10 Incredible Paul McCartney Songs You’ve Never Heard
8. Rode All Night
The story goes that Paul McCartney heard The Who’s Pete Townshend on the radio, talking about a new song that was the heaviest thing he’d ever written. Not to be outdone, Macca decided to write his own extra heavy track for current Beatles’ project, The White Album.
The result was the influential proto-metal classic Helter Skelter, a track that saw drummer Ringo Starr hit his kit so hard that he famously ended up with, “blisters on me fingers!”
A few years later the now ex-Beatle was at it again, producing a track that seemingly attempts to out-Helter Skelter Helter Skelter. A two man jam between McCartney and drummer Denny Seiwell, Rode All Night is nearly nine minutes of galloping hard rock. Nimble guitar and pounding drums provide the backing for a caterwauling, repetitive vocal, the whole thing sounding permanently on the verge of falling apart.
Between lung busting choruses, Macca puts on a lugubrious, disaffected tone at odds with the lyric as he sings, “I don’t feel so bad any more/I’m over it.” The contrast between the song’s mostly rough, powerful vocals and these more off-hand, downbeat interludes makes Sir Paul sound like some kind of proto Kurt Cobain.