Three songs for Valentine’s Day: “My Valentine” by Paul McCartney

“My Valentine” was written by Paul in February 2008, during his first holiday with Nancy Shevell.

McCartney: “I had fallen in love with my lady, Nancy, but we weren’t a couple yet. We went on holiday to Morocco, to a very quiet little hotel that I knew, but since we weren’t together yet, we weren’t in the same room (…) But, damn, it rained all the time. The nice thing was that I was getting to know Nancy better. I kept apologizing to her for the rain, as if it were my fault. And she: ‘It doesn’t matter.’ And that way of hers was so sweet that it really struck me.”

Paul found a piano in the hotel lobby and began strumming.

McCartney: “There was a piano all alone in the lobby, it was after lunch in the afternoon, all the hotel guests had left, the staff were cleaning. I sat down at the piano and started playing. I found the melody and most of the lyrics in about half an hour.”

And almost no one noticed!

McCartney: “I sat there and no one bothered me. Maybe it was the weather, it was pouring rain outside and most of the hotel guests must have fled to their rooms. I wouldn’t have done it if I hadn’t been overcome by the desire to play the piano. Of course, I had looked carefully in advance at how many people were around, and when I saw that it was empty, I dared. A lone waitress was watching me and a couple of local boys. When I realized that it would be a good song, I went back I rushed to my room, grabbed my Handycam, put it on the piano and filmed myself playing the song in the hall. Later in my room, I watched the footage, wrote down the chords and had ‘My Valentine.’”

Here are the lyrics to “My Valentine”

Romantic song whose title recalls the classic “My Funny Valentine” (1937) by Rodgers and Hart, it is one of the few original songs recorded during the “Kisses on the Bottom” sessions. Producer Tommy LiPuma had encouraged McCartney to write some tracks for the album. LiPuma: “(I told Paul) you should write some things, and if they were within the scope of what we’re doing, it would be nice to have some originals from you. A few months before we went into the studio, he sent me a demo of ‘My Valentine,’ with just him and the piano.”

Despite the simplicity of the song, it took a while to get the arrangement right and the first attempt was not successful: a remake.

LiPuma: “I didn’t like how it turned out. It was a little too lush and there was kind of a break in the song with a flute. It seemed forced. About a month later, we rerecorded it at Avatar in New York, and it worked, there was no doubt about it.” This scrapped version arranged by John Mandel, was released via iTunes in November 2012 on Complete Kissesa special version of Kisses on the Bottom.

In its final version, “My Valentine” has a languid and dreamy atmosphere. Recorded at Avatar Studios, New York, in May 2011, it features Paul’s heartfelt vocals, performed in low tones, with the band creating a sweet, understated backdrop. It is curious to note a vague resemblance of the melody of the verse to “Love of the Loved”, one of Lennon and McCartney’s first songs.

During the sessions A very special guest was called to overdub Abbey Road: Eric Clapton added some acoustic guitar parts. His contribution features some phrasing during the verses and the middle eight. At 2:03 Clapton embellishes the song with a solo in his unmistakable style: essential and with the use of slidingis a variation on the melody of middle eight and follows what McCartney had prepared as a guide.

Paul was happy to be reunited with Eric: a flashback to the sixties.

McCartney: “When we were recording (‘My Valentine’) we were at Abbey Road, and I said, ‘You know Eric, the last time we worked here together, was when you were sitting over there playing guitar on George’s song ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps.’ So, there was a gap of about forty years, but it’s only ten yards physically.”

The final touch was the addition of an orchestra, conducted and arranged by Alan Broadbent, LiPuma’s old acquaintance from the days of Natalie Cole’s “Unforgettable”. A fairly large orchestra was employed and things went well.

Broadbent: “We used ten first violins, eight second violins, six violas and six cellos. It was particularly exciting to conduct, because the tone is uniform, all the instruments play together in the song. And I must say that even though the score was relatively simple, everyone played the parts with involvement and without pretension.”

The song “premiered” at Paul’s wedding to Nancy Shevell on October 9, 2011, when he performed it for her late in the evening. Paul played a version of “My Valentine” alone on the piano during an interview with David Frost in November 2012. The song has become a staple in McCartney’s concerts: starting fromOn the Run Tour from 2012, “My Valentine” has been played 261 times so far. On some special occasions, Paul sang it using a megaphone, to confer on the performance an intimate and vintage atmosphere.

Michael Buble recorded a cover of “My Valentine” for his album Higher (2022) at McCartney’s suggestion. Paul was in the studio when the singer recorded his part, where he faced some problems. Bublé: “It was a long day, we were playing live, and Paul was very calm and patient with me. He helped me so I could tell the story the right way. Less is more for him. I’m dramatic, so I have the urge to exaggerate. I was taking liberties and he didn’t like it. He had to take a long walk from the control room and put me back on track a couple of times.”

Bublé, for example, got the words of a verse wrong. In fact, he sang “I’m waiting on a sign” instead of “I’m waiting for a sign”. Paul stopped him and asked Michael, “Can you explain to me what you’re waiting for?” Buble replied, “Yes. I’m waiting by a sign,” to which McCartney asked again, “So are you standing by a sign, waiting? Or are you waiting for a sign instead?”, making the singer realize his mistake.

McCartney re-recorded “My Valentine” as a duet with Barbra Streisand for her album “The secrets of life: partners, volume Two” (1965)

This text is taken from Luca Perasi’s book “Music is ideas” – vol 2.