Paul McCartney’s snarky response to critics of his ‘schmaltzy’ love songs: ‘You wonder what their life looks like’

Sir Paul McCartney defended himself against critics of what has often been deemed his “schmaltzy” songwriting about love, in the latest episode of a podcast about his lyrics.

McCartney: A Life in Lyrics explores what inspires the legendary Beatles artist, in conversation with the poet Paul Muldoon.

All this singing about love over the years, Muldoon noted in an episode released on Wednesday 6 March, has made some “harder boiled” music fans and critics “dismissive”, as they accuse McCartney of being “sentimental”, “schmaltzy” and “lacking in sophistication”.

The “Can’t Buy Me Love” singer, 81, was ready with a rather derisive response to those critics, remarking: “I think a lot of people who are cynical about it, haven’t been lucky enough to feel it. You often wonder what the critic who damns it looks like, what his or her life looks like.

“I often want to get a photograph of them and go, ‘Oh it’s him, of course, I’m not listening to him.’ Because you kind of outlive them, anyway. They come and go.”

It was then suggested by Muldoon that, while some critics were tired of the subject of love in McCartney’s songs, others were specifically disdainful of his “over-earnest” attempts to conjure up “the sound of love… schmaltz and musical grandeur”, in the style of many classic love songs.

McCartney revealed that he wrote “Silly Love Songs” with his band Wings as a sort of riposte to those critics, after coming close to accepting their cynical worldview. It was released in 1976, the same year the band, the lineup for which included his late wife Linda McCartney, embarked on their Wings Over the World tour.

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“I was being accused of just writing silly love songs, and was in danger of starting to buy into this idea that you should just be a bit tougher, and more worldly,” he said.

“But then I realised, that’s exactly what love is – it’s worldly. So this idea came to me, where you would think that people had had enough, then I look around me and see it isn’t so. Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs… what’s wrong with that?”

McCartney said that instead of outlawing songs about love, artists should just “get on with it, get into it and don’t be embarrassed”.

“Even though you can’t say this is a soppy subject, but actually it’s the opposite. It’s actually very deep and meaningful, and the basis of most religions and most philosophy: this thing that people can feel for each other that makes life better, if they can engage in it,” he said.

“So yeah, there’s no more to this than that,” he added, going on to quote lyrics from “Silly Love Songs”, where he sings: “Love doesn’t come in a minute/ Sometimes it doesn’t come at all/ I only know that when I’m in it/ It isn’t silly/ Love isn’t silly/ Love isn’t silly at all.”

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McCartney went on to explain that this was his response to “a lot” of critics after gaining a reputation for schmaltz.

“I think it is easier to get good criticism if you rail against things and probably swear a lot, because it just makes you seem stronger,” he said.

Pretending to be an angry singer, he commented: “‘Ah, this f***ing weather… it’s f***ing unbelievable, I f***ing hate thunder, I f***ing hate lightning, what the f*** is God doing this for, what’s the point?’

“‘Mmm! Rather well said,’ says the critic, ‘That’s marvellous,’” he continued, mocking the critics’ reaction before offering his own perspective: “Oh it’s a lovely day, it’s nice, I like the rain.”

To which the critic would say: “Soppy bastard.”

“John [Lennon] had a lot of that,” McCartney said, referring to his late Beatles bandmate. “I think often, the people who do it, it’s a shield against life.”

In the previous episode, the singer opened up about the heartbreaking meaning behind one of his most famous songs: “Yesterday” by The Beatles.

McCartney: A Life in Lyrics is available on all major streaming platforms.