This Never Happened Before
This image is a cover of an audio recording, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher of the work or the artist(s) which produced the recording or cover artwork in question. It is believed that the use of low-resolution images of such covers qualifies as fair use.
- Album This song officially appears on the Chaos and Creation in the Backyard Official album.
- Timeline This song has been written (or started being written) in 2003 (Paul McCartney was 61 years old)
Song facts
“This Never Happened Before” is a track from Paul McCartney’s 2005 album “Chaos And Creation In The Backyard“. From an interview of Paul by Gary Crowley:
It’s Never Happened Before is a straight love song and, you know, I’m a lover not a fighter as they say. I think that’s such an important thing in the world and it gets spoken of, sung about a lot but I, certainly you know Silly Love Songs, what’s wrong with the message of that? I love that, I love to do that so this one was really exactly that. It just kind of wrote itself a bit, you know, it just (sings) ‘I’m very sure it’s never happened to me before.’ The chords, it’s always a big help if you get a nice little chord sequence and the opening chords to the verse of that go a nice place so they settle you down with your melody and you feel like you’re going somewhere, so that was what was happening and wrote it and recorded it, one of the very first things we did with Nigel at Rak, that was one of the things to see if we could sort of get it on and I thought, ‘This is good. We’re going to go somewhere with this’. That and Follow Me were really the first two that Nigel and I did together and nice little story about it was, I was in America and I was actually getting a massage and I happened to play it and the girl who was doing the massage said, ‘Oh, I love that song, it’s magnificent,’ and she happened to tell me she was getting married so very quietly I just sort of sent her, a few weeks later, she told me when she was getting married and you know where it would be so I got her number off her, sent her a little letter saying, ‘Look, if you love it that much, why don’t you play this at your wedding?’ so I said, ‘but this is highly bootleggable,’ I said, ‘so just play it and send it me back. You can’t keep it, but,’ I said, ‘I’ll send you the proper record when we’re done with it,’ and it was great, really lovely. They did do that. They got married to it and it was like their first dance. Highly romantic stuff this and, but it was very nice because she just wrote me a letter, thanks and all that and told me about the wedding and all that, about her husband but she just put this one little line, she said, ‘You know we had a great time. We laughed. We cried,’ and I thought that sums up that song for me.
Paul McCartney – from 2005 UK promotional-only interview CD, recorded July 2005 at Air Studios in London
“This Never Happened Before” was released to radio stations in the United States in 2006, peaking at #27 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. It was intended to be the 3rd single from “Chaos And Creation In The Backyard“ (after “Fine Line” and “Jenny Wren“) but got cancelled. It was thought that the single would have included three unreleased songs from the “Chaos And Creation In The Backyard” sessions: “A Modern Dance”, “Perfect Lover” and “Watching My Fish Drown”.
In 2006, “This Never Happened Before” was included in the soundtrack of the movie “The Lake House”.
Last updated on January 19, 2021
Lyrics
I'm very sure
This never happened to me before
I met you and now I'm sure
This never happened before
Now I see
This is the way it's supposed to be
I met you and now I see
This is the way it should be
This is the way it should be for lovers
They shouldn't go it alone
It's not so good when you're on your own
So come to me
Now we can be what we want to be
I love you and now I see
This is the way it should be
This is the way it should be
This is the way it should be for lovers
They shouldn't go it alone
It's not so good when you're on your own
I'm very sure
This never happened to me before
I met you and now I'm sure
This never happened before this never happened
This never happened before this never happened
This never happened before this never happened before
Officially appears on
Chaos And Creation In The Backyard (Special Edition)
Official album
3:26 • Studio version • A
- Paul McCartney :
- Epiphone casino electric guitar, Hofner bass, Ludwig drums, Vocals, Yamaha grand piano
- Millennia Ensemble :
- Strings and brass
- Nigel Godrich :
- Producer
- Darrell Thorp :
- Engineer
- Joby Talbot :
- Orchestra conductor, String arrangement
- Dan Grech-Marguerat :
- Production assistant
- Session Recording:
- September 2003
