If You Wanna

Song facts

“If You Wanna” is a song from 1997 album “Flaming Pie“. From the liner notes:

Having renewed their friendship – and musical kinship- working on ‘Young Boy’, Paul and Steve Miller combined again, in similar fashion, with ‘If You Wanna’. The song was already a couple of years old at the point of recording, having been composed when Paul McCartney’s “New World Tour” reached Minneapolis, and a day off, in May 1993, which resulted in numerous hours inside a skyscraper hotel room that extended its head into the clouds. Inspired by being in (still then The Artist Known As) Prince’s home city. Paul sat with a guitar and wrote a ‘driving across America’ song.

I wanted to write something that would reflect America, for when you’re driving across the desert on that big road with the flat horizon. I’ll take you for a ride in my Cadillac…I’ll take you to The Coast for a holiday…When they say The Coast, the don’t mean Blackpool

Paul McCartney, from the liner notes of “Flaming Pie”

[If You Wanna is] a very stereotyped American road song. I wrote this when we were in Minneapolis on tour. We were in a skyscraper with its head in the clouds, literally. We had a day off between shows, and I was inspired because it’s Prince’s hometown and I like his stuff. It has simple chords most of the stuff on this album is simple.

I just wanted to write something that was rocking, the kind of thing you could hear when you’re driving across the desert on that big road with the flat horizon. I love all that.

Paul McCartney, quoted in The Beatles Monthly N°253, May 1997

“If You Wanna“ was performed during the soundcheck of the San Antonio concert (on May 29, 1993), after days of being written (the Minneapolis concert was on May 23th).

Last updated on September 24, 2020

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