My Favourite Beatles Song
My Favourite Beatles Song
Mull of Kintyre – Eoghan Lyng
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Music journalist and author Eoghan Lyng is back to talk about Mull of Kintyre, the Wings single Paul McCartney wrote with Denny Laine. Drawing from his own 2018 interview with Laine, Eoghan talks about the Campbeltown Pipe Band recording outdoors in one take, the elegant simplicity of the song, and why it remains the biggest-selling non-charity single in the UK ever.
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Original music by Joe Kane
Logo design by Mark Cunningham
Welcome to my favorite Beatles song, the podcast where we celebrate the music of the Beatles with a distinguished guest. I'm Tim Tucker, and with me today is author Owen Ling. Welcome back, Owen.
SPEAKER_03Distinguished guests? I I don't know if that applies to me. You're very, you're very, very kind. I had an absolute blast uh the last time I was on the show. Obviously, the last time I was on the show is on it was sad circumstances, it had coincided with the death of my father. But I but it was a it was a nice pick-me-up. Uh uh, I think I needed it at that time, and uh hopeful, and I'm in a better place now than I was at at that time.
SPEAKER_04So that's good. That's good to hear. And and tell us, I mean, I you know, you last time you talked about your Beatles origin story plus your writing George Harrison in the 70s. Anything Beetle-related happened to you since we last spoke?
SPEAKER_03Uh yes. So in on the last episode I mentioned, I'd been to Cannes for the first time, so I've been twice since then. And this year I went to a screening, a press screening of the new Soderbergh documentary on John Lennon, which if you don't know, it's about the last it's literally the last interview Lennon gave the day he was murdered. And Soderberg interviewed the three journalists and then uses an arc an impasto of archives and clips, but he also uses uh some AI sequences, which caused a lot of upset. A pal of mine came out saying that film is morally bankrupt. I added criticisms. What was lovely for me was I actually sat beside Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian, and uh being a Guardian reader for all my life, I mean this was a I I did something really gauche. I said, Can I take a photo with you? And he he said, Of course. And he's a lovely, lovely, lovely guy, and I think he likes the Beatles too. So uh but he I asked him his opinion of the film, and he said he he said he thought the film would be braver with the AI, but it's just this stupid ten-minute sequence that looks cheap and tacky. And I'm turning people off the movie before it's even released, but what the hell?
SPEAKER_04Would you is there any redeeming features of that movie that you'd um you say it's worth watching for?
SPEAKER_03Uh some of the historical footage is pretty good. Like when they're talking about disco, they bring up, you know, uh clips of Blondie, some of the clips of the Beatles sound fantastic, and uh like they spruce up the audio. Like when they there's a live clip of Please Please Me, and McCartney's bass sounds incre il it sounds like the Who playing it. I didn't I didn't realise his bass was that loud and fat and um mainly since since the last episode I've been working on a book on Queen, which is coming out pretty soon.
SPEAKER_04Uh yes, you weren't allowed to talk about it, I think, last time. But yeah, now you can reveal it is a book about Queen.
SPEAKER_03Yes. I've always been a fan of Elizabeth Windsor, and uh no, I can't I can't finish that joke. I'm an Irishman. Uh it'll be out it says November 30th, but I think if you order it now, you'll have it just before Christmas. I think that's a safer bet. Oh, that's fantastic. Yes, thank you. Uh it's being sold on the Waterstones website. I mean Waterstones is a fabulous bookshop. Yes, excellent.
SPEAKER_04Oh, good. I'm looking looking forward to reading that.
SPEAKER_03Back in January, I went to Kinsale for the for I did some reporting on the Beatle weekend in in Kinsale. And it was wonderful. I got to meet people like Richard Mills, uh Mark Lewison, the Nothing Is Real guys. Uh, of course, you know Stephen Cockroft.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um so that that that was an absolute blast of a weekend. Just uh I I very stupidly went to my hotel room when when as they did a walk around Kinsale, and they walked into a church where a vicar came out singing Eleanor Rigby and uh Lewis and caught it on thumb. And I mean it's just a lovely, lovely clip. And I could have been there, but I went back to my hotel room to to relax.
SPEAKER_02I I feel like kicking myself now of kinter on his strong in front of sea.
