Paul McCartney Has An Unusual Pick For His Favorite Beatles Track

The music of the Beatles has reached all corners of the world. Their influence is being passed from one generation to another, making their songs timeless. As a fan, it really is hard to pick a favorite Beatles song or to simply choose which one is the best.

However, most people might think that the Fab Four’s personal favorites from their catalog would be hits that made them one of the greatest bands to simply exist, but Paul McCartney has his own special pick and it’s an unusual Beatles track.

“One After 909” has been on the band’s vault for years before it was initially released as part of their final album, Let It Be. The Beatles recorded its first version in 1963, which is the same day they made the classic “From Me To You.”

In an interview with Rolling Stone in 1970, McCartney claimed that “One After 909” was one of the songs he and John Lennon had written together, “trying to write a bluesy freight-train song,” he said:

“There were a lot of those songs at the time, like ‘Midnight Special’, ‘Freight Train’, ‘Rock Island Line’, so this was the ‘One After 909’; she didn’t get the 909, she got the one after it! It was a tribute to British Rail, actually. No, at the time, we weren’t thinking British; it was much more the Super Chief from Omaha.”

Lennon then recalled writing the song when he was just a teenager. He said at that time:

“The ‘One After 909’, on the whatsit LP, I wrote when I was 17 or 18.

“We always wrote separately, but we wrote together because we enjoyed it a lot sometimes and also because they would say, well, you’re going to make an album together and knock off a few songs, just like a job.”

The track was rarely played by the Fab Four during their live performances and McCartney didn’t even think it was actually good compared to their many other songs. But interestingly enough, Macca chose “One After 909” as one of his favorite Beatles tracks. He added:

“It was a number we didn’t used to do much, but it was one that we always liked doing, and we rediscovered it.

“There were a couple of tunes that we wondered why we never put out; either George Martin didn’t like them enough to, or he favoured others. It’s not a great song, but it’s a great favourite of mine.”