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Released in 1970

Maybe I'm Amazed

Written by Paul McCartney

Last updated on August 3, 2025

Album This song officially appears on the McCartney LP.

Timeline This song was officially released in 1970

Timeline This song was written, or began to be written, in 1970, when Paul McCartney was 28 years old)

Master releases

Related sessions

This song was recorded during the following studio sessions:

Related interviews

Some other songs dedicated to Linda

I wrote Maybe I’m Amazed in my early days with Linda. I was sitting in London, playing my piano, and the song kind of wrote itself – reflecting my feelings towards her. It’s remained a favourite of mine.

Paul McCartney, Wingspan, 2002

From Wikipedia:

“Maybe I’m Amazed” is a song written by the English musician Paul McCartney that was first released on his 1970 debut solo album McCartney.

Although the original recording has never been released as a single, a live performance by McCartney’s later band Wings, from the live album Wings over America, was released in 1977; this version became a top-ten hit in the United States and reached number 28 in the United Kingdom.

In 2011, Rolling Stone magazine ranked “Maybe I’m Amazed” number 347 on its “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list.

History

McCartney wrote the song in 1969, just before the break-up of the Beatles. He credited his wife Linda with helping him get through the difficult time. Although most of his debut solo album was recorded at his home in London, McCartney recorded “Maybe I’m Amazed” entirely in EMI’s Number Two studio in Abbey Road, on 15 February 1970.

McCartney played all the instruments: guitars, bass, piano, organ and drums. At 0:44 into the track, “you can hear the noise of the drumsticks hitting one another, a detail cleaned up in the 2011 McCartney reissue”. Although McCartney declined to release the song as a single in 1970, it nonetheless received a great deal of radio airplay worldwide. A promotional film was made, comprising still photographs of McCartney, his wife Linda, and daughters Heather and Mary; it aired in the UK on 19 April 1970 on ITV in its own slot, and later as a part of an episode of CBS’s The Ed Sullivan Show.

Reception

Regarded as one of McCartney’s finest love songs, it achieved the number 347 position in the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list compiled by Rolling Stone magazine in November 2004, and is the only solo McCartney song to make the list. In a late 2009 Q&A with journalists held in London to promote his live album Good Evening New York City, McCartney said “Maybe I’m Amazed” was “the song [he] would like to be remembered for in the future”.

In a review for the McCartney album on release, Langdon Winner of Rolling Stone described “Maybe I’m Amazed”, as “a very powerful song”, that states “one of the main sub-themes of the record, that the terrible burden of loneliness can be dispelled by love.” Winner continued to describe the track as “the only song on the album that even comes close to McCartney’s best efforts of the past. It succeeds marvelously.” In a retrospective review for McCartney, Record Collector has highlighted “Maybe I’m Amazed”, along with “Every Night” and “Junk”, as songs that “still sound absolutely effortless and demonstrate the man’s natural genius with a melody”. Joe Tangari of Pitchfork similarly evaluated “Maybe I’m Amazed”, along with “Junk” and “Singalong Junk”, as the “peaks” of McCartney. While McCartney’s former bandmate George Harrison admitted that he did not care for the album, he conceded in an interview that he thought “Maybe I’m Amazed” was “great”.

Live version

A live recording from the 1976 album Wings over America was released as a single by McCartney’s band Wings on 4 February 1977; it reached number 10 in the US on the Billboard Hot 100, and number 28 in the UK. This live version is longer than the original and has a slower tempo.

Record World said, “Already a classic and familiar track, this version comes without the false ending. You’ll be amazed, too.”

Versions of the song can be heard on several other live McCartney albums, including Back in the U.S. and Back in the World. “Maybe I’m Amazed” has become a centrepiece of McCartney’s concerts, along with “Band on the Run” and “Live and Let Die“. Live versions of the song are available on the 2011 reissue of McCartney. […]

Written in London, at the piano, with the second verse added slightly later, as if you cared.

Recorded at EMI, No. 2 Studio. First
1 piano.
2 vocal.
3 drums.
4 bass.
5 and vocal backing.
6 and vocal backing.
7 solo guitar.
8 backing guitars.

Linda and I are the vocal backing group. Mixed at EMI. A movie was made, using Linda’s slides and edited to this track.

Paul McCartney, from the press release of “McCartney”, April 1970

Sometimes we’re a bit daft here. We have a bit of a funky organisation, you know, which isn’t that clued into picking tracks off albums. At the time we thought “Maybe I’m Amazed” was a good track and maybe we should do that as a single, which it probably should have been. But we never did.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Paul Gambaccini, 1970s

“Maybe I’m Amazed” was a big hit and a beautiful song that could likely be covered again and again over the next 50 years.

[Pensive] I wonder. It was for Linda and was about her. It was to try and get a little deeper into a love song: “Maybe I’m amazed the way you hang me on a line, pulled me out of time.” The sort of stuff that you don’t say to a girl except in a song. I think a lot of people relate to it. It’s a quirky song, but people know what it means — it’s the “maybe” I’m amazed.

A straight love song would say, “I’m amazed at the way you love me.” That would be the Sinatra thing, and it would be called, “I’m Amazed.” But the “maybe” is like a guy not quite wanting to admit it.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Billboard Magazine, March 16, 2001

Was “Maybe I’m Amazed” expressly for that record?

Yeah, that was very much a song of the period. When you’re in love with someone – I mean, God, it sounds soppy – but when you are in love, and it’s new like that, as it was for me and Linda with the Beatles breaking up, that was my feeling.  Maybe I’m amazed at what’s going on— maybe I’m not – but maybe I am.  “Maybe I’m amazed at the way you pull me out of time, hung me on the line.”  There were things that were happening at the time, and these phrases were my symbols for them. And other people seemed to understand.

Paul McCartney – Interview with Musician, February 1988

I didn’t think it was going to be an album. It was just me recording for the sake of it. Then I started trying to put a few songs in it, alongside the instrumentals. I got things like ‘Every Night’, and ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, so it started to have validity as a collection.

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

This is supposedly Liza Minelli’s favourite of my songs. I expected her to go for something a bit more ballady. But she really likes this one. It dates from the time, the end of the 1960s, when Linda and I were first living together. […] Through the song was written immediately after The Beatles’ breakup, it was somehow included under the Lennon-McCartney rubric, where it doesn’t belong. It was one of my first solo songs, but because of the deal, it got caught in the publishing net. That was very annoying.

Actually, Linda and I were probably already married, because I can now visualise sitting at the lovely black Steinway piano that we got after our wedding. I was playing on it one day, and this song came to me – the central idea being that there’s so often a split between the inner and outer. […]

In any event, this song isn’t the conventional way of presenting a relationship, or of some of the contradictions that can arise from being in love. That’s maybe why Lizza Minnelli likes it so much. It shows the fragility of love.

Paul McCartney – From “THE LYRICS: 1956 to the Present“, 2021

Perhaps my favourite was ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ because Paul was doing all these crazy freestyle drumming noises using his voice – basically Beat boxing years before it had been invented! There’s some of this in the ‘Maybe’ remix on Twin Freaks and scattered throughout some of the other tracks

DJ Hellraiser – about his remix of “Maybe I’m Amazed”, from the Twin Freaks album, 2005
“I can now visualise sitting at the lovely black Steinway piano that we got after our wedding. I was playing on it one day, and this song came to me” – From Paul McCartney on Twitter: At home in London, April 1969. Photo by Linda McCartney from the ‘McCartney’ LP artwork
From the press release of “McCartney”, April 1970

Lyrics

Baby I'm amazed at the way you love me

all the time.

and maybe I'm afraid of the way I love you

Maybe I'm amazed at the way you pulled me

out of time, and hung me on a line, and maybe

I'm amazed at the way I really need you.

Middle

Baby, I'm a man, maybe I'm a lonely man

whose in the middle of something

That he doesn't really understand

Baby I'm a man maybe you're the only woman

who could ever help me,

Baby, won't you help me to understand.

Maybe I'm amazed at the way you're with me

all the time,

and maybe I'm afraid of the way I leave you,

maybe I'm amazed at the way you help me

sing my song,

right me when I'm wrong,

and maybe I'm amazed at the way I really

need you.

Middle

Baby I'm a man, (REPEAT)…

Variations

Officially appears on

See all official recordings containing “Maybe I'm Amazed”

Bootlegs

See all bootlegs containing “Maybe I'm Amazed”

Related films

Videos

Album One Hand Clapping (2 LP edition)

Concert Dec 13, 2010 in New York

Live performances

“Maybe I'm Amazed” has been played in 614 concerts and 3 soundchecks.

Latest concerts where “Maybe I'm Amazed” has been played

See all concerts where “Maybe I'm Amazed” has been played

Going further

The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present

The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present

"Maybe I'm Amazed" is one of the songs featured in the book "The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present," published in 2021. The book explores Paul McCartney's early Liverpool days, his time with the Beatles, Wings, and his solo career. It pairs the lyrics of 154 of his songs with his first-person commentary on the circumstances of their creation, the inspirations behind them, and his current thoughts on them.

Buy on Amazon

Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989

Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989

With 25 albums of pop music, 5 of classical – a total of around 500 songs – released over the course of more than half a century, Paul McCartney's career, on his own and with Wings, boasts an incredible catalogue that's always striving to free itself from the shadow of The Beatles. The stories behind the songs, demos and studio recordings, unreleased tracks, recording dates, musicians, live performances and tours, covers, events: Music Is Ideas Volume 1 traces McCartney's post-Beatles output from 1970 to 1989 in the form of 346 song sheets, filled with details of the recordings and stories behind the sessions. Accompanied by photos, and drawing on interviews and contemporary reviews, this reference book draws the portrait of a musical craftsman who has elevated popular song to an art-form.

Buy on Amazon

The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73

The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969 – 73

In this first of a groundbreaking multivolume set, THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1: 1969-73 captures the life of Paul McCartney in the years immediately following the dissolution of the Beatles, a period in which McCartney recreated himself as both a man and a musician. Informed by hundreds of interviews, extensive ground up research, and thousands of never-before-seen documents THE MCCARTNEY LEGACY, VOL 1 is an in depth, revealing exploration of McCartney’s creative and personal lives beyond the Beatles.

Buy on Amazon

If we modestly consider the Paul McCartney Project to be the premier online resource for all things Paul McCartney, it is undeniable that The Beatles Bible stands as the definitive online site dedicated to the Beatles. While there is some overlap in content between the two sites, they differ significantly in their approach.

Read more on The Beatles Bible

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michael • Jul 06, 2020 • 5 years ago

I think Maybe I'm Amazed is one of the best songs ever written expressing feeling toward someone. I have a question on though. In the live version toward the end it sounds like he is says Hey Mone or mon ami before he says maybe .... What is he saying? I can't find it anywhere but you can definitely hear it in the song.

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