Paul McCartney’s music, both with The Beatles and as a solo artist, certainly has brought many fans to tears with emotions of joy and sadness. But what songs by other artists have made McCartney cry?
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Here’s a look at three songs that the iconic musician and songwriter has admitted made him well up with emotion:
Elvis Presley – “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” (1956)
McCartney became a huge Elvis Presley fan as a teenager and the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll certainly was a major influence on The Beatles.
In a 1994 interview conducted by author Tony Bacon (posted on Reverb.com), McCartney revealed that he’d recently been revisiting some of Presley’s 1950s recordings from The Sun Sessions, and one tune in particular got the waterworks flowing for him, Elvis’ hit 1956 ballad “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You.”
“I suddenly realized the last time I listened to this thoroughly was before The Beatles, before all that happened to me, and it just stripped it all away,” McCartney explained. “It was like I was a kid playing snooker again and listening. It actually got me crying, pow. Really did it to me. And I could remember all the words [singing ‘I Want You, I Need You, I Love You’], ‘Hold me close, hold me tight…’”
He then remembered that his children saw him singing the Presley tune and were surprised.
“[My kids said,] ‘Dad, you know all the words to this stuff?’ ‘You better believe it.’ And I thought, ‘Well, I once was a kid like this, before all The Beatles thing, and now you live with the whole legacy of The Beatles, and it’s great. You could do a lot worse.’”
“I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” was a No. 3 hit on the Billboard Top 100 chart, and reached No. 1 on Billboard’s country singles tally.
The Beach Boys – “God Only Knows” (1966)
McCartney has said in numerous interviews that The Beach Boys’ classic tune “God Only Knows,” from that group’s influential 1966 album Pet Sounds, is one of his favorite songs of all time.
“‘God Only Knows’ is one of the few songs that reduces me to tears every time I hear it,” Sir Paul said in a 2007 interview with BBC Radio 1. “It’s really just a love song, but it’s brilliantly done.”
McCartney went on to share that he’d performed the tune with The Beach Boys’ main songwriter and sonic mastermind Brian Wilson, adding, “I’m afraid to say that during the sound check I broke down.”
Carl Perkins – “My Old Friend” (1996)
Carl Perkins was another early rock ‘n’ roll pioneer that had a huge influence on McCartney and The Beatles. In 1981, while McCartney was working his Tug of War album (1982) on the island of Montserrat, he invited Perkins to come and participate in the sessions.
Perkins wound up contributing guitar and vocals to a song called “Get It.” While on Montserrat, Perkins was so happy with the hospitality McCartney and his wife, Linda, showed him that he wrote the Beatles legend an original song called “My Old Friend.” When McCartney heard the song, one specific verse made him particularly emotional and he began to cry.
The verse was, in part, “If we never meet again, this side of life … My old friend, won’t you think about me every now and then.” The reason the words had such an effect on McCartney was that John Lennon had just been murdered the previous year, and at the end of the last phone conversation the two friends and Beatles bandmates had, Lennon had commented, “Think about me every now and then, my old friend.”
In a 1995 interview that appeared in Goldmine magazine (via The Paul McCartney Project website), Perkins recalled, “[McCartney said to me], ‘This is one we have to record.’ Linda told me, ‘[Paul] doesn’t cry a lot, but you touched him with that song.’ I only meant the song to be from me to him, but it turned out that it sounds like John Lennon is talking to him.”
The initial track was recorded then on Montserrat, with McCartney contributing backing vocals, guitar, bass, piano, and drums. However, “My Old Man” was released until 1996, when it appeared on Perkins’ Go Cat Go album.
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