared.A movie was made, using Linda’s slides and edited to this track.
‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ was a product of the depression McCartney experienced around the time of The Beatles’ break-up. Wondering what to do with his life, he briefly turned to the bottle before Linda encouraged him to start writing and recording music again. This song was a tribute to her inspirational spirit, which shone through amid his melancholia.
Though the song was written immediately after The Beatles’ breakup, it was somehow included under the Lennon-McCartney rubric, where it doesn’t belong. It was one of my first solo songs, but because of the deal, it got caught in the publishing net. That was very annoying.Actually, Linda and I were probably already married, because I can now visualise sitting at the lovely black Steinway piano that we got after our wedding. I was playing on it one day, and this song came to me – the central idea being that there’s so often a split between the inner and outer… The elements of fear and loneliness are very much to the fore. ‘Maybe I’m afraid of the way I love you’ is itself a troubling idea.
While it’s true that Linda is the person I’m addressing, it’s also true that I’m dealing in fiction. Starting with myself, the characters who appear in my songs are imagined. I can’t state that often enough.
The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present
‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ was recorded and mixed in Studio Two at EMI Studios, Abbey Road on 22 February 1970, along with ‘Every Night’. It was the most elaborate recording on the McCartney album, featuring three guitars, piano, bass guitar, drums and several vocal overdubs by Paul and Linda.
The song received considerable radio airplay upon its release. It was even praised by McCartney’s former bandmate George Harrison, who was mostly disparaging about the rest of the album.
‘That Would Be Something’ and ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ I think are great and everything else I think is fair, you know. It’s quite good, but a little disappointing, but maybe I shouldn’t be disappointed, it’s best not to expect anything, then everything’s a bonus. I think those two tracks are very good and the others just don’t do anything for me.
‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, like all the other songs on McCartney, was not released as a single, except in France and Germany. Six years later, however, a live version was issued from the 1976 album Wings Over America and became an international hit.
Sometimes we’re a bit daft here. We have a bit of a funky organisation, you know, which isn’t that clued into picking tracks off albums. At the time we thought ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ was a good track and maybe we should do that as a single, which it probably should have been. But we never did.
A promotional film was made in 1970, however. It was directed by David Puttnam and produced by Charlie Jenkins in 35mm colour, and comprised a montage of photographs taken by Linda McCartney.
In addition to Wings Over America, versions of ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ have featured on McCartney’s live albums Back In The US/Back In The World and Tripping The Live Fantastic. An orchestral arrangement was also included on the 1999 album Working Classical.
A Highlight of his Solo Career. I never knew the 1976 version was a single. Thanks Joe!
Best song on this album, I’d say. The instrumentation is top notch and of course, he sings it well.
This is my favorite post-Beatles Paul song. A big piano-based ballad in the spirit of “Hey Jude” and “Let It Be”, but with lyrics that are more direct and heartfelt and artless (in a good way)–kind of like John’s lyrics on his first solo album. And what a vocal performance!
Just heard the unplugged version , what can I say . As a Beatles fan I am sure I saw a video of this song but the Beatles were playing it , it wasn’t overdubbed or any special effects . Can someone cola berate this for me
I only heard this song a few thousand times but I just heard it again and boy oh boy,,, did it hit me again. A GREAT GREAT SONG that just makes you feel about GREAT GREAT things… Wow. Great.
A difficult song to sing but a helluva lot of fun to play on piano.
Love, Love, Love, this amazing track from my Paulie. Truly at his greatest & what i love most of all is how his love for Linda was Truly Amazing!!!!
This song, more than any other he did, showed that Paul could write and record a song that showed the depth of his despair and bare his emotions just as well as any song John ever recorded. He didn’t do it often. Every time I hear this song, I think of how he must have been dying inside from the breakup of the only thing he ever loved (outside of his family), but he was saved from the brink by the only woman he ever truly loved.
Yes, he did bare himself more than usual and it worked so well.
Wish Paul had bared himself more often.
John a little less. (Literally less on the cover of Two Virgins!)
Paul was reticent to reveal himself.
Wish he had found a Dylanesque way to reveal himself in an abstract way.
One instance where he does is the wonderful “You Never Give Me Your Money”.
He leaves enough clues to paint a picture of the band’s financial squabbles without breaking his own code.
And while I disagreed with the message, he did this well on Too Many People, too.
John went overboard on How Do You Sleep. Too bad because it distracts from an interesting music bed.
Of course, on songs like Don’t Let Me Down, Julia, Mother and God his willingness to pour his guts is amazing.
Once again, maybe it’s the balance of these two very different but massively talented artists that make the Beatles the Beatles. And credit to them both for making room for the other, when either could have been a solo act from the beginning.
Sometimes I wonder about George Martin’s assessment if that had happened.
Mr. Martin thought John would be another Dylan or Lou Reed.
And Paul? Andrew Lloyd Weber! Personally, I’m glad he didn’t.
John & Paul were an imperfectly perfect duo who more often than not brought out the best in one another.
Changing the equation so that 1 + 1 = 3.
The most Beatle like of all his solo work.He played all the instruments.It was written shortly before the break up of the Beatles and could easily sit within the Beatles catalogue had the other Beatles played on it.He attempts to emulate George’s guitar style and does a pretty good job.
Also played by the Faces and recorded live for the album Long Player (1971), with Rod Stewart on vocals.
A very good song, one of McCartney´s best.
This is the greatest song of all time for anyone who has felt anything like it.
probably his secondmost covered song
I love the tribute Paul gave to Linda! He is my favorite Beatle and it’s just so tragic that he lost Linda so soon. GREAT SONG!
McCartney’s best melody, best vocal and best guitar playing. His best post- Beatles song
Imagine how this would sound with Ringo on drums, George on guitar and John’s influence. Paul is brilliant, but John always made him better.