Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

Linda McCartney was an American photographer who tragically passed away in 1998 aged 56 after a battle with breast cancer.

As the partner of Paul McCartney and his bandmate in Wings, Linda endured much criticism regarding her abilities vocalist and musician.

She was often compared unfavorably to Paul’s former bandmates the Beatles.

Paul, then as he did then, defends Linda’s talent.

“[She’s] very distinctive and she sings well,” Paul shared of Linda’s vocal talents in 2018.

“Her tone is great,” he added, defending her less-than-conventional delivery.

In celebration of recent Linda McCarney’s retrospective art show in the UK and the re-release of her solo 1998 album Wild Prairie, Paul McCartney has now overseen the uploading of a complete collection of Linda’s music videos to YouTube.

(Paul himself sings on more than a few.)

In addition to this McCartney has also provided touching commentaries on each of the songs.

“[This] was the first song Linda wrote,” Paul shares of ‘Seaside Woman’. “Her delight in being exposed to the Caribbean lifestyle inspired this beautiful response. The song was made by Linda and Oscar Grillo into an animated short which went on to win the Cannes Film Festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or.”

“[Oriental Nightfish’] was recorded with Wings up at the old Air London Studios,” Paul recalls. “Linda’s dramatic vocal harks back to the Fifties and Sixties when strange stories were told by acts like The Shangri-Las, The Coasters, and others. It was made into an excellent animated film by Ian Emes which was later objected to by some lady writing to a newspaper to complain about the nudity and its effect on her 5-year-old child. A female figure is seen naked, yes, but come on! – it’s only a harmless drawing, the likes of which have been on view in museums around the world for centuries.” 

“I have always thought of this song as Linda’s fantasy,” Paul reflects of Linda’s 19xx song  ‘Wild Praire’, on which the former Beatle also sings. “Her passion for horses and riding started as a young girl and remained with her all her life. Her tongue in cheek attitude and what we called her ‘twangy’ voice combined to make this joyful little rocker. She recorded it during sessions at EMI Studios in Paris where years before I had done the vocal for ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’. We traveled there shortly after Princess Anne’s first wedding in Westminster Abbey, taking the group van with other band members who at that time included Jimmy McCulloch and Denny Laine. As you can probably hear, we had a ball.”

“If ‘I Got Up’ showed Linda’s strong opposition to oppression, then ‘The Light’ took it a few steps further,” Paul enthuses. “During the last couple of years of her life, we were required to make many trips ‘up to London’ for one treatment or another. We always tried to put the journey time to good use. She and I talked a lot about this album, and the lyrics to this song were finished during one such trip. When we came to record the vocals, which was sadly to be her last, I said half-jokingly, ‘You can’t sing this’. She looked at me with a sparkle in her eye and said: ‘You wanna bet?’ It was her answer to all the people who had ever put her down and that whole dumb male chauvinist attitude that to her had caused so much harm in our society. God bless her… my little baby literally had the last word. She also loved the idea of our son James playing the guitar on it.”

“Linda’s and my involvement,” McCartney states, “with animal rights caused her and our friend Carla Lane to come up with ‘The White Coated Man’. Carla’s poignant lyric explores the vivisection issue. Linda felt deeply about the suffering of innocent animals for mankind’s gain, which still continues to this day and will until we as a society show compassion towards the creatures we share our planet with.”