How Many People

Song facts

“How Many People” is a track from 1989 album “Flowers In The Dirt“. Written in Jamaica while on holiday – hence the reggae feel to it -, first recorded in the studio in January 1988, it was “dedicated to the memory of Chico Mendez, Brazillian Rain Forest Campainer” in the booklet of “Flowers In The Dirt” released in June 1989.

From Wikipedia:

Francisco Alves Mendes Filho, better known as Chico Mendes (December 15, 1944 – December 22, 1988), was a Brazilian rubber tapper, trade union leader and environmentalist. He fought to preserve the Amazon rainforest, and advocated for the human rights of Brazilian peasants and indigenous peoples. He was assassinated by a rancher on December 22, 1988. The Chico Mendes Institute for Conservation of Biodiversity (Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade), a body under the jurisdiction of the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment, is named in his honor. […] Paul McCartney dedicated the song “How Many People” from his 1989 album Flowers In The Dirt to the memory of Mendes. Moreover, composer Clare Fischer, who had himself supplied orchestral arrangements for McCartney’s album (“Distractions” and the unreleased “The Lovers That Never Were”), dedicated a composition from his own 1989 album to Mendes, namely “Xapurí” (after the so-called ‘City of Chico Mendes’), from Lembranças (Remembrances).

Paul McCartney in “Club Sandwich 52, Summer 1989“:

Me in Jamaica, on holiday…you can’t help going reggae, everybody is, the climate is. I’ve been a reggae fan since the early Tighten Up albums… this very simple song called ‘How Many People’ came out. I thought it was too simple.

Last updated on April 29, 2021

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