The Lovely Linda
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- Album This song officially appears on the McCartney LP.
- Timeline This song has been written (or started being written) in 1969 (Paul McCartney was 27 years old)
Song facts
“The Lovely Linda” is the opening track of Paul McCartney’s debut solo album, “McCartney“, released in April 1970. From Wikipedia:
Paul McCartney wrote “The Lovely Linda” in Scotland during 1969, when he and wife Linda Eastman were living at their farm, High Park, in Campbeltown. The song is dedicated to McCartney’s first wife and was a reply-of-sorts to Beatles bandmate John Lennon’s public declarations of love for his wife, Yoko Ono. “The Lovely Linda” was released as the opening track on McCartney’s eponymous debut solo album, and was the first song taped for the album. McCartney recorded the composition shortly before Christmas in December 1969, in order to test his then-new 4-track recorder, which he had installed in his home studio in London. At 42 seconds, it is the shortest song in McCartney’s catalogue. […]
When the Studer 4 track was installed at home, this was the first song I recorded, to test the machine. On the first track was vocal and guitar, second – another acoustic guitar – then overdubbed hand slaps on a book, and finally bass. Written in Scotland, the song is a trailer to the full song which will be recorded in the future.
Paul McCartney, from the press release of “McCartney”, April 1970
The full song was never released. As McCartney explained in 2001:
That was when Linda and I first got together. The record is me playing around the house. You hear her walking through the living room doorway out to the garden, and the door squeaks at the end of the tape. That’s one of the songs from my personal experience, with “the flowers in her hair.” She often used to wear flowers in her hair, so it’s a direct diary. I was always going to finish it, and I had another bit that went into a Spanish song, almost mariachi, but it just appeared as a fragment and was quite nice for that reason. It opened the “McCartney” album, so it’s evocative of it now.
Paul McCartney, interview with Billboard, 2001
In the opening track, The Lovely Linda, you can hear the door squeak as Linda came in while I was recording. It was a good take, so we left it in.
Paul McCartney in the “Wingspan” documentary, 2001
Did you feel scared when “McCartney” was released, since that was your debut and the first song was pegged at you?
Linda McCartney: No. I didn’t take it as seriously as I probably should have. I think it was good copy at the lime to slag everything. Everybody was getting slugged, the Beatles were getting slagget. I personally didn’t realize you had to explain yourself a lot once you get in the public eye. I just carried on with my normal life, like I had in New York, and I just got all this slagging. It never really brought me down much, though.
Linda McCartney – From Paul McCartney in His Own Words, by Paul Gambaccini
“The Lovely Linda” was reworked as a classical piece in 1999, and released on “Working Classical“.
In 2001, Paul McCartney improvised a version of “The Lovely Linda” on acoustic guitar which appeared on a radio show to promote the “Wingspan” compilation and on the Wingspan TV special.
On a side note: When The Beatles filmed “Magical Mystery Tour” in September 1967, John Lennon, assisted by George Harrison, directed a sequence at the hotel where Happy Nat the Rubber Man (played by Nat Jackley) chased bikini-clad women around the swimming pool. This sequence didn’t make it into the final film, except for a two-second appearance of a girl in a bikini, nicknamed “The Lovely Linda“.
The Beatles later decided to scrap John’s entire poolside footage which finished on a cutting room floor in Soho rather than on the world’s TV screens. Only one of the bikini girls, one we had nicknamed The Lovely Linda, survived the editor’s scissors to make a blink-and-you-miss-her split-second appearance elsewhere in the finished product waving from a tower window.
Tony Barrow – From “The Making of The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour” by Tony Barrow, 1999
Last updated on April 25, 2023
Lyrics
La, la, la, la, la the lovely Linda,
with the lovely flowers in her hair.
La, la, la, la, la the lovely Linda,
with the lovely flowers in her hair.
