John Lennon and Paul McCartney in 1964

The Lennon–McCartney (also written Lennon/McCartney) songwriting partnership is one of the best-known and most successful musical collaborations in history. Between 1962 and 1969, the partnership published approximately 180 jointly credited songs, of which the vast majority were recorded by The Beatles and form the bulk of their catalogue.

Unlike many songwriting partnerships that comprise separate lyricist and composer,^[1] both John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote words and music. Sometimes, especially early on, they would collaborate extensively when writing songs, working "eyeball to eyeball". Later, it became more common for one of the two credited authors to write all or most of a song with limited input from the other. However, by an agreement made before the Beatles became famous, Lennon and McCartney agreed to share equal writing credit on songs that either one of them wrote while their partnership lasted.

Lennon–McCartney compositions have been the subject of numerous cover versions. According to Guinness World Records, "Yesterday" has been recorded by more artists than any other song.^[2]

Lennon–McCartney was officially dissolved at the Polynesian Resort in Walt Disney World, Florida. The exact location is not known as May Pang (Lennon's girlfriend and assistant at the time) cannot recall it. A young Julian Lennon was also present, but can't recall it either.

From May Pang's memoirs:

"John, Julian and I left New York the following day to spend Christmas in Florida. On December 29, 1974, the voluminous documents were brought down to John in Florida by one of Apple's lawyers. "Take out your camera," he joked to me. Then he called Harold to go over some final points. When John hung up the phone, he looked wistfully out the window. I could almost see him replaying the entire Beatles experience in his mind. He finally picked up his pen and, in the unlikely backdrop of the Polynesian Village Hotel at Disney World, ended the greatest rock 'n' roll band in history by simply scrawling John Lennon at the bottom of the page."^[3]

Working partnership[link]

Lennon and McCartney's first musical idols were the Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly and Smokey Robinson & the Miracles and they learned many of their songs and imitated their sound.^[4] Their first compositions were written at McCartney's home (20 Forthlin Road), at Lennon's aunt Mimi's house at 251 Menlove Avenue, or at the Liverpool Institute.^[5] They often invited friends—including George Harrison, Nigel Walley, Barbara Baker, and Lennon's art school colleagues—to listen to performances of their new songs.^[6]

Although Lennon and McCartney often wrote independently—and many Beatles songs are primarily the work of one or the other—it was rare that a song would be completed without some input from both writers. In many instances, one writer would sketch an idea or a song fragment and take it to the other to finish or improve; in some cases, two incomplete songs or song ideas that each had worked on individually would be combined into a complete song. Often one of the pair would add a so-called middle eight or bridge section to the other's verse and chorus.^[7] Lennon called it "Writing eyeball-to-eyeball",^[7] and "Playing into each other's noses".^[8] This approach of the Lennon–McCartney songwriting team—with elements of competitiveness and mutual inspiration as well as straightforward collaboration and creative merging of musical ideas—is often cited as a key reason for The Beatles' innovation and popular success.

As time went on, the songs increasingly became the work of one writer or the other, often with the partner offering up only a few words or an alternate chord. "A Day in the Life" is a notable and well-known example of a later Beatles song that includes substantial contributions by both Lennon and McCartney, where a separate song fragment by McCartney ("Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged a comb across my head...") was used to flesh out the middle of Lennon's composition ("I read the news today, oh boy..."). "Hey Jude" is another example of a later Paul McCartney song that had input from Lennon: while auditioning the song for Lennon, when McCartney came to the lyric "the movement you need is on your shoulder," McCartney assured Lennon that he would change the line—which McCartney felt was nonsensical—as soon as he could come up with a better lyric. Lennon advised McCartney to leave that line alone, saying it was one of the strongest in the song.^[9]

In his 1980 Playboy interview, Lennon said of the partnership, "he provided a lightness, an optimism, while I would always go for the sadness, the discords, the bluesy notes. There was a period when I thought I didn't write melodies, that Paul wrote those and I just wrote straight, shouting rock 'n' roll. But, of course, when I think of some of my own songs—"In My Life", or some of the early stuff, "This Boy"—I was writing melody with the best of them."^[10]

