Despite Repeated Warnings

Song facts

“Despite Repeated Warnings” is a track from 2018 album “Egypt Station“. From “Words Between The Tracks” YouTube series:

I was in Japan and I was reading a newspaper – I think it was like the Tokyo Times, Japan Times or something – and there was something about climate change and it’s typical, you know, the way people are kind of not doing anything about it.

“It’s all gonna be fine, don’t worry, oh yeah sure there’s icebergs melting but it doesn’t matter, it’s not melting in London so don’t worry about it, you know”

And the phrase was in this article, it started off “Despite repeated warnings, they’re not listening”. You know, it’s the idea. I like that phrase “Despite repeated warnings”. I thought, yeah, that sums up a lot of people’s feelings. And then thought, well, what I’ll do is I’ll do a kind of song where I used symbolism and so the person will be symbolic of certain politicians and people who argue that climate change is a hoax, and we know a few. So I’ll do it about that and I’ll get somebody to symbolize one of those people. So I thought, okay it’s a sea captain and he’s steering a boat and he’s gonna go towards the icebergs but he’s been warned, and he’s going because he thinks he’s right, and he thinks they’re all making too much of it. The usual arguments you know…

So that’s what it’s about. It’s a sort of story like the Titanic. If they’d been warned, hey, you’re gonna sink from icebergs, and if the captain said “it doesn’t matter, it’ll be fine”. So it’s that, using that kind of idea, so there’s a sort of mad daft captain, and then there’s all the people on the boat who know he’s got it wrong.

So it’s very symbolic for what’s going on in some areas of politics in my mind. So it’s one of those songs like Band On The Run or Live And Let Die that is kind of episodic and it’s kind of an epic production. That is it, and it is hopefully trying to remind people that climate change is not a hoax, and that we should avoid having a mad captain steering us towards the icebergs.

Paul McCartney

In some other interviews, Paul has been clearer regarding the “certain politicians” he refers to. For instance: 

Beatles legend Paul McCartney has written a song about Donald Trump on his new album. Macca was speaking to students at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) when he made the announcement. While McCartney, 75, didn’t imply whether the song was in favour of the US President or not, he did say that he felt he HAD to write it.

He told students at LIPA : “Sometimes the situation in the world is so crazy, that you’ve got to address it.”

From Liverpool Echo, July 28, 2017

Trump is in there. Not Brexit, it was written before Brexit. But Trump, definitely. It’s more about anyone who would deny climate change. Y’ know, I’m married to an American, I go to America a lot and I have a lot of American family, American friends… and we tend to be liberal. But there’s one or two that you don’t talk to if you’re out having dinner, ‘cos you know they’re gonna stick up for him. I don’t want to be an activist particularly, but if I feel there’s an injustice I want to make myself heard. Putting this guy Pruitt in charge of the environmental agency, a guy who fought against it when he was in the office – it’s so insane. I know who the captain is, I think most people get it.

From  Paul McCartney interview in MOJO October 2018

On a Twitter Q&A in September 2018, Paul explained his goal on making a song about bullying:

You talk about a lot of social issues on the album, such as bullying and global warming. What was your goal or your reasoning for these songs? They’re great.

Oh thanks! They’re subjects that interest me & the nice thing about being a songwriter is you can sometimes make a difference with a song. If you don’t lay it on too thick and become preachy then I think it can influence people’s thoughts in a good way. That’s what I hope anyway!

Paul McCartney

Here is what producer Greg Kurstin has to say about “Despite Repeated Warnings“:

I’ve read that “Despite Repeated Warnings” is a real epic.

It is. That’s in the style of some of Paul’s other epic, extended songs like “Band on the Run” and “Live and Let Die.” These are songs that are epic and orchestral and have many different sections and movements to them. This one was his concept. Lyrically, he could probably tell you what it’s about, but there’s definitely some political references there.

He took the band into the rehearsal room and worked out the structure of it and brought it to L.A. and I worked with them and we tweaked it and worked out the arrangement. It was a long evolution to get it to where it got in the end. A lot of orchestral musicians came in. We had brass players and the Muscle Shoals horn guys came in to do some brass stuff. It was quite the job of getting that together because it was like five or six songs in one. It’s about seven minutes long.

Interview with producer Greg Kurstin, from Rolling Stone, July 3, 2018:

Last updated on December 22, 2019

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