- Studio :
- RAK Studios, London
- Session Overdubs:
- April 2005
- Studio :
- AIR Studios Lyndhurst, London, UK
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
CD Single • Released in 2005
3:13 • Studio version • A1 • Promo edit (labelled as "edit 2" on the promo CD)
- Paul McCartney :
- Epiphone casino electric guitar, Hofner bass, Ludwig drums, Vocals, Yamaha grand piano
- Millennia Ensemble :
- Strings and brass
- Nigel Godrich :
- Producer
- Darrell Thorp :
- Engineer
- Joby Talbot :
- Orchestra conductor, String arrangement
- Dan Grech-Marguerat :
- Production assistant
- Session Recording:
- September 2003
- Studio :
- RAK Studios, London
- Session Overdubs:
- April 2005
- Studio :
- AIR Studios Lyndhurst, London, UK
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
CD Single • Released in 2005
3:26 • Studio version • A
- Paul McCartney :
- Epiphone casino electric guitar, Hofner bass, Ludwig drums, Vocals, Yamaha grand piano
- Millennia Ensemble :
- Strings and brass
- Nigel Godrich :
- Producer
- Darrell Thorp :
- Engineer
- Joby Talbot :
- Orchestra conductor, String arrangement
- Dan Grech-Marguerat :
- Production assistant
- Session Recording:
- September 2003
- Studio :
- RAK Studios, London
- Session Overdubs:
- April 2005
- Studio :
- AIR Studios Lyndhurst, London, UK
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (Japanese edition)
Official album • Released in 2005
3:26 • Studio version • A
- Paul McCartney :
- Epiphone casino electric guitar, Hofner bass, Ludwig drums, Vocals, Yamaha grand piano
- Millennia Ensemble :
- Strings and brass
- Nigel Godrich :
- Producer
- Darrell Thorp :
- Engineer
- Joby Talbot :
- Orchestra conductor, String arrangement
- Dan Grech-Marguerat :
- Production assistant
- Session Recording:
- September 2003
- Studio :
- RAK Studios, London
- Session Overdubs:
- April 2005
- Studio :
- AIR Studios Lyndhurst, London, UK
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
Official album • Released in 2005
3:26 • Studio version • A
- Paul McCartney :
- Epiphone casino electric guitar, Hofner bass, Ludwig drums, Vocals, Yamaha grand piano
- Millennia Ensemble :
- Strings and brass
- Nigel Godrich :
- Producer
- Darrell Thorp :
- Engineer
- Joby Talbot :
- Orchestra conductor, String arrangement
- Dan Grech-Marguerat :
- Production assistant
- Session Recording:
- September 2003
- Studio :
- RAK Studios, London
- Session Overdubs:
- April 2005
- Studio :
- AIR Studios Lyndhurst, London, UK
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
The Lake House (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Official album • Released in 2006
3:26 • Studio version • A
- Paul McCartney :
- Epiphone casino electric guitar, Hofner bass, Ludwig drums, Vocals, Yamaha grand piano
- Millennia Ensemble :
- Strings and brass
- Nigel Godrich :
- Producer
- Darrell Thorp :
- Engineer
- Joby Talbot :
- Orchestra conductor, String arrangement
- Dan Grech-Marguerat :
- Production assistant
- Session Recording:
- September 2003
- Studio :
- RAK Studios, London
- Session Overdubs:
- April 2005
- Studio :
- AIR Studios Lyndhurst, London, UK
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (Limited Edition - Gold LP)
Official album • Released in 2018
3:26 • Studio version • A
- Paul McCartney :
- Epiphone casino electric guitar, Hofner bass, Ludwig drums, Vocals, Yamaha grand piano
- Millennia Ensemble :
- Strings and brass
- Nigel Godrich :
- Producer
- Darrell Thorp :
- Engineer
- Joby Talbot :
- Orchestra conductor, String arrangement
- Dan Grech-Marguerat :
- Production assistant
- Session Recording:
- September 2003
- Studio :
- RAK Studios, London
- Session Overdubs:
- April 2005
- Studio :
- AIR Studios Lyndhurst, London, UK
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
Chaos And Creation In The Backyard - Ultimate Archive Collection
Unofficial album • Released in 2015
3:26 • Studio version • A
- Paul McCartney :
- Epiphone casino electric guitar, Hofner bass, Ludwig drums, Vocals, Yamaha grand piano
- Millennia Ensemble :
- Strings and brass
- Nigel Godrich :
- Producer
- Darrell Thorp :
- Engineer
- Joby Talbot :
- Orchestra conductor, String arrangement
- Dan Grech-Marguerat :
- Production assistant
- Session Recording:
- September 2003
- Studio :
- RAK Studios, London
- Session Overdubs:
- April 2005
- Studio :
- AIR Studios Lyndhurst, London, UK
Credits & recording details courtesy of Luca Perasi • Buy Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 1) 1970-1989 on Amazon
Chaos And Creation In The Backyard - Ultimate Archive Collection
Unofficial album • Released in 2015
3:13 • Studio version • A1 • Promo edit (labelled as "edit 2" on the promo CD)
- Paul McCartney :
- Epiphone casino electric guitar, Hofner bass, Ludwig drums, