Paul McCartney Spill Elvis Presley and Songwriting Stories

Paul McCartney talked about the Beatles’ songwriting backstories and meeting Elvis Presley in an episode of the Fly on the Wall with Dana Carvey and David Spade podcast.

The Beatles star explained the frequent use of pronouns in their songs was because their songs were directed to their fans. McCartney recalled:

“Looking back on it, it was all directed on our fans. You know we were new to this whole idea of fans and autographs. It was wonderful and new and wow, you know. So, in ‘Love Love Me Do,’ there’s a personal pronoun. So, the next one is ‘Please Please Me.’ Then from ‘me’ to ‘you’ then there was ‘She Loves You’ and ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand.'”

The host followed up with a question if it was intentional, and he replied, “It’s really trying to reach directly to fans” and thought that he should do more of like that these days. In the middle of their conversation, he was asked if he ever saw Presley and if there was some sort of competition that arose back in the day. McCartney said they met him before, and they loved him. The singer recalled:

“Well you know we loved him it was like the start of everything to us. We’re in Liverpool and you know you’re listening to the radio or seeing the television and it was sort of old-fashioned kind of music or uhm…I don’t know novelty songs and stuff, but then suddenly rock and roll came out and so this creature…”

The host laughingly asked, “a creature?” he quickly responded “yeah?” He explained:

“It was like unbelievable. He was so good-looking; his voice was so amazing. The way he danced was so incredible. So, you know we just loved him anyway and loved him mainly we loved him all the time.”

McCartney said they went to the house Presley’s renting in LA and the whole band showed up there. McCartney recollected his memory, “We knocked on his door and there is where it goes strange. My memory is Elvis came to the door and let us in.”

The Beatles icon also shared some of his unforgettable and funny moments when they met Presley. He remembered how amazed they were when they saw a remote-controlled television for the very first time explaining that in England, they didn’t have remotes for televisions at that time.

He also added that meeting Presley was magic and went on saying, “It was magic, you know, meeting him and so we loved him and everything and I continued to love him to this day even though he tried to bust us to Nixon” referring to when Presley joined the Sheriff’s department in 1987. “He’s been busting us and I’m going ‘Elvis?’ but I still love him anyway” the singer added.

When McCartney was asked if he and the Beatles ever watched him perform live, he said:

“No, I never saw him live though… But he was great you know, just so you know.”

Stream the full podcast episode below.