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Released in 1970

Teddy Boy

Written by Paul McCartney

Last updated on April 5, 2022


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 1968, when Paul McCartney was 26 years old)

Master album

Related sessions

This song was recorded during the following studio sessions:

Related interviews

Related articles

Teddy Boy” is a track from Paul McCartney’s debut solo album, “McCartney“, released in April 1970.

Another song started in India and completed in Scotland and London, gradually. This one was recorded for Get Back film but later not used. Rerecorded partly at home…(guitar, voices and bass)…and finished at Morgan. Linda and I sing the backing harmonies on the chorus and occasional oos.

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

From Wikipedia:

“Teddy Boy” is a song by Paul McCartney included on his first solo album McCartney, released in April 1970. According to Ernie Santosuosso of The Boston Globe, it describes the way in which a close relationship between a widow and her grown son is destroyed by her new romantic interest.

Background

Paul McCartney wrote “Teddy Boy” during the Beatles’ 1968 visit to India. In 1970, McCartney described the song as, “Another song I started in India and completed in Scotland, and London gradually. This one was recorded for the Get Back film, but later not used.

RecordingJanuary 1969

McCartney first played the song to the other Beatles on 9 January 1969. The Beatles did not return to the song until 24 January, recording several takes. This recording includes some instances of guitar feedback. During one rendition of the song, John Lennon is heard calling “do-si-do” and other square-dance steps, something both musicologist Walter Everett and Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn ascribe to Lennon’s boredom with the song. Musicologist and writer Ian MacDonald writes that any attempts at recording the song “were sabotaged by Lennon’s continuous burble of parody“. MacDonald describes “Teddy Boy” as an “annoyingly whimsical ditty – notable solely for its key change from D major to F sharp major“.

The Beatles recorded “Teddy Boy” again on 28 and 29 January.

RecordingDecember 1969 – February 1970

McCartney recorded the McCartney version of “Teddy Boy” at his home in Cavendish Avenue, St John’s Wood. He began the album around Christmas 1969, recording on a recently delivered Studer four-track tape recorder, without a mixing desk, and therefore with no VU displays as a guide for recording levels. McCartney described his home-recording set-up as “Studer, one mike, and nerve“. He had finished recording the basic track of “Teddy Boy” by 12 February 1970, when he brought his tapes to Morgan Studios. These tapes were transferred from four- to eight-track tape, adding an audible hiss to the recording. At Morgan Studios, McCartney completed the track by overdubbing drums, a bass drum and clapping.

Release and receptionThe Beatles

The Beatles asked engineer Glyn Johns to mix an LP from their January 1969 recordings. Johns selected take two of “Teddy Boy” from 24 January for his first mix of Get Back. Authors Doug Sulpy and Ray Schweighardt view this selection as “poor judgement” on the engineer’s part. Johns mixed the track for stereo on 10 March 1969 at Olympic Sound Studios. Bootleg copies of the mix circulated under titles such as Hot as Sun and Kum Back. In October 1969, Ernie Santosuosso obtained a version of Johns’ Get Back and reviewed it for The Boston Globe, writing of “Teddy Boy” that “‘Mama, Don’t Worry, Your Teddy Boy’s Here’ offers a persistent repetition of theme larded with square dance calls and deft guitar chord changes.” As there was no footage of the Beatles playing “Teddy Boy” in the Let It Be film, Johns removed it from his second version of Get Back, replacing it with “Across the Universe” and “I Me Mine“. Lewisohn writes that it is also possible that on 4 January 1970 McCartney told Johns that he was about to re-record the song for his solo album.

Due to the Beatles’ dissatisfaction with Johns’ two attempts, Lennon passed the Get Back tapes onto Phil Spector. Although Johns omitted “Teddy Boy” from the LP, Spector, assisted by engineers Peter Brown and Roger Ferris, made two mixes of the song on 25 March 1970. He kept one at its full length and edited another down from 7:30 to 3:10. This mix, which Sulpy and Schweighardt describe as a “butchered version”, has never been officially released. A later mix included on the 1996 compilation album Anthology 3 comprises three portions of the 28 January take joined to two segments of the 24 January take.

