Riding Into Jaipur

“Riding Into Jaipur” is a track from Paul McCartney’s 2001 album “Driving Rain“. 

Recorded 16th February 2001 onto 8-track analogue tape then loaded into Logic Audio for overdubs. Paul played Martin “Backpacker” acoustic guitar then overdubbed Hofner bass guitar and a vocal. Abe played Roland Handsonic with African drum samples. Rusty played tampura then overdubbed Gibson electric 12-string guitar. Gabe played piano. David overdubbed a synth.

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

Making up a song is always a great pleasure, it doesn’t seem like hard work to me. ‘Riding To Jaipur’ – funnily enough the melody for this was written outside of India. I had a back-packing guitar, a little Martin travel guitar that is absolutely slimmed down to nothing and weighs sort of zero ounces. I had one of those that Linda had got me as a prezzie; and I took it when she and I went to The Maldives for a holiday. My particular back-packer – and I haven’t noticed this on other people’s – seems to have a bit of a sound on certain frets like a sitar, and because I was in the middle of The Indian Ocean, the two came together in that song. I didn’t have a title for the song, but when I went to India this year I took a train to Jaipur. It was a very exotic over-night train journey and I did some words that were in the same vein as that original melody. So those two things came together.

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

From Rebeat, November 12, 2004:

“Riding into Jaipur” holds significance in the Paul / Heather [Mills] story: Jaipur, India, is where McCartney bought Mills’ engagement ring. Guess he did choose love over heartbreak in the end.

Lyrics

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

Live performances

Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert.