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Released in 2001

From A Lover To A Friend

Written by Paul McCartney

Last updated on January 21, 2021

Album This song officially appears on the Driving Rain Official album.

Timeline This song was officially released in 2001

Master album

Related session

This song was recorded during the following studio sessions:

Related interviews

“From a Lover to a Friend” is a track from Paul McCartney’s 2001 album “Driving Rain“. 

Recorded on 20th February 2001 onto 16-track analogue tape then loaded into Logic Audio for overdubs. Paul played piano then overdubbed Hofner bass and the vocal. Abe played drums. Rusty played 12-string electric guitar with a capo on the 1st fret. Gabe played piano.

From the liner notes of the album, and from paulmccartney.com

‘From A Lover To A Friend’ was a patchwork of a couple of bits I’d had, which I liked but I didn’t think I’d finished up the songs. That turned out to be a good thing because I got together with my man Eddie at my studio in England and we were going through these demos; I’d liked this bit and liked that bit and we just stitched together a couple of bits that weren’t meant to go together but they just felt like they would go together. Interestingly for me, just to make one or two cuts work for the edit and not chop into the vocal, I had to add a strange extra bar in, so the collage had some odd bars – instead of it all being 4:4, it was like 5:4 in places or 2:4, which was something I like. And when I played the demo to the guys everyone was all very keen on faithfully following all those little 5:4 bars, just to give it a different musical structure. The other thing about the demo was that part of it was a rather, shall we say tired late-night demo, a bit out-of-it demo, but it had a very intimate quality in the voice and so I tried to keep that and not clean up the record so much that I’d lose that lazy late-nightness.

Paul McCartney – From “The Driving Rain interview” published on paulmccartney.com, November 2001

Paul McCartney in "Conversations With McCartney", by Paul Du Noyer:

I had some words on this demo that didn’t make any sense. So I suddenly decided that they did, and just stuck to them. And it’s my favourite track. I began to realise, this is actually a cool idea. Who says words have to make sense? Certainly not poets. There is this thing called surrealism and many of us love it. […] I seriously have no idea what that’s about. Written very late at night, a rather drunken demo, that was. And there’s lyrics in it that aren’t lyrics: ‘Despite too easy ride to see’ is my favourite line.

Conversations with McCartney • Paul du Noyer

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From Wikipedia:

“From a Lover to a Friend” is a song by Paul McCartney, featured on his 2001 album Driving Rain. It was released as a single and spent two weeks on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at #45. It also reached #6 on the Canadian Singles Chart. In the U.S. it became the b-side to his single “Freedom” and peaked at #24 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

Critics saw the song as a ballad in which McCartney tries to come to terms with the death of his wife Linda, singing “let me love again“; McCartney, however, was less certain whom the song was about in an interview on Howard Stern’s radio show. The Guardian called it a “masterpiece… so delicate and honest that it sounds pretty much perfect.“

“From a Lover to a Friend” was recorded on 27 February 2001 with Paul playing bass and piano, Abe Laboriel, Jr. playing drums, Rusty Anderson on 12-string electric guitar, and Gabe Dixon on piano.

Lyrics

And when the time comes around

We will be duty bound

To tell the truth of what we've seen

And what we haven't found

Will not be going down

Despite too easy ride to see

From a lover to a friend

Take your own advice

Let me love again

Now that you turned out to be

Someone I can trust

Someone I believe

Ohh la la la

How can I walk when I can't find a way

I'm in a dilemma

All I want is to tell me

You're going to take it away

From a lover to a friend

Take your own advice

Let me love again

Now that you turned out to be

Someone I can trust

Someone I believe

And what we haven't found

Will not be going down

Despite too easy ride to see

From a lover to a friend

You turned out to be

Someone I believe

From a lover to a friend

Take your own advice

Let me love again

Ohh la la la

How can I walk when I can't find a way

I'm in a dilemma

All I want is to tell me

You're going to take it away

From a lover to a friend

From a lover to a friend

From a lover to a friend

Let me love again

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

See all bootlegs containing “From A Lover To A Friend”

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Live performances

“From A Lover To A Friend” has been played in 1 concerts.

Latest concerts where “From A Lover To A Friend” has been played

Paul McCartney writing

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Notice any inaccuracies on this page? Have additional insights or ideas for new content? Or just want to share your thoughts? We value your feedback! Please use the form below to get in touch with us.

Amanda • 4 years ago

"The movement you need is on your shoulder" these lyrics are not. The words in this song would make a 6 year old blush.

crisstti • 4 years ago

Beautiful and sad song. Great info here.

The PaulMcCartney Project • 4 years ago

Thanks @crisstti !

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