Deliverance

Song facts

By mixing samples of the 12 songs from Off The Ground, DJ Steve Anderson created “Deliverance“, a song which got success in the clubs late 2012. From the press release, January 13, 1993:

MACCA HAS SECRET “HOUSE” DANCE HIT

Paul McCartney came clean today and revealed that he is the unlikely mystery man behind the new Dance rave Deliverance that has shot straight into the Top 10 club charts.

For the past two weeks, club ravers all over Britain have been asking “who wrote Deliverance?” – the House sensation now riding at No. 9 in the national DMC dance chart.

Thousands of clubbers were doubly frustrated to learn that the secret hit wasn’t available in record shops.

But today Macca admitted the mystery song was his all along.

And although he originally only released it to club DJs for fun, public demand from the dance floors has now forced his record company EMI / PARLOPHONE to allow Deliverance to go on sale from Friday (January 15th).

Rumours had spread through the clubs that Deliverance was the work of a House band based in Brixton. Other gossip had it that the song had emerged out of Manchester’s ultra-hip hit factory, The Hacienda.

But today Paul admitted: “It was me”.

Deliverance – a House dub track inspired by McCartney’s new single Hope Of Deliverance – was mixed by hit-maker Steve Anderson in a revolutionary new way.

Instead of merely remixing the single, Anderson made the song by taking samples of the 12 songs on McCartney’s forthcoming new album Off The Ground and mixing them together.

But the result was so unlike anything Paul has ever done before that no-one guessed the former BeatIe was behind it.

Deliverance was given rave reviews by Pete Tong, the Radio 1 Dance DJ, and disc jockeys in clubs all over the country voted the song a big House hit.

Reviewing the record, Graeme Park – the influential and trend-setting Dance DJ at Manchester’s Hacienda Club dubbed it: “A Housed-up monster Of a groove… absolutely huge regardless Of Who is behind it”.

Said Paul: “I know this song is unlike what people would usually expect from me but I enjoy a good boogie as much as anybody and I didn’t want to ignore the dance audience. Originally it was just a bit of a laugh, something for the clubs, and we kept the name off it. But it seems to have gone down so well in the clubs that people have urged me to put it out on release. I’m really pleased with what Steve Anderson has done with the song, which gives just a nod to Hope Of Deliverance. I’m especially pleased because apparently it’s the first time that anyone has mixed a song in this way.”

Said Steve Anderson: “The idea of making a track from sourcing all the songs on an album is a totally new concept. I’ve never done it before and I’ve never heard of anyone else doing it either. Paul gave me licence to do what I wanted and I’ve been overwhelmed by the response. I’m relieved that Paul’s finally releasing Deliverance because so many people I now have heard it and asked me ‘Where the hell can I get a copy?’”

The two versions of “Deliverance” were first released anonymously on a 12″ promo disc sent to UK club DJs, before being officially released on a 12″ single, including Hope Of Deliverance, and later as B-Sides of one of the C’mon People EP.

A video for Deliverance was directed by Richard Helsop, who later directed the promo film for Biker Like An Icon.

I was asked to make a video for this re mix of Pauls song in 1993 so i used some of my 8mm home movies and found footage to create a visual journey and mood piece. it features footage i shot in Argentina and st lucia and london from my travels . The last image is of a young Paul Mccartney which is the only referance to him in the video as it was released under a different name.

Richard Heslop

From Club Sandwich 66, Summer 1993:

It was in February that MPL commissioned London-based director Richard Heslop to put together a video to promote ‘Deliverance’ on television. “I had a meeting with Paul down at Docklands during the tour rehearsals,” says Richard. “He told me not to play safe, basically, and that I could do the job in any “way I saw fit. He didn’t want to appear in the video at all, wanting it to be a pure interpretation of the music.” 

Richard had been recommended to Paul on the basis of two videos he’d done for the Shamen, including the one for ‘Ebeneezer Goode’, which – without resort to a defined storyboard – employed a rapid succession of disjointed images to produce, more than anything else, the right feeling. Or something like that anyway. Whatever, it was a technique of proven success, and one used to very good effect again for ‘Deliverance’ wherein a helter skelter of images -children, travel, kaleidoscopic effects, angular architecture, the ugliness of public disorder and the beauty of nature – somehow contrive to sum up the essence of hope and deliverance. It’s clever stuff, actually. “I chose the images because of the theme of the song,” responds Richard. “It’s a journey, the extremes of happy and sad, of good or bad things overcoming other good or bad things, always using children as the focus because, even in their playing, you see happiness and unhappiness. It also gave me a good excuse to go through all my home movies, 8mm film that I’ve been collecting over the years. I’m in one shot very briefly, my nephew’s in there, my girlfriend and her daughter, some kids at a friend’s garden party and there’s also some footage I shot outside Downing Street during the Poll Tax riots in London in March 1990.” 

As Richard explained earlier, Paul didn’t want to appear in the video. But…a photo of Paul does appear right at the end, and it’s an unusual one at that: a childhood shot, circa late 1940s, showing him with his brother Mike, kitted out in fetching dungarees. “Yes, I did slip in that still at the end,” admits Richard. “I think it rounds it all off nicely, returning the viewer to the childhood theme explored at the beginning.” 

Any fear that Richard had overstepped his bounds was immediately dispelled when he received the McCartneys’ response to the finished video. “They really enjoyed it,” confirms the director, happily. “I got a wonderful fax from Linda which said ‘Love love love the video’ – it’s the first time an artist has ever said thank you to me.” 

And, emphasising their delight, MPL immediately commissioned Richard to put together a second video, for ‘Biker Like An Icon’, which was still being produced at the time of writing. 

Just as ‘Deliverance’ will go down as a sideshow attraction to the main event, meaning that it probably won’t be classified as a pukka McCartney single release, so, likewise, will its’ video sit nicely on the archive shelf alongside the promo for ‘Party Party’ and other such interesting curiosities. For as Paul has shown time and again, rock videos needn’t always promote a single nor be made for any toweringly obvious purpose: as little artistic statements they’re welcome at any time, and for any reason.

Last updated on June 15, 2019