Only Mama Knows - Content

Content

The Rock Radio website leaked a track listing for the album on 12 April 2007. A day later, producer David Kahne stated on the same site that the leaked listing was bogus. In an interview with Billboard magazine in May 2007, McCartney said that the album's material was "in some ways a little bit retrospective. Some of them are of now, some of them hark back to the past, but all of them are songs I'm very proud of." McCartney played mandolin on the track "Dance Tonight". He comments that "In searching the instrument to try and find chords, which I did with the guitar when I was 14, probably, that freshness was brought back." "Ever Present Past", which McCartney called "personal", originally started out as a track called "Perfect Lover". "Ever Present Past" also includes references to the Beatles. In June 2007, McCartney revealed that "See Your Sunshine" "is pretty much an out-and-out love song for Heather. A lot of the album was done before, during and after our separation. I didn't go back and take out any songs to do with her." "You Tell Me" is about McCartney's memories of his previous wife, Linda. "Mr. Bellamy", the sixth track on the album, was thought by online fans to be about McCartney's then-recent divorce.

McCartney invited Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke to play piano on the track, but he declined. The press ran articles claiming that Yorke had "snubbed" McCartney, but Yorke later revealed that he "really liked the song" but felt he would be unable to perform to the required standard. "Gratitude" is reportedly about the divorce between Heather Mills and McCartney. The album features a 5 song-medley, which in an interview with Billboard magazine, McCartney said that it was previously "something I wanted to revisit" as "nobody had been doing that for a while." The medley was a group of intentionally written material, whereas McCartney had worked on the Beatles' Abbey Road which, however, was actually made up of "bits we had knocking around." The medley starts off with "Vintage Clothes", which McCartney "sat down one day" to write, that was "looking back, looking back.", about life. It was followed by the bass-lead "That Was Me", which is about his "school days and teachers", the medley, as McCartney stated, then "progressed from there." The next songs are "Head in the Clouds", about the inactivity while one is growing up, and "House of Wax", about the life of being a celebrity. The final song in medley, "The End of the End", was written at McCartney's Cavendish Avenue home while play was playing on his father, Jim's, piano.

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