Bip Bop

The weakest song I have ever written in my life.

Paul McCartney

“Bip Bop” is the second track from Wings’ debut album, “Wild Life“, released in 1971.  It was the first song of the album to be recorded (July 24th), one of the last ones to be mixed (October 17th); and, strange thing, was recorded in mono.

Aside from the version recorded with the full band, there is also one acoustic & instrumental version that has become “Bip Bop Link“, placed towards the end of the album.

I had a very simple thing going on with my guitar, my bass string, just plonking on it, a simple blues thing. We are very interested in playing chunky music, music that doesn’t particularly say anything. We’re not too serious; we like to have a bit of a bop.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles: Off The Record 2 – The Dream is Over: Dream Is Over Vol 2” by Keith Badman

Bip Bop’ is just a song I wrote. It’s the one our baby likes. She knows it and it’s easy for her to sing. It might be ‘Flip Flop’, you know. It could be anything, but it’s ‘Bip Bop’.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles: Off The Record 2 – The Dream is Over: Dream Is Over Vol 2” by Keith Badman

“Wild Life” is often considered as a low-point in Paul McCartney’s career, with “Bip Bop” considered as the nadir of his compositions. Paul agrees and doesn’t keep the song high in his own esteem.

When you allow yourself to be playful, the morning after or the month after or the year after, you can just think, Oh, maybe that was a bit too playful.

Paul McCartney

It just goes nowhere. I still cringe every time I hear it.

Paul McCartney

Do you think there’s any merit to the frequent charge that your post-Beatles music has gotten too soft?

Yeah, I’m sure it’s true. You can’t get it right all the time. If there’s been a fault with my stuff, I think some of it was unfinished. Looking back on some of it now, I think, “You didn’t finish the bloody thing.” So . . . yeah, I might have been a bit soft, and some of it might have been a bit unfinished. And sometimes a critic will say, “That’s really lousy” – and I’ll tend to agree with him: “He’s right, it’s not very good, that one.” I know there are quite a few tracks on my albums that I just don’t like now. Like “Bip Bop,” off Wild Life – oh, God, I can’t listen to it; it just goes nowhere. But occasionally a good one comes along, and occasionally there’s a little wave on the little millpond, and that makes it all worthwhile.

Paul McCartney – From RollingStone, September 11, 1986

I remember saying to Trevor Horn that I really hated the songs from that period.  And he asked which ones.  “There’s a terrible little thing on Wild Life called Bip Bop”, I said, “It’s just nothing”.  And he said “You’re kidding, man, that’s one of my favourites!”.  My son’s been playing it recently and I think it’s a cracking little track.  I’d gone with the current opinion at the time, that it wasn’t much good.

Paul McCartney, Record Collector, June 1997

What’s the worst song you’ve ever written, then? “Bip Bop. The lyrics are fucking awful,” he grins, and then starts singing: “‘Bip bop, bip bip bop, Bip bop, bip bip band, Dig your bottom dollar, put it in your hand…’ But[producer] Trevor Horn told me, ‘That’s one of my favourites’. I can’t hate it that much, can I? There must have been a reason I liked it in the first place.”

Paul McCartney – From Q Magazine, May 2015

You mentioned while you were remastering the track that you were perhaps a little embarrassed by the lyrics?

Well, definitely ‘Bip Bop’, I was, yeah. I mean, you know, we didn’t get good reviews for this because I think people were expecting something more sort of Beatle-like and I was purposefully digging my heels in saying, ‘We’re not gonna do that’. Just like an imitation of The Beatles. I didn’t feel like that was a good way to go. 

Paul McCartney – From paulmccartney.com, October 29, 2018

That’s my theory, that in years to come, people may actually look at all my work rather than the context of it following the Beatles. That’s the danger, as it came from Here, There And Everywhere, Yesterday, The Fool On The Hill, to Bip Bop, which is such an inconsequential little song. I must say, I’ve always hated that song.

Paul McCartney – From “Conversations with McCartney” by Paul du Noyer, 2016

Lyrics

Variations