Paul McCartney says ‘Fuh You’ could have been called ‘Shag You’

The Beatles legend has revealed his cheeky new single could have been more explicit

Paul McCartney has discussed his new single ‘Fuh You’, revealing it could have been called ‘Shag You’.

The Beatles bassist released his latest solo album, ‘Egypt Station‘, last week (September 7). In a four-star review, NME said: “Mostly, ‘Egypt Station’ is a record that’s going to delight McCartney’s fans and – importantly – Beatles fans who might sniff at some of his solo work.”

Speaking to NME for this week’s Big Read, McCartney said his grandchildren were big fans of the track and weren’t old enough to notice the song’s innuendo. “To tell you the truth, my grandchildren just love it,” he said. “That’s cos I played it and they’re not going to notice what you’ve noticed and what I’ve noticed, that sort of schoolboy, playing around stuff.

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“So my grandkids didn’t notice at all, but one of my daughters, who’s a mum, came downstairs when I was playing it in the kitchen and said, ‘Did I just hear what I think I heard?’ And I said: ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.‘”

He went on to explain that the line was originally a lot more explicit. “Actually, the truth is, we had that line that wasn’t finished, and I was just joking around,” he said. “‘I wanna know how you feel/I want a love that’s proud and real/you make me want to go out and steal/I wanna just…’ and I was kidding around, so I said, ‘I know, ‘I just wanna shag you’! That’s pretty good.’ And everyone said, ‘Nooo’. So I said, ‘I know, well make the line, ‘I just want it for you‘, but it’s going to sound like something else.’ The truth is you did that a lot in The Beatles.”

Asked if it was true the band used to hide swear words in their songs, McCartney replied: “Yeah, I remember when we were doing the backing vocals in ‘Hey Jude’, someone says ‘Fuck off’ or something, and you can hear it in the final mix. We didn’t mean to leave it in, but we didn’t ever erase it. And we used to do things like we’d be singing ‘dit dit dit dit dit’ as a backing vocal and we’d change it to ‘tit tit tit tit tit’ for our own amusement. It’s schoolboy stuff. It’s pathetic really!

“But it gives you a laugh at that moment, and that’s valuable. You don’t want to sit around being too serious with music. The thing is, in any job to relieve the boredom, if you’re ever likely to feel it, it’s good to have little in-jokes.”

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Meanwhile, McCartney recently revealed Taylor Swift and Donald Trump both inspired ‘Egypt Station’ in different ways.

He cited the pop star and her relationship with her fans as an influence on the track ‘Who Cares’, a song about being bullied.

Trump was on the musician’s mind when writing ‘Despite Repeated Warnings’, an impassioned attack on climate change deniers. “People who deny climate change… I just think it’s the most stupid thing ever,” McCartney said.

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