The Songs Paul Wrote for Linda

Paul and Linda: The Short Version

Paul McCartney met Linda Eastman at the Bag O'Nails club in London on 15 May 1967, saw her again four days later at the Sgt. Pepper press launch at Brian Epstein's house, married her at Marylebone Register Office on 12 March 1969, and stayed married to her until her death from breast cancer on 17 April 1998. Across those 29 years he wrote a run of songs about her and for her, from a 43-second home recording to a four-week US No.1.

Linda was far more than a subject. She played keyboards and sang in Wings from 1971 to 1981, and she shared writing credits with Paul on songs from 1971 onwards. Those credits caused a legal dispute in 1971, when Northern Songs and Maclen, the companies holding Paul's Beatles-era publishing, challenged her co-credit on the single 'Another Day', arguing that it moved income away from them. The dispute was eventually settled, and the credits stood.

Before 1967 she was Linda Eastman, a working rock photographer from New York. Her 1968 portrait of Eric Clapton made her the first woman to shoot a Rolling Stone cover, and she met Paul on assignment, not as a fan. That background matters for the songs below: they describe two creative people building a family life away from the Beatles, first in St John's Wood and then on the High Park farm in Kintyre.

We have kept this list to songs where the Linda connection is documented by Paul himself or by his authorised biographers. Many other love songs of the period are assumed to be about her, but we have not included guesses.

1969 to 1971: Two of Us, The Lovely Linda and Maybe I'm Amazed

'Two of Us', recorded during the Get Back sessions in January 1969 and released on Let It Be in May 1970, is often heard as a song about Paul and John. Paul has said it came from drives he and Linda took out of London with no destination, trying to get lost. The film footage of the sessions, with Linda's daughter Heather playing in the studio, makes the domestic context easy to picture.

'The Lovely Linda' opens Paul's first solo album, McCartney, released on 17 April 1970. It lasts well under a minute and was recorded at home in London as a test of a new Studer four-track machine, laugh included. Putting a fragment like that first on his first solo album was a clear statement of where his life was now centred.

'Maybe I'm Amazed', from the same album, is the most important song on this list. Paul wrote it in 1969 as the Beatles were coming apart and has credited Linda with pulling him through that period. He recorded it in EMI's Studio Two at Abbey Road on 15 February 1970, playing guitars, bass, piano, organ and drums himself, with Linda on backing vocals. It was not issued as a single at the time. The live version from Wings Over America, with Denny Laine on bass, Jimmy McCulloch on lead guitar and Joe English on drums, became the single in 1977 and reached No.10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No.28 in the UK. Our guide to the best McCartney live albums covers the Wings Over America editions.

'Long Haired Lady', from Ram (1971) and credited to Paul and Linda McCartney, is a duet in the literal sense, with the two trading lines. It is looser and stranger than the 1970 songs, but it catches the Kintyre farm years better than anything else on the album.

My Love: A US No.1 Recorded Live With an Orchestra

'My Love' is the most commercially successful of the Linda songs. It was the first single credited to Paul McCartney and Wings rather than Wings alone, released on 23 March 1973 in the UK and 9 April 1973 in the US, with the live 'The Mess' on the B-side. It spent four weeks at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100, finished fifth on Billboard's year-end chart for 1973, and reached No.9 in the UK. It also carried Red Rose Speedway to the top of the US album chart.

The recording is part of the story. Wings and a 50-piece orchestra, arranged by Richard Hewson, were recorded together at Abbey Road in January 1973 instead of adding strings later. Paul plays Fender Rhodes electric piano. Henry McCullough asked Paul just before the take whether he could try something different for the solo, and what he played became the most admired guitar solo in the Wings catalogue.

Some fans find 'My Love' too sweet. The song works because it makes no attempt to be clever: a plain declaration, sung straight, over a band and orchestra playing together in one room.

Calico Skies and the 1990s

'Calico Skies' appears on Flaming Pie, released in May 1997, but Paul wrote it in August 1991 on Long Island, when Hurricane Bob cut the power and left him with an acoustic guitar. It is a fingerpicked ballad in the manner of 'Blackbird', a promise of lifelong devotion, released while Linda was still alive.

Much of Flaming Pie was recorded after Linda's cancer diagnosis in late 1995, and it is hard to hear it now without that context. It leans on family and old friends, with Ringo, Steve Miller and Jeff Lynne among the guests, and Linda sings on it. Less than a year after its release she died at the family's ranch near Tucson, Arizona, aged 56.

In October 1998 Paul completed and released Wide Prairie, a collection of Linda's own recordings from the 1970s to the 1990s. It is not a Paul song, but it belongs in this story because it shows him giving her music the same care as his own.

After 1998: Tributes, Rock and Roll, and Magic

Paul's first album after Linda's death was Run Devil Run in October 1999, mostly rock and roll covers cut quickly at Abbey Road with David Gilmour, Mick Green, Ian Paice and Pete Wingfield. Paul has said Linda had encouraged him to make a rock and roll record, and the speed of the sessions reads as a way of working through loss by going back to the music of his teens.

Two classical projects followed. Working Classical, released on 1 November 1999 with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Loma Mar Quartet, includes arrangements of 'The Lovely Linda', 'My Love' and 'Maybe I'm Amazed' alongside new pieces. A Garland for Linda, released on 25 April 2000 to raise money for the Garland Appeal cancer charity, collects choral works by ten composers, among them John Tavener and John Rutter. Paul's contribution, 'Nova', was written between November 1998 and May 1999 and sung by the Joyful Company of Singers under Peter Broadbent.

On Driving Rain in 2001, 'Magic' looks back at the night he met Linda at the Bag O'Nails, when she was leaving the club and he stood up to stop her. It is one of the most direct songs he wrote after her death, and it sits quietly on an album that deserves more attention than it gets.

Linda remains present in Paul's work in other ways. Meat Free Monday, launched in 2009 with Mary and Stella, continues the campaigning she began, which we cover in our piece on the McCartney vegetarian legacy. Paul has kept 'Maybe I'm Amazed' in his setlists on most tours since 1975, often introducing it as a song for Linda.

How to Listen: A Linda Playlist in Order

Play these songs in order of recording: 'Two of Us' (1969), 'The Lovely Linda' and 'Maybe I'm Amazed' (1970), 'Long Haired Lady' (1971), 'My Love' (1973), 'Calico Skies' (written 1991, released 1997), 'Nova' (2000) and 'Magic' (2001). Heard that way they follow the relationship: first excitement, then domestic life, then a long settled love, then memory.

For the background, the books on our list of the best books about Paul McCartney cover the marriage in detail, and Linda's own photographs are the best companion to the music.