Paul McCartney - McCartney (1970) - Part Two

ALBUM 1 - Paul McCartney - McCartney (1970)

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1. The Lovely Linda
2. That Would Be Something
3. Valentine Day
4. Every Night
5. Hot As Sun / Glasses
6. Junk
7. Man We Was Lonely
8. Oo You
9. Momma Miss America
10. Teddy Boy
11. Singalong Junk
12. Maybe I'm Amazed
13. Kreen-Akrore

Now we come to a brilliant song.  Every Night is great in every way.  Macca has given the song just what it needs.  Sometimes he can be accused of going too far with a song or, in some cases, not far enough.  Here he has hit the nail on the head.


Musically I think the playing is just first rate, and his vocal is so great at getting over the emotion of the song.  The instrumentation is so laid back, and has a great feel to it.


I think the song says so much about his state of mind at the time, even though he was probably just coming up with lyrics that came to him without really even thinking about it.  Most songwriters do that I think.


He was at a loss as to where he belonged now.  The Beatles had basically split up, and he was having trouble working out what to do.  He is however finding peace in his relationship with Linda, where he wants to spend so much time with her, as he states in the end of the verses -


"But tonight I just want to stay in and be with you."


There is a sort of chorus in the song with the "ooh ooh" bit, even though there are no actual words as such.  I don't think that there need to be any words though, because the song is about emotion, and the chorus puts over that emotion perfectly.

Every Night chords

Musically it is McCartney at his best.  It is in the key of E, but he is throwing in some fantastic chords, including the main E7 chord for the verses, which is a fantastic shape for it as well.  If I am being honest, I had never thought of using that until I saw it while learning the song for the blog.  I have placed a chord chart for the song up for people to look at if they are interested.


He happily plays around with chords that use the flattened seventh of the scale (D instead of the D#), in the B minor chord variants, as well as the E7. The F#7 chord would normally have an A# in it as well (which in the key of E is a sharpened 4th note).  In this song though none of the instruments actually play that A# that would normally be in the chord.  I know, I'm waffling here.


Something I will point out though is a trick that McCartney, Lennon and Harrison all use in their songwriting, and it is a good trick to take note of.  They use both major and minor versions of the same chord in the same part of a song.  In this instance, Macca uses both the minor and major B chords, and also the major and minor F# chords.


Essentially the verse is E7 and Bm7/E, doubled, and then A, F#m, Bm, F#7, B, and then E.  The F# chord in the key of E major would normally be the minor chord variation, and the B chord in this key would be the major variation.


After this the chorus is basic E (I), A (IV), E, and B7 (V), followed by the riff around the E chord.

Next time we will be looking at the second instrumental on the album - 'Hot As Sun/Glasses'

Links -
My Version of Every Night
Paul performing Every Night live
Wings performing Every Night Live at Glasgow in 1979
Paul McCartney Chord songbook at Amazon UK