However, Lennon said the main intention of The Beatles' music was to communicate, and that, to this effect, he and McCartney had a shared purpose. The book Help! 50 Songwriting, Recording and Career Tips Used by The Beatles, points out that at least half of all Lennon–McCartney lyrics have the words "you" and/or "your" in the first line.^[11]

The Lennon–McCartney songwriting partnership makes up the majority of The Beatles' catalogue. The first two UK studio albums included twelve cover tunes and fifteen Lennon–McCartney songs,^[12][13] with one track ("Don't Bother Me") credited to George Harrison.^[13] Their third UK album, A Hard Day's Night is made up entirely of Lennon–McCartney compositions.^[14] The next album released, Beatles For Sale included six covers and eight Lennon–McCartney originals.^[15] The subsequent release Help! had two covers and two Harrison compositions along with ten Lennon–McCartney tracks. Beginning with Rubber Soul, The Beatles released only original material on their studio albums,^[16] with George Harrison contributing between one and four songs on each record, Ringo Starr writing two songs ("Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden") and being given joint credit with Lennon and McCartney for a third ("What Goes On"), and a fourth joint credit on Flying (credited to all four Beatles), and the rest of the catalogue coming from Lennon and McCartney.

Lennon and McCartney gave songs to Starr to sing, and to Harrison before he started writing his own material. As for the songs they kept for themselves, each partner sang his own composition, often with the other providing harmonies, or they shared lead vocal. If each contributed a fragment to make a whole song, he might sing his portion (see "I've Got a Feeling" and "A Day in the Life"). "Every Little Thing" (written by Paul, sung by John) is a very rare example of a Lennon–McCartney composition written by one member of the partnership and sung by the other.^[17]

Joint credit[link]

McCartney and Lennon met in July 1957 as teenagers and began writing songs together;^[18] they agreed that all songs written by them (whether individually or jointly) should be credited to both of them.^[18] The precise date of the agreement is unknown; however, Lennon spoke in 1980 of an informal agreement between him and McCartney made "when we were fifteen or sixteen".^[19] Two songs written (primarily by Lennon) in 1957, "Hello Little Girl" and "One After 909", were credited to the partnership when published in the following decade.^[20] The earliest Beatles recording credited to Lennon–McCartney to be officially released is "You'll Be Mine", recorded at home in 1960 and included on Anthology 1 35 years later.^[21]

However, some other compositions from the band's early years are not credited to the partnership. "In Spite of All the Danger", a 1958 composition that the band (then The Quarrymen) paid to record to disc, is attributed to McCartney and George Harrison. "Cayenne", recorded at the same time as "You'll Be Mine", is a solo McCartney composition. "Cry for a Shadow", recorded during The Beatles' sessions with Tony Sheridan in June 1961, was written by Lennon and Harrison.

By 1962, the joint credit agreement was in effect. From the time of The Beatles' first A&R audition in January that year, until Lennon's announcement in September 1969 that he was leaving the band, virtually all songs by McCartney or Lennon were published with joint credit. The only exceptions were a handful of the McCartney compositions released by other artists (viz. "Woman" by Peter and Gordon in 1966, "Cat Call" by Chris Barber in 1967, and "Penina" by Carlos Mendes in 1969).

After the partnership had ended, Lennon and McCartney each gave account of their individual contribution to each jointly-credited song. In only four known cases is there a substantial difference between their recollections:

• "Help!" has been universally recognized as solely a Lennon penned composition. However, Paul McCartney claims to have helped on the "countermelody", estimating the song as "70-30" to Lennon.^[22][23][24] During an interview with Playboy in 1984, McCartney stated that "John and I wrote it at his house in Weybridge for the film".^[24]
• Although Lennon said that McCartney helped only with "the middle eight" (implying a short section) of "In My Life",^[25] McCartney has said that he wrote the (entire) melody, taking inspiration from Smokey Robinson songs.^[26]
• McCartney said that he wrote "Eleanor Rigby" on a piano in the Ashers' music room in Wimpole Street,^[27] and later played it to Donovan before it was finished—a claim which Donovan confirmed.^[28] Lennon said, in 1972, that he wrote 70 percent of the "Eleanor Rigby" lyrics,^[29] but Pete Shotton, Lennon's childhood friend, remembered Lennon's contribution as being "absolutely nil".^[30]
• Whilst Lennon said that McCartney's contribution to "Ticket to Ride" was limited to "the way Ringo played the drums,"^[31] McCartney said "we sat down and wrote it together... give him 60 percent of it."^[32]
• The song "And Your Bird Can Sing" is supposedly primarily by John Lennon, however Paul McCartney claims to have helped on the lyric, estimating the song as "80-20" to Lennon. ^[33]
• According to McCartney, "Tell Me What You See" was written 60% by him, 40% by Lennon.^[34] In a 1994 interview however, McCartney claimed it entirely as his.^[35]

