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- Album This song officially appears on the Mirror Mirror Official album.
- Timeline This song has been written (or started being written) in 1986 (Paul McCartney was 44 years old)
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Song facts
“Code of Silence” is a song written by Eric Stewart and appearing on the latest album from 10cc, Mirror Mirror. Paul McCartney is credited as follows in the liner notes: “Strings,electric piano,frogs,crickets and percussion“.
Eric Stewart, from CultureSonar, December 3, 2018:
The second track on my album [Eric Stewart / 10cc: Anthology] is “Code of Silence” which came about when Paul was in my music room. He had come around for lunch. We went to the music room where I could go to record. He started playing a beautiful string section, then put down an electric piano part. I said it was brilliant, and he left it with me. I did the vocal and sent it to him. He liked it and said, “hope I get credit” [laughs]. He did put the backing down, so, of course, he did!
Eric Stewart
“Code of Silence” [was] a lovely song that Paul McCartney got me to record. He just sat there with me one day and started playing a keyboard thing and I said, “That’s beautiful!” And he goes, “I’ll put a little simple bass part on it”, and then that sounded great. Then he said, “Have you got a good electric piano sound?”, I said, “Yeah”, he said, “Okay, patch it into the mixing console, let’s see what I can do”. He put that bit on and by the time he finished that I said, “Paul, that is brilliant, that’s brilliant”, and then he says, “Okay, well you finish it then. Let’s see what you can come up with”. We did it one afternoon after having a lovely big lunch and a couple of glasses of wine and then he left it and left me with it, It was such an inspirational thing for me to work on.
Eric Steward, interview with Amped, October 2017
[…] Code of Silence, you know, the one that I’d written with him, started writing with him, and then he said ‘Well you finish it and see what you come up with’, and that’s what I came up with, Code of Silence, and I really loved that track too because, you know, it started just from sitting down with him and him playing the most beautiful string section and then adding a little bass thing on it and a very ordinary little electric piano, just banging a chord, but when it was finished, he played about two minutes of it and I said ‘That’s brilliant, that’s brilliant’, you know, and he said ‘Well alright, you carry on with it, let’s see what you come up with’, and I carried on with it myself and came up with the words and the guitar solo, I extended it from two minutes to about six minutes, but he liked it. So there we go, it’s a Stewart-McCartney song, or McCartney-Stewart…
Eric Stewart, from SuperDeluxeEdition, October 2017
Last updated on May 26, 2020
Lyrics
Deep in the night
I can hear you calling my name
How can I try to help you woman
If you go on hiding your pain
Baby, Baby, the tears on your pillow are real
You can't go on pretending to me
When I see the pain that you feel
A code of silence, is a dreadful thing
It can make you feel harder
It can keep you hanging on a string
Here in the darkness
When I hear you calling my name
A code of silence is a deadly game
It's a deadly game (what's that you say)
It's a deadly game (speak to me now)
It's a deadly game (deadly game)
Lost in your dreams
Trouble on your face in the pale moonlight
Nowhere to run you've got to let me know
Where you are standing tonight
Baby Baby Baby
I know that you're hurting inside
Open your heart
I know that we can make it
If you talk to me now
A code of silence, is a deadly thing
It can make you feel harder
It can keep you hanging on a string
Here in the darkness
When I hear you calling my name
A code of silence is a deadly game
It's a deadly game (what's that you say)
It's a deadly game (speak to me now)
It's a deadly game (deadly game).....
Officially appears on
Official album • Released in 1995
5:39 • Studio version
- Paul McCartney :
- Crickets, Electric piano, Frogs, Percussion, Strings
Live performances
Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert.
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