Officially appears on
LP • Released in 1970
0:46 • Studio version • A • Stereo
- Paul McCartney :
- Acoustic guitar, Bass, Percussion, Producer, Recording engineer, Vocals
- Phil McDonald :
- Mixing engineer
- Session Recorded:
- Late December 1969
- Studio :
- At home, Cavendish Avenue, London
- Session Mixing:
- Feb 21, 1970
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
McCartney (by DCC Compact Classics)
CD • Released in 1992
0:46 • Studio version • A1992 • Stereo • 1992 remaster
- Paul McCartney :
- Acoustic guitar, Bass, Percussion, Producer, Recording engineer, Vocals
- Phil McDonald :
- Mixing engineer
- Steve Hoffman :
- Remastering
- Session Recorded:
- Late December 1969
- Studio :
- At home, Cavendish Avenue, London
- Session Mixing:
- Feb 21, 1970
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Official album • Released in 1993
0:46 • Studio version • A1993 • Stereo • 1993 remaster
- Paul McCartney :
- Acoustic guitar, Bass, Percussion, Producer, Recording engineer, Vocals
- Phil McDonald :
- Mixing engineer
- Peter Mew :
- Remastering
- Session Recorded:
- Late December 1969
- Studio :
- At home, Cavendish Avenue, London
- Session Mixing:
- Feb 21, 1970
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Official album • Released in 1999
0:55 • Classical version • B
- Paul McCartney :
- Executive producer
- Eddie Klein :
- Recording engineer
- Keith Smith :
- Recording engineer
- Steve Rooke :
- Mastering
- Krista Bennion Feeney :
- First violin
- Anca Nicolau :
- Second violin
- Joanna Hood :
- Viola
- Myron Lutzke :
- Cello
- Performed by :
- Loma Mar Quartet
- John Fraser :
- Producer
- Roberto Pansera :
- Arranger
- Arne Akselberg :
- Balance engineer
- Paul Baily :
- Editor
- Caroline Haigh :
- Editor
- Session Recording:
- February 21-25th, 1999
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Studio One, Abbey Road
Wingspan Hits And History (US version)
Official album • Released in 2001
0:46 • Studio version • A2001 • 2001 remaster
- Paul McCartney :
- Acoustic guitar, Bass, Percussion, Producer, Recording engineer, Vocals
- Geoff Emerick :
- Remastering
- Phil McDonald :
- Mixing engineer
- Peter Mew :
- Remastering
- Session Recorded:
- Late December 1969
- Studio :
- At home, Cavendish Avenue, London
- Session Mixing:
- Feb 21, 1970
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Wingspan Hits And History (Japanese version)
Official album • Released in 2001
0:46 • Studio version • A2001 • 2001 remaster
- Paul McCartney :
- Acoustic guitar, Bass, Percussion, Producer, Recording engineer, Vocals
- Geoff Emerick :
- Remastering
- Phil McDonald :
- Mixing engineer
- Peter Mew :
- Remastering
- Session Recorded:
- Late December 1969
- Studio :
- At home, Cavendish Avenue, London
- Session Mixing:
- Feb 21, 1970
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Official album • Released in 2001
0:46 • Studio version • A2001 • 2001 remaster
- Paul McCartney :
- Acoustic guitar, Bass, Percussion, Producer, Recording engineer, Vocals
- Geoff Emerick :
- Remastering
- Phil McDonald :
- Mixing engineer
- Peter Mew :
- Remastering
- Session Recorded:
- Late December 1969
- Studio :
- At home, Cavendish Avenue, London
- Session Mixing:
- Feb 21, 1970
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
McCartney - Archive Collection
Official album • Released in 2011
0:46 • Studio version • A2011 • Stereo • 2011 remaster
- Paul McCartney :
- Acoustic guitar, Bass, Percussion, Producer, Recording engineer, Vocals
- Phil McDonald :
- Mixing engineer
- Guy Massey :
- Remastering
- Steve Rooke :
- Remastering
- Simon Gibson :
- Remastering
- Session Recorded:
- Late December 1969
- Studio :
- At home, Cavendish Avenue, London
- Session Mixing:
- Feb 21, 1970
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
LP • Released in 2017
0:46 • Studio version • A2011 • Stereo • 2011 remaster
- Paul McCartney :
- Acoustic guitar, Bass, Percussion, Producer, Recording engineer, Vocals
- Phil McDonald :
- Mixing engineer
- Guy Massey :
- Remastering
- Steve Rooke :
- Remastering
- Simon Gibson :
- Remastering
- Session Recorded:
- Late December 1969
- Studio :
- At home, Cavendish Avenue, London
- Session Mixing:
- Feb 21, 1970
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Official album • Released in 2020
0:46 • Studio version • A2020 • 2020 half-speed mastering
- Paul McCartney :
- Acoustic guitar, Bass, Percussion, Producer, Recording engineer, Vocals
- Phil McDonald :
- Mixing engineer
- Miles Showell :
- Mastering
- Session Recorded:
- Late December 1969
- Studio :
- At home, Cavendish Avenue, London
- Session Mixing:
- Feb 21, 1970
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Bootlegs
Where Footprints Never Go - Unofficial Rarities - Ultimate Archive Collection
Unofficial album • Released in 2016
0:35 • Live • L1 • From "Wingspan Memorial Day Special" radio show
Concert From "Wingspan: Memorial Day Weekend Special" in , USA on May 25, 2001
Unofficial album • Released in 2004
0:34 • Live • L1 • From "Wingspan Memorial Day Special" radio show
Concert From "Wingspan: Memorial Day Weekend Special" in , USA on May 25, 2001
Together On Stage: "Adopt-A-Minefield"
Unofficial live • Released in 2001
0:55 • Live • L1 • From "Wingspan Memorial Day Special" radio show
Concert From "Wingspan: Memorial Day Weekend Special" in , USA on May 25, 2001
McCartney - Ultimate Archive Collection
Unofficial album • Released in 2015
0:46 • Studio version • A2011
- Paul McCartney :
- Acoustic guitar, Bass, Percussion, Producer, Recording engineer, Vocals
- Phil McDonald :
- Mixing engineer
- Session Recorded:
- Late December 1969
- Studio :
- At home, Cavendish Avenue, London
- Session Mixing:
- Feb 21, 1970
- Studio :
- EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Latest concerts where The Lovely Linda has been played
Wingspan: Memorial Day Weekend Special
May 25, 2001 • USA • Radio show