Lennon–McCartney vs McCartney–Lennon[link]

In October 1962, the Beatles released their first single in the UK, "Love Me Do", credited to "Lennon–McCartney". However, on their next three releases (viz. the single "Please Please Me", the Please Please Me LP, and the single From Me To You), the credit was given as "McCartney–Lennon".^[36] With the "She Loves You" single, released in August 1963, the credit reverted to "Lennon–McCartney", and all subsequent official Beatles singles and albums list "Lennon–McCartney" (UK) or "J.Lennon/P.McCartney" (US) as the author of songs written by the two.

In 1976, after the Beatles had disbanded, McCartney released his live album Wings over America with songwriting credits for five Beatles songs reversed to place McCartney's name first. Neither Lennon nor Yoko Ono publicly "voiced a word of disapproval about it".^[18] Several years after Lennon's death however, in the late 1990s, McCartney and Ono became involved in a dispute over the credit order.^[37] McCartney's 2002 live album, Back in the U.S., also used the credit "Paul McCartney and John Lennon" for all of the Beatles songs.^[38] When Ono objected to McCartney's request for the reversed credit to be used for the song "Yesterday", McCartney said that he and Lennon had agreed in the past that the credits could be reversed, if either of them wanted to, on any future releases. Later, however, he relented, saying "I'm happy with the way it is and always has been. Lennon and McCartney is still the rock 'n' roll trademark I'm proud to be a part of—in the order it has always been."^[37] An in-depth analysis of the legal issues surrounding the dispute is the subject of a sixty-six page Pepperdine Law Review article from 2006.^[39]

Other credits[link]

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2011)

A number of songs written primarily by the duo and recorded by The Beatles were credited as follows:

• "What Goes On" (1965) Lennon–McCartney–Starkey^[40]
• "Flying" (1967) Harrison–Lennon–McCartney–Starkey
• "Dig It" (1969) Lennon–McCartney–Starkey–Harrison
• "Free as a Bird" (1995) Original composition by John Lennon, Beatles version by John Lennon/Paul McCartney/George Harrison/Ringo Starr
• "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)" (1995 edit of 1967 fan club version) Lennon–McCartney–Harrison–Starr

The German-language versions of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You" were also credited to additional songwriters for assisting with the translation: "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" was credited to Lennon–McCartney–Nicholas–Heller and "Sie Liebt Dich" was credited to Lennon–McCartney–Nicholas–Montague.

Non-Beatles songs[link]

Several songs credited to Lennon–McCartney were originally released by artists other than The Beatles, especially those managed by Brian Epstein. Recording a Lennon–McCartney song helped launch new artists' careers. Many of the recordings below were included on the 1979 compilation album The Songs Lennon and McCartney Gave Away.^[41] Beatles versions of some of these were recorded; some were not released until after their split, on compilations such as Live at the BBC (1993) and The Beatles Anthology (1995-6).

See also[link]

	Book: Lennon–McCartney
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

• List of The Beatles songs
• List of songwriter tandems

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-57066-1. 
• Miles, Barry (1997). Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now. New York: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0-8050-5249-6. 
• Sheff, David (2000). All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-25464-4. 
• MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties (Second Revised ed.). London: Pimlico (Rand). ISBN 1-84413-828-3. 
• Spitz, Bob (2005). The Beatles: The Biography. Boston: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-80352-9. 
• Rowley, David (2008). Help! 50 Songwriting, Recording and Career Tips used by the Beatles. Matador. ISBN 978-1-906221-37-9. 
• "Playboy Interview With Paul and Linda McCartney". Beatles Interview Database. 1984. http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/dbpm.int2.html. Retrieved 6 December 2009. 