SPEAKER_04The song you've chosen to speak about is Mullock and Tire, the single released by Wings, written by Paul McCartney and Denny Lane, recorded in August 1977, and finished in Abbey Road in October 1977, and released 11th of November 1977 in the UK as a double A side with Girls School, and in the US on the 14th of November 1977. It was a huge success in the UK and elsewhere. Not in the US actually, but in UK it went to number one and stayed there for 11 weeks, sold over two million copies, and overtook, in fact, She Loves You as the biggest UK single ever. Not so in the US, it reached number 45 there, but in 10 other countries it reached number one. So uh yeah, tell us a bit about what led you to choose this one.
SPEAKER_03Well, part of it is because I had the honour of interviewing Danny Denny Lane. Uh so that was it's kind of it's a bit weird. It was almost exactly five years to the day before he died because I interviewed him in December 18 and he died in December 23. Uh so that I don't wanna I don't want to think too much about that. It's a bit macabre. But uh yeah, he was lovely, and I wanted to make sure that uh we brought up Molly Kintyre and he was very happy to talk about it. He was very happy to talk about the London Town album. Uh I also when I did the interview with Delane, when I brought up the Japanese Tears album, I asked him uh did Paul McCartney contribute? No! So the the hurt of like the 1980s and the Japanese bus was still there all these decades. Uh, you you know well about the Japanese bust then with Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's there's been sort of bad publicity that seems to have come from him, although he denied it else uh other times, didn't he, about the the royalties to his song.
SPEAKER_03Yes, I I think that I believe he had to he had to sell the publishing to McCartney uh because he was so in debt, uh, which is a very, very sad place to be in. But uh I mean I'm gonna I'll plug my pals Alan and Adrian, uh the the McCartney legacy is where is the best place to go for the for information about those books. I mean that I think I believe they're working on the third one as we speak.
SPEAKER_04We know from the piano denim demo that's available from Paul McCartney from 1974 that Paul had this kicking around as a tune, certainly the chorus, and then some elements of the verse. But it's Denny Lane who helped him finish it off, isn't it? With um it sounds like he wrote most of the lyrics, or at least worked, collaborated with Paul on most of the lyrics to the verses.
SPEAKER_03Uh 100%. I think I think there's a real step up in terms of if you look at many of the collaborations with McCartney, like footprints, beautiful, beautiful words, Eric Stewart a co-write. Uh My Brave Face, very clever, Elvis Costello co-write. And here, Malok and Tyre like this pictorial depiction of Scotland and Denny Lane co-write. So I think I think that he benefited from just having someone else in the room, and even if it was just for him to push up his game.
SPEAKER_04And Danny Lane, a seasoned artist in his own right, isn't he? Someone that he respected from his time in Moody Blues.
SPEAKER_03Well, if I if I can read out from the from the interview, he actually says, I knew Paul from the Moody Blues. We did their second tour, he was always a friend, I would knock around with Paul in London, and then it's writing with him wasn't a chore, nothing negative. He'd come up with an idea, and so would I. I wasn't as prolific, but that's beside the point. I wasn't thinking at the time I had bits, but he al he was always encouraging me to put bits together. And then so he said, I like Django Reinhardt. And Mull of Kentar came about. We were in Scotland. I went round to Paul's one day and he had the chorus. That's the song, I think. The chorus we were inspired by Scotland, so I helped the lyrics. The Campbelltown pipe band made the song it is. Billy Connolly liked it a nice endorsement, otherwise, he would have slagged us off on stage. And then he said something this made me uh he said that uh where we were, you could see where Scotland ends and Ireland begins. And I was like, Oh, Denny, that's lovely.
SPEAKER_02Oh mistrolling in from the sea. I think to be here.
