Happy With You, Paul McCartney
| VITAL INFO: | DETAILS: |
| Writer: | Paul McCartney |
| Recorded: | 2018 |
| Released: | 2018 |
| Album: | Egypt Station |
| Producer: | Paul McCartney, Greg Kurstin |
| Sales/Chart: | |
| Additional Musicians: | Paul McCartney: vocals, acoustic guitar, bass guitar, piano, harpsichord, foot stomp Abe Laboriel Jr: fuzzy toms, tack piano bass note Greg Kurstin: finger snaps, upright piano Everton Nelson: violin John Metcalfe, Bruce White: viola Ian Burdge: cello |
YouTube Video
What This Song Means To Me:
This lovely tune is from Paul McCartney’s ‘Egypt Station’, released just in 2018.
2018!
That means Paul McCartney has been writing, producing, singing and playing music for nearly SEVEN DECADES. And still churning out beautiful little treats like ‘Happy With You’. It’s a reminder that he’s a master at what he does: creating beautiful, basic tunes are easy to listen to and that ‘bring you in’ to his world.
All within three minutes.
I like playing it on the guitar, but I don’t do a very good job.
As fresh as the song is, I’ve adopted it as the story of my life (‘I used to get wasted, I used to get stoned …’) with the good news being that I don’t want to anymore now that I’m with Lisa. Don’t tell her, but I want to renew our vows next year (our 20th anniversary in 2021) and have this song somehow be a part of our event.
Join us.
Covid Context:
If you’ve survived the last two months in self-isolation, ‘Happy With You’ seems like a fitting tribute to the situation. Most people I know are with spouses or partners and are getting along, making the best of an ugly global situation.
Sadly, many people are with abusive partners and spouses and the context may not be as pleasant. If this is the case, please reach out to a friend or family member and share with them discreetly that you think you might be in trouble.
Additional Context:
From “Words Between The Tracks” YouTube series:
Yeah, I was on holiday and I was just noodling around on the guitar, and I was thinking about the days when I had a lot of free time and used to just sort of lie around basically doing nothing all day, and getting a bit stoned and… just doing nothing really. Busy doing nothing.
And so I got this little riff on the guitar and the words came to me, you know: “I used to lie around all day, I used to get stoned, I used to like to get wasted, but these days I don’t.”
So it’s a song about growing up. There’s a period in your life – in some people’s lives – when they’re not being as productive, or not being as organised or disciplined as they may later turn out to be. So this was basically it.
Paul McCartney