External links[link]

• "Two of Us: Inside the Lennon/McCartney Connection", by Joshua Wolf Shenk, Slate.com
• The Lennon-McCartney Songwriting Partnership
• Songs the Beatles Didn't Do compiled by Joseph Brennan; includes Lennon–McCartney songs and others
• A list of the songs John Lennon and Paul McCartney gave to other artists during the Beatle years originally posted on Usenet rec.music.beatles 9 November 1994.

Sir Paul McCartney MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM
McCartney performing in England, 2010
Background information
Birth name	James Paul McCartney
Born	(1942-06-18) 18 June 1942 (age 70) Liverpool, England, UK
Genres	Rock, pop, classical, electronica
Occupations	Musician, composer, music producer, film producer, businessman
Instruments	Vocals, bass guitar, guitar, keyboards, drums, ukulele, mandolin, recorder
Years active	1957–present
Labels	Hear, Apple, Parlophone, Capitol, Columbia, Concord, EMI, One Little Indian, Vee-Jay
Associated acts	The Quarrymen, The Beatles, Wings, The Fireman, Linda McCartney, Denny Laine
Website	www.paulmccartney.com
Notable instruments
Höfner 500/1 Rickenbacker 4001S Epiphone Texan Gibson Les Paul Epiphone Casino Martin D-28

Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of the Beatles (1960–1970) and Wings (1971–1981), he has been described by Guinness World Records as "The Most Successful Composer and Recording Artist of All Time", with 60 gold discs and sales of over 100 million albums and 100 million singles.^[1] With John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, he gained worldwide fame as a member of the Beatles, and with Lennon formed one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century. After leaving the Beatles, he began a solo career and later formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter Denny Laine.

According to the BBC, his Beatles song "Yesterday" has been covered by over 2,200 artists—more than any other song. Wings' 1977 release, "Mull of Kintyre", became one of the best-selling singles ever in the UK, and he is "the most successful songwriter" in UK chart history, according to Guinness.^[2] As a songwriter or co-writer, he is included on thirty-one number one titles on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2012 he has sold over 15.5 million RIAA certified units in the United States.

He has composed film scores, classical and electronic music, and released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist. He has taken part in projects to help international charities, and has been an advocate for animal rights, vegetarianism, and music education; he has been active in campaigns against landmines and seal hunting, and supported efforts such as Make Poverty History. His company MPL Communications owns the copyrights to more than 25,000 songs, including those written by Buddy Holly, as well as the publishing rights to the musicals Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and Grease. He is one of the UK's wealthiest people, with an estimated fortune of £475 million in 2010. He has been married three times and is the father of five children.

Childhood[link]

McCartney was born in Walton Hospital in Liverpool England, where his mother, Mary (née Mohin), had twelve years earlier, "satisfied her state registry requirements" for nursing, writes Beatles biographer Bob Spitz.^[3] His father James, or "Jim" McCartney, was absent at his son's birth due to his work as a volunteer fire fighter during World War II.^[3] McCartney has one brother, Michael, born 7 January 1944, and though they were baptised in their mother's Roman Catholic faith, "religion did not play a part in their upbringing" according to biographer Barry Miles, as McCartney's father was a Protestant turned agnostic.^[4]

In 1947 he began attending Stockton Wood Road Primary School, by 1952 Joseph Williams Junior School,^[5] where he passed the 11-plus exam in 1953 with three others out of ninety examinees, thus gaining admission to the Liverpool Institute.^[6] However, when he took his A-level exams at age nineteen, he passed only one subject – Art.^[7] In 1954, while taking the bus from his home in the suburb of Speke to the Institute, he met George Harrison,^[8] who had also passed the exam, meaning they could both go to a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school, which the majority of pupils attended until they were eligible to work.^[9]

20 Forthlin Road now attracts large numbers of tourists.

In 1955 the McCartneys moved to 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton, where they lived through 1964.^[10] Paul was the first member of his family to own a car and his mother rode a bicycle to houses where she worked as a midwife; he describes an early memory of her leaving at "about three in the morning" the "streets ... thick with snow".^[11] On 31 October 1956, when he was fourteen, his mother died of an embolism after a mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her breast cancer.^[12] The loss of his mother at fourteen was later a point of relation with John Lennon, whose mother Julia also died when he was young, after being struck by a car when he was seventeen.^[13]

McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s and encouraged his son to be musical. He kept an upright piano in the front room that he purchased from Epstein's North End Music Stores.^[14] His father, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat tuba.^[15] Jim McCartney used to point out the bass parts in songs on the radio, and often took his son to local brass band concerts.^[16] Jim gave his son a nickel-plated trumpet for his fourteenth birthday,^[17] but when rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg,^[18] Paul traded it for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar, realising it would be too difficult to sing, "with a trumpet stuck in your mouth."^[17] Being left-handed, he found right-handed guitars difficult to play, but when he saw a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert, he realised that Whitman played left-handed with his right-handed guitar strung the opposite way. He then restrung his guitar and after some adjustments, found it easier to play.^[17] McCartney wrote his first song ("I Lost My Little Girl") on the Zenith, and an early tune which became, "When I'm Sixty-Four", on the piano, for which, despite his father's advice, he took only a couple of lessons for, preferring instead he says, to learn "by ear."^[14] He was heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues music, and has stated that Little Richard was his idol when he was in school. The first song he ever sang on a stage in public was "Long Tall Sally", at a Butlins holiday camp talent competition.^[19]

Musical career[link]

1957–1960: The Quarrymen[link]

McCartney met Lennon and the Quarrymen at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton on 6 July 1957, when he was fifteen years old.^[20] He joined the group soon after, and formed a close working relationship with Lennon. Harrison joined in 1958 as lead guitarist, followed in 1960 by Lennon's art school friend, Stuart Sutcliffe on bass.^[21] By May 1960, they had tried several new names, including "Johnny and the Moondogs" and "the Silver Beetles", playing a tour of Scotland under that name with Johnny Gentle. They changed the name of the group to "the Beatles" in mid-August 1960 and recruited Pete Best on drums prior to the first of what would be five engagements in Hamburg, Germany.^[22]

1960–1970: The Beatles[link]

McCartney (left) in 1964 with Beatles bandmates Harrison and Lennon

From August 1960 the Beatles were booked by Allan Williams to perform in Hamburg, and during their extended stays there over the next two years, they performed as the resident group at two of Bruno Koschmider's clubs, the Indra, then the Kaiserkeller, and upon returns to Liverpool, at the Cavern Club.^[23] In 1961 Sutcliffe left the band, and McCartney reluctantly became their bass player.^[24] The Beatles recorded their first published music in Hamburg, performing as the backing band for Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie".^[25] The recording would later bring them to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success, Brian Epstein, who became their manager in January 1962.^[26] Epstein eventually negotiated a record contract for the group with Parlophone in May of that year.^[27] After replacing Best with Ringo Starr in August, they became increasingly popular in the UK during 1963 and in the US in 1964, in a frenzied adolation that became known as "Beatlemania",^[28] during which McCartney was dubbed, "the cute Beatle", according to Miles.^[29] In 1965 they were each appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).^[30]

After the recording of the Beatles hit "Yesterday" (1965), McCartney contacted the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in Maida Vale London, to ask if they would record an electronic version of the song, but he never followed up.^[31] When visiting artist John Dunbar's flat in London, he would bring along tapes he had compiled at then girlfriend Jane Asher's home,^[32] mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that Dick James made into a demo for him.^[33] Heavily influenced by American avant-garde musician John Cage, he made tape loops by recording voices, guitars, and bongos on a Brenell tape recorder, and splicing the various loops together. He reversed the tapes, sped them up, and slowed them down to create the effects he wanted, some of which were later used on Beatles' recordings, such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" (1966). He referred to the tapes as "electronic symphonies".^[34] In 1966 he rented a ground floor and basement flat from Starr at 34 Montagu Square, to be used as a small studio for spoken-word recordings by poets, writers (including William S. Burroughs) and avant-garde musicians.^[35] The Beatles' Apple Records then launched a sub-label, Zapple with Miles as its manager, ostensibly to release recordings of a similar aesthetic, although few releases would ultimately come of the endeavour as Apple and the Beatles slid into business and personal difficulties.^[35] After touring almost non-stop for a period of nearly four years, and giving more than 1,400 live performances internationally,^[36] the group gave their final commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour.^[37]

They continued to work in the recording studio and before their break-up in 1970 produced what some critics consider to be their finest material, including the innovative and widely influential albums Revolver (1966), Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), The Beatles (1968) and Abbey Road (1969).^[38] Between 1963 and 1970 the group released twenty-two UK singles and twelve LPs, of which seventeen of the singles and eleven of the LPs became number ones.^[39] The band topped the US Billboard Hot 100 twenty times, and recorded fourteen number one albums.^[40] Lennon and McCartney became one of the most celebrated songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.^[41] McCartney's contributions to the band's hit song's include: "Can't Buy Me Love" (1964), "Yesterday" (1965), Paperback Writer" and "Eleanor Rigby" (1966), "Hello, Goodbye" (1967), "Hey Jude" (1968), "Get Back (1969)", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" (1970).^[42]

In March 1969 he married Linda Eastman, whom he first met in May 1967. The couple had their first child together, Mary, named after Paul's late mother, in August 1969.^[43] In October 1969 a rumour surfaced that McCartney had died in a car crash, but it was quickly proven false when a November Life magazine cover featured him and his family with the caption, "Paul is Still With Us."^[44]

1970–1981: Wings[link]

McCartney during a Wings concert, 1976

After the Beatles break-up in 1970 McCartney continued his musical career, releasing his first solo album, McCartney, in 1970, which contained the stand-out track "Maybe I'm Amazed", written for Linda.^[45] With the exception of some vocal contributions from her, it is a "one-man album with Paul playing all the instruments" himself, writes Beatles biographer Bill Harry.^[46] In 1971 Paul collaborated with Linda on a second album, Ram, a UK number one which included the co-written US number one hit song, "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey".^[47] Later that year, the pair were joined by ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell to form the group Wings, and release their first album together, Wild Life. In September 1971 the McCartney family added a second child, Stella, named in honour of Linda's grandmothers.^[48]

In 1973 McCartney wrote Wings' first US number one, "My Love", included on their second LP, Red Rose Speedway, and his collaboration with Linda and former Beatles' producer George Martin resulted in the James Bond theme song and Wings hit, "Live and Let Die", which was nominated for an Oscar, and earned Martin a Grammy for his orchestral arrangement.^[49] In 1974 Paul wrote a second US number one for Wings, "Band on the Run"; the acclaimed album of the same name, Wings' third, was a massive success that became their first platinum LP.^[50] They followed with the chart topping LPs, Venus and Mars (1975) and Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976).^[51] In September 1977 a third child was born to the McCartneys, a son they named James,^[52] and in November, the Wings song "Mull of Kintyre" was fast becoming "the best-selling single in UK history", writes Beatles biographer Peter Doggett.^[53] Achieving double the sales of the previous record holder, "She Loves You", the track would go on to sell 2.5 million copies, and hold the UK sales record until the 1984 charity single, "Do They Know It's Christmas?".^[54] In 1977 he released Thrillington, an orchestral arrangement of Ram, under the pseudonym Percy "Thrills" Thrillington^[55], with a cover designed by Hipgnosis.^[56]

While London Town (1978) and Back to the Egg (1979) passed with little critical or commercial notice,^[57] the latter involved McCartney's collaboration with a rock supergroup dubbed, "the Rockestra", though credited to Wings, that included Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Gary Brooker, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham.^[58] Active through 1981, Wings produced seven studio albums, five of which topped the US charts,^[59] as well as their live triple LP, Wings over America,^[60] one of few live albums ever to achieve the top spot in America.^[61] They also recorded six US number one singles including, "Listen to What the Man Said", "Silly Love Songs, "With a Little Luck", and "Coming Up".^[62]

1982–1989[link]

In 1980 he released his second solo LP, the self-produced McCartney II, and as with his first, he composed all the music and performed the instrumentation himself. The album contained the hit songs "Coming Up", "Waterfalls", and "Temporary Secretary".^[63] In 1982 he collaborated with Stevie Wonder on the Martin produced number one hit, "Ebony and Ivory", included on McCartney's Tug of War LP, and with Michael Jackson on "The Girl Is Mine" from Thriller.^[64] The following year he worked with Jackson on the US number one, "Say Say Say", and he earned a UK number one with the title track of his LP release that year, "Pipes of Peace".^[65]