Release and receptionMcCartney

In his album review for the Chicago Tribune, Robb Baker wrote that “‘Teddy Boy’ exists only as a bad example of the story song genre that McCartney usually does so well.” Jared Johnson of The Morning Call said that the Beatles’ version as heard on bootlegs had “substance, force and conviction“, while “The finished product, though more refined, is shallow and superficial, threatened with fading away into nothingness.” According to Santosuosso, the song “tells of filial alienation from a widowed mother who falls in love again. The recurring refrain is the guts of this song.” […]


One night, I mixed a bunch of stuff that they didn’t even know I’d recorded half the time – I just whacked the recorder on for a lot of stuff that they did, and gave them an acetate the following morning of what I’d done, as a rough idea of what an album could be like, released as it was. There was one thing that only happened once, a song that Paul played to the others, which I believe he later used on one of his ensuing albums, called “Teddy Boy”, and I have a tape of Paul actually teaching the others this song. I loved it, and I was hoping they’d finish it and do it, because I thought it was really good. But my version does go on a bit, and they’re just going round and round, trying to get the chord sequence right, I suppose, and the best bit is where John Lennon gets bored – he obviously doesn’t want to play it anymore, and starts doing his interjections. They came back and said they didn’t like it, or each individual bloke came in and said he didn’t like it, and that was the end of that.

Glyn Johns – From “And In The End” by Ken McNab

We’ve now put together a version, an edit of one of the takes of us trying it, which sounds interesting. You can hear on it that the band wasn’t very interested in it. I don’t know why. Maybe I hadn’t finished it enough or something. Maybe it was just tension coming in. The bit I’d like to keep actually was John sort of making fun of it. He starts towards the end of it, going, ‘Grab your partners, do-si-do,’ so we’ve kept that on. And while it was, in some way, indicative of friction, it was good-humoured friction.

Paul McCartney – About the version in The Beatles Anthology, 1996

Some of the songs on “McCartney” I had tried with the Beatles and they hadn’t worked out. There was one called Teddy Boy – the unsuccessful Beatles version is on Anthology. The Beatles were breaking up and nobody had any patience, whereas in the earlier days we might have said, ‘Why don’t we try it like this?’ So I thought, ‘Right, I’ll do it on my own album’.

Paul McCartney – From “Wingspan: Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run“, 2002

‘Teddy Boy’ was good. I’d tried to make that with the Beatles but we didn’t have enough patience with each other. It got on the Anthology — there was just enough to make a proper version. No one was having much patience with me, it never got made. So I pulled it over into this.

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

My second cousin Ted is the son of my cousin Betty Danher, who was a big influence on me musically. […] She was married to a guy called Mike Robbins. They brought their kids up surrounded by a lot of music.

Ted was their first boy, so that’s partly why I refer to him as ‘Teddy Boy’. It’s an affectionate term, as I’m just over ten years older than him. But the Teddy Boys were also the ruffians of my youth, the guys who wore long frock coats with velvet collars, drainpipe trousers and crepe-soled shoes. […]

So, Ted is the jumping-off point for the song, but as usual, it takes its own cues and puts on its own show. The ‘tales about his soldier dad’ are pure imagination. The lines ‘Teddy boy’s here / Teddy’s gonna see you through’ are what I imagined Teddy saying to his mum when he was trying to support her. […]

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

From the press release of “McCartney”, April 1970
From THE BEATLES GET BACK TO LET IT BE WITH SPECIAL EDITION RELEASES | The Beatles

Lyrics

This is the story of a boy named Ted,

If his mother said, Ted be good, he would,

She told him tales about his soldier dad, but it

made her sad, then she'd cry, oh my !

Ted used to tell her he'd be twice as good, and he

knew he could, ‘cos in his head, he said


Momma don't worry now

Teddy Boy's here,

Taking good care of you

Momma don't worry your Teddy Boy's here,

Teddy's gonna see you through.


Then came the day she found herself a man,

Teddy turned and ran, far away - O.K.

He couldn't stand to see his mother in love with

another man, he didn't know oh no !

He found a place where he could settle down,

And from time to time, in his head, he said…


Momma don't worry…

…and she said,


Teddy don't worry, now mummy is here,

taking good care of you…

Teddy don't worry your mummy is here,

mommy's gonna see you through.


This is the story of a boy named Ted, if his

mother said, Ted be good, he would…

Variations

Officially appears on

See all official recordings containing “Teddy Boy

Bootlegs

See all bootlegs containing “Teddy Boy

Live performances

Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert.


Going further

The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present

"Teddy Boy" 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.

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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.

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