SPEAKER_03Oh god, yeah, yeah. No uh yeah. I actually this is going to be very embarrassing, but when I was 15 and doing my junior cert, uh the junior cert's I guess practice exams for their exams to have if you need to drop out of school or whatever. Anyway, so I had to do I was mid-voice break, puberty, yada yada yada. And Mollifkantire is one of the songs I asked the brother Ben to help me with on the piano, and um I was there singing to the to the to the poor examiner. I feel so sorry for the poor woman who had to listen to this adolescent mid-voice rick who could not hit the notes. Uh but uh the but I've always loved the song. I mean, I was uh I've it's it's I'm sure it's in the UK, you it's always on the radio, it's in cafes, it's and I think that's perhaps part of the reason for the descent from certain quarters, that it was just so ubiquitous that they learned to hate it. But it's also quite punk rock of Paul McCartney that that where everyone else was, you know, putting their hairs up and going like the the police, you know, sing singing through Copeland are accomplished prog jazz musicians, and they felt they had to you know in the police on those early records. And what does Paul do instead of doing that? He plays he plays like a sweater jumper with bagpipes, and I mean that in itself is standing out from the crowd and being punk.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because I mean that was his reservation, wasn't it? He didn't he wasn't convinced it would be a big single. I mean, everyone who heard it said this is could be massive. He he's quoted as saying a few times I don't think it will, but um, and as you say, people often bring out is the the height of punk. In some ways, you say it's the most punk, but it's sort of not very punk in sort of attitude. Although I was looking at the chart just on that. There aren't many. I mean, if you go back to 1977, you've got when it enters um when it gets to number one, you've got two, four, six, eight motorway, which I don't think's punk, but people used to wrap it into there. You've got Mary of the Fourth form by the Boomtown Rats. But the top songs are Abba's Name in the Game, and of course, Your Beloved Queen's We Are the Champions, which it kept off number one.
SPEAKER_03Yes, I've I've read stories that Freddie was not happy that Wings kept you know outselling them and and you know, telling them, you know, no, no, get send them out, get sell more of our singles, you know. You know, this McCartney lad won't that rotter, we need to outsell him and all that.
SPEAKER_04One of their big songs, Queen, isn't it? I mean, that was that's one of those that should really have been a number one, but um kept off by wings.
SPEAKER_03I think also the fact that they put that as a double A side with We Will Rock You, that might have been the reason. A bit like with The Beatles with Pay Lane and Strawberry Fields, it might have yes. I I'm so I was born in the 90s, I'm so envious of people who grew up with those songs. What did I grow up with what was the big hit when I was 19? Gangman style. I mean, what a dreadful record! And I you could literally in 2012 you couldn't go anywhere without Huttman Gangman style. It's try and people in 77 are spoiled rotten with these just these anthems.
SPEAKER_02Sweep through the heather, like dear in the glen, can we be back to the dying day?
SPEAKER_04Have you got any idea of talking to Danny or and anyone else why it was such a hit? Because it does seem counterintuitive to some extent.
SPEAKER_03Uh I think Denny was as if I I think he was as surprised as anyone that was such a big hit. Uh I think he just saw it as a song he wrote with Paul McCartney. Uh he Denny Lane was also eager to talk about Deliver Your Children, which he co-wrote with McCartney. Uh it's on the London, it's a fabulous song on the on the it's got these beautiful uh flamenco guitar styles that he picked up in Spain. I think I think everyone just thought they'd written a good song. As Noel Galler says many, many times, he's uh he's uh he's a I write good songs and then it's up to the it's up to the public. I remember when Noel Gallery released his first album, he thought uh The Death of You and Me was gonna be a huge hit, but instead it was another song on the album called uh What a Life that was the that was the big big hit.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I mean I uh the Campbelltown Pipe Band we need to talk about, which is obviously the bagpipes, play a huge role in lifting the song. And and there's something, even for non-Scots like myself, there's something deeply nostalgic and almost um you know uh atavistic. That's what I'm thinking about, about about that sound that it kind of feels primal almost. I wonder if that's a big part of its success.
SPEAKER_03I think I also like Paul and Denny, the the voices sounds blend so well together. I'm I don't think I don't think Danny Lane gets the credit he deserves as a backing vocalist or harmony, like it's he's as good as George Harrison in that regard. Uh we all uh you hear it all over the Tug of War album.
SPEAKER_04I I love Linda's back backing vocals as well.
SPEAKER_03I think yes, I I don't think she got the credit she'd ever got as a as a backing vocalist. I know at the beginning she was quite rusty, but she gave it she gave it a good go, and yes, she I I think Paul's McCartney's records have really been lacking ever since her death. There's always that voice missing. It's just charming, uh it's it's not too ornate, you know. You don't it doesn't have multiple chords, it doesn't have uh it doesn't have like a long piano solo, it's just it's a nice, honest song about Scotland, and I think that's does them great credit. And I think it's very easy to get into, it's very easy for anyone of any age to get into.
SPEAKER_04I think the uh simplicity is the one thing it does have in common with punk tunes, because I mean I was looking at the chords, and I don't it was even more simple than I realised. It's just basically A to D with an E thrown in, and then it um, you know, and that's it. I mean it's it's the sort of three chords you could play a punk song with, but just strummed super simple with um Denny does a nice little alternative inversion to it, but apart from that, it's pretty straightforward. It changes key, of course, which is another way it lifts when the bagpipes come in because they don't play in that key. So uh it goes up to D, and that again lifts the song, I think. I mean, Denny, in a not your interview, I don't think, in another interview, he says he does credit those pipes as adding an enormous amount to the atmosphere of the song because, as you said, they were recorded outside. They use the RAK mobile studio. So you get this sort of natural echo off the hills, um, seven pipers and seven drummers, all done in one take. Does sound like quite the session, doesn't it? Uh, for atmosphere. Um, and yeah, at at one in one interview, Danny Lane said this was the selling point, it's what lifted the record, that outdoor ambience. The Campbelltown Pipers, some of their members, I'm not sure who said that uh, and I think this might have been a really uh astute point, that there will be a strange Scotsman around the world who will find this, you know, uh appealing. And um Paul McCartney initially thought, well, are there enough of those to make it a hit? But it's interesting that in ten countries it reached number one, and in a lot, I mean, he only plays it live in places like New Zealand, Canada, Australia, and of course Britain, doesn't he? He never plays it live in the US, Paul McCartney never has done. And he always brings a pipe band on to do it, a bagpipe band. It does feel like there's a community of expats that have uh have tuned into this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean it's as you said, it's got a charming Celtic melody. I think it's also just about being in love with your hometown, and that's a any of us can or your adopted home, and that's just a feeling any of us can have that the the where where you've chosen to lay your hat. Orson Wells had that great quote of uh your hometown isn't where you're born, but the place where you choose to die. And I think it's just got it's just got a simple central message, it's all very lovely.
SPEAKER_04I'm not a football, huge football fan, but Nottingham Forest fans sing uh Mullof Kintyre. It's been uh it's their official pre-match song since 2008. Uh with the lyrics changed to the Miss Rolling In from the Trent rather than the Csrolling In from the Trent.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it works.
SPEAKER_04That's one of those accolades for a good song, is if it becomes a football song, isn't it? Hey Judez, of course. All together now was at one point, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_03Um I read I read a book on Oasis, and there's there's a funny story where Noel Gallagher meets this guy who's who this you know posh English guy who says, Could you imagine a song becoming a football anthem? And Noel says, That's the best compliment the world, mate.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, there is. I mean, the the fact that people can sing along so easily to it, because uh you know, we've said already this song is extremely simple to play. Yeah, it's also within most people's range to sing, isn't it? It's not like you know, um, I'm sure you did a great job of it back then. I did not.
SPEAKER_03Um but no, I I get what you mean, I get what you mean. It's not maybe I'm amazed where it's jumping up and down and yeah.
SPEAKER_04Paul McCartney has quoted, let me find the quote. He said, It sounds very Christmassy and New Yeary, it's kind of glass in your a veil in your hand, leaning up against the bar of a tune.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, of course, of all the Beatles, he was the one who returned to Liverpool the most to meet up with family. And I think I believe there's a clip of him of him in the 70s meeting up with his aunts and uncles and people, and they're just singing along with Brandy. And it doesn't matter that Paul McCartney has more money than all these people combined. It's just a Liverpool family, uh and they're just having good times and just just, didn't he?
SPEAKER_04He loved the sing-alongs, yeah. Yeah, it has you know differing receptions from Beatles and Paul McCartney fans, but it's astonishing to me that it's still one of the top four best-selling singles of all time in the UK. Um, it's the biggest selling non-charity single, but so the other one's a Band-Aid, which by the way, Paul McCartney was on the B side of, and of course, Bohemian Rhapsody, although the re-release of Bohemian Rhapsody was a charity single, wasn't it? So yeah. It's you know, it's a big hitter of a single.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. I uh listened to it last night and um
SPEAKER_04uh i i watched a clip of of mccartney from 2018 playing it live and uh i know i know sam wiles said that he was at a at a concert where mccartney played it and sam was like i felt so british and and uh people have differing differing responses to it i'm i know in scotland i i'm sure they see it as like uh there's like harry enfield sketch where he plays a scot guy and he says oh the beat's greatest song was mullock and tiger and of course uh McCartney credits John Lennon with bringing the Scott bring him to Scotland yeah that's right there's uh an interview where he said my love of Scotland I got off John Lennon John had relatives in Scotland and when he was a kid he'd gone to a croft I'd never done the likes of this the furthest we got was Butlins so I'd hold heard him talk about it and got involved with the swirl of the mist oh that's lovely and he got his farm in 1966 and did nothing with it for a few years until Linda encouraged him to um to renovate it and uh and live there.
SPEAKER_03Linda was fantastic for him you know she she got him she got him to start on a solo career she convinced him to turn vegetarian when I interview youth in 2018 he said he got on really well with Linda that she was like such a like a mother hippie kind of figure.
SPEAKER_04Absolutely and um Muller Kinty was played at a funeral as the refrain of it was played at a funeral which is a very moving thought.
SPEAKER_01Yes are there any other Beatles or beetle related songs that are high on your list of go-tos at the moment?
SPEAKER_03Oh that's a very good question. Well so since you've you've broadened the palette to have solo Beatles now I will uh I will turn to to John Lennon's Out the Blue which is just such a beautifully romantic and fragile song I mean uh I mean what a description of love that that that song is. It's very without it being too dippy, without it being too Disney fied it's just a it's just an impassioned and powerful sense of yearning. It's on the Mind Games album which might be his weakest album but this is definitely a highlight high point. And as for the other ones I would actually say that Ringo released possibly the finest album of his career in 2025 with the have you heard of the lookup album? Yeah absolutely yeah if if it wasn't the finest it was certainly like it was like his best work since Goodnight Vienna. I think I I think that's an objective fact he just he sounds fantastic he's drumming really well it's a it's a wonderful genre of country which suits him really really well and I will pick a song from that album that I really like and I will say Thankful which I I suspect it's about his him him overcoming alcoholism because it's about it's about overcoming hurdles and the fact that Barbara Bach was by his side throughout all that turbulent time in his life and it's certainly a love song to towards her.
SPEAKER_04So um your queen book you mentioned at the beginning is out hopefully in November you can pre-order it on the Waterstones website I'll put a link up there and presumably all other good bookshops.
SPEAKER_03Well hopefully and some d some less less reputable ones I have interviewed Brian May in the past so I've believed I think that gives me a little that gives me a sense of authority and I have interviewed people who've worked with Queen like Fred Mandel who played the who played Synthesizer on I Want to Break Free and Steve Howe who played a guitar solo on Innuendo and Mike Moran who might or Mike Moran depending who wrote a whole album with Freddie Mercury. And I might as well have this one plug la uh last December Darleasy did this very fine issue on George Harrison and he very kindly asked me to write about the George Harrison album. So if if if anyone wants to read that you can there's high quality pieces about George Harrison's writings. It's a it's a very nice sister companion to the McCartney issue that came out in 2023. How would people keep in touch with you and your writings uh if they want to follow you my favourite social media is letterboxed because it's very polite and we can just talk about cinema and that's a good place. I'm on Blue Sky I had to I had to delete my Twitter because it was just turning into an absolute hellhole thanks to Mr Musk so blue sky Instagram letterboxed great I'll put it in the show notes.
SPEAKER_04Well listen it's been amazing talking to you about Paul McCartney of the Beatles and specifically Mullock and Tire thanks so much it's been great.
SPEAKER_03Well thank you very very much indeed and uh I have to leave now the mist is coming in from the sea.
SPEAKER_04One, two, three four thanks for listening to my favourite Beatles song. If you like the podcast please consider giving it a rating or review on your favourite podcast platform. This helps me to reach new listeners. You can follow the podcast on X.com, Instagram and Facebook. Look for the links in the show notes. Thanks to Joe Kane for the fantastic music and Mark Cunningham for the logo design. I'll see you next time