Just In: Paul McCartney wrote ‘huge’ song for The Beatles – but gave it to another band……see more

Paul McCartney and John Lennon – who once owned a beautiful island off the coast of Co Mayo – were the key songwriters for The Beatles, crafting most of their hits with a blend of contrasting styles. They straddled the lines between Lennon’s biting wit and McCartney’s melodic sentimentality to produce iconic tracks.

In 1972, Wilfred Mellors remarked about their partnership: “Opposite poles generate electricity: between John and Paul, the sparks flew. John’s fiery iconoclasm was tempered by Paul’s lyrical grace, while Paul’s wide-eyed charm was toughened by John’s resilience.”

The hitmakers penned ‘I Wanna be Your Man’, which became The Rolling Stones’ first smash success, initially considering it as a potential tune for Ringo Starr, who eventually did belt it out.

They also had a hand in launching other bands to stardom; McCartney composed ‘Come And Get It’ in 1969 and cut a demo during ‘Abbey Road’ sessions. Yet, it shot to fame with Badfinger, a group under The Beatles’ Apple label previously called ‘The Iveys’, reports the Liverpool Echo.

Reflecting on the creation of that song, Paul reminisced: “I was lying in bed one night, and instead of trying to sleep I was trying to think of an idea for a song. This song started going around in my head, and then I thought, ‘Oh, this is okay; this is pretty good.”

Paul recalled: “So I got up quietly – Linda and I had just recently got married, and I didn’t want to wake her or daughter Heather – and went downstairs where I had a little reel-to-reel tape recorder.

I closed all the doors so I wouldn’t make too much noise, and I wrote this. It was basically a song for Badfinger. Fairly straight-up rock and roll, very straightforward.”

Badfinger was a band consisting of four members: vocalist-guitarist Pete Ham, bassist Tom Evans, drummer Tom Gibbins, and guitarist Joey Molland, who recently passed away at 77. In 1969, their name was changed, as suggested by Neil Aspinall, who worked at Apple.

Their name originated from the original title of a Beatles song, ‘With A Little Help From My Friends,’ also known as ‘Bad Finger Boogie. ‘ Paul produced the song ‘Come And Get It’ for Badfinger after presenting it to the band under one condition.

He elaborated: “I’d written the song ‘Come And Get It,’ and I’d made a fairly decent demo. Because I lived locally, I could get in half an hour before a Beatles session at Abbey Road – knowing it would be empty and all the stuff would be set up – and I’d use Ringo’s equipment to put a drum track down, put some piano down, quickly put some bass down, do the vocal, and double-track it.

“I said to Badfinger, ‘OK, it’s got to be exactly like this demo,’ because it had a great feeling on it. They actually wanted to put their own variations on, but I said, ‘No, this really is the right way.’ They listened to me – I was producing, after all – and they were good. The song was a hit in 1970.”