Find My Way

Album: McCartney III (2020)
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Songfacts®:

  • Living through the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has been a strange experience for all of us. This exuberant anthem finds Paul McCartney directly addressing those stressed out by the troubled times.

    You never used to be afraid of days like these
    But now you're overwhelmed by your anxieties
    Let me help you out, let me be your guide
    I can help you reach the love you feel inside


    McCartney explained to The Sun that the song explores "the idea of trying to stay positive." He added that when he was a child he loved uplifting songs, so he took that on board for this tune. "In 'Find My Way,' the me character is singing about how he's confident he won't get lost at night, but he's also talking to the person filled with anxieties," Macca explained. "So I suppose, in a way, I'm trying to encourage them to keep their head up and get through this thing."
  • The song is the lead single from McCartney III, the former Beatle's 18th solo release. Recorded during the coronavirus lockdown, the record serves as a continuation to his two eponymous solo LPs, 1970's McCartney and 1980's McCartney II. Like the previous two McCartney albums, he played all the instruments and assumed the role of producer.
  • McCartney explained that while living lockdown life on his Sussex farm with his family, he kept himself busy working on some music in his home studio. One day he returned to an unreleased track from the early '90s, "When Winter Comes," and crafted a new passage for the song, creating both "Long Tailed Winter Bird" and "Winter Bird / When Winter Comes," which bookend the album.

    After completing those tunes, McCartney wondered what to do next. "I had some stuff I'd worked on over the years but sometimes time would run out and it would be left half-finished so I started thinking about what I had," he explained. "Each day I'd start recording with the instrument I wrote the song on and then gradually layer it all up; it was a lot of fun. It was about making music for yourself rather than making music that has to do a job. So, I just did stuff I fancied doing. I had no idea this would end up as an album."
  • Roman Coppola directed the video, which sees McCartney in his home studio recording each element of the song. The shoot used 46 different cameras to capture the musician on every instrument and from every angle.

    Roman Coppola is the son of film director Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) and brother of Sofia Coppola.
  • McCartney III debuted at #1 on the UK albums chart. It was Sir Paul's first solo long player to top the UK tally since Flowers in the Dirt reached the summit in 1989.
  • Beck recorded an interpretation of the song for McCartney III Imagined, a re-worked version of McCartney III. The new offering sees Beck providing additional vocals and instrumentation.

    Speaking on Zane Lowe's Apple Music 1 show, Beck explained how he turned McCartney's upbeat pop-rock tune into a funkier track with a chill groove: "He just sent me that particular tune, so I just went right into it. The way I work with remixes is I'll take the vocal and then I'll just start from scratch.

    I'll just build a whole new song. And that particular song, I actually changed it from major to minor, so I had to do a little bit of altering, but I think it served the groove a bit.

    And also Paul did the album himself as well, playing on the instruments. So it's sort of done in the spirit of the record that he made. I think that's what is great about remixes is to completely take liberties and take the song completely somewhere unexpected."
  • Paul McCartney explained to Uncut magazine that he wrote this at the beginning of the coronavirus lockdown. "It was a very scary time," he said. "Other scares we've had - SARS, avian flu - they seem to happen to other people. But this was happening to everyone, people you knew, everyone in the world. Some of my friends, some people I knew were close to going under with it."
  • Andrew Donoho (Janelle Monae, The Strokes, Khalid) directed the video for the Beck-featuring version. It employs deep fake technology to swap Beck into the body of McCartney. We see the faux ex-Beatle dancing and popping in the halls of a hotel.

Comments: 1

  • Lynn from East Coast, UsaThanks for the song facts - I only found the Beck/McCartney video today and really liked it, although the deep-fake Beck-McCartney was a bit too convincing and a tad unnerving.
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