10 Great Paul McCartney Solo Songs You Need To Listen To Right Now
6. Say Say Say Ft. Michael Jackson (Pipes Of Peace – 1983)
On Paul’s 1983 album, Pipes
Of Peace, the world’s biggest pop star and the future owner of all of
Paul’s music (awkward), Michael Jackson, returned a favour he owed to Paul for
his appearance on Thriller’s 'The Girl Is Mine'.
MJ appears twice on Pipes Of Peace, dueting with PMC (not sure if that works, but hey ho) on 'The Man', which isn’t great, and Say, Say, Say, which really is.
The tune carries the influences of both men within it; the pop elements that would define Jackson’s career and the heavy production values that had made McCartney a star in his latter Beatles years.
A great pop number that blends both men’s distinctive voices together beautifully, 'Say, Say, Say' was voted one of the top ten collaborations of all time by Rolling Stone (there they are again). It's a brilliant earworm that showed that Paul could produce the big crowd-pleasers in amongst the creative, off-beat songs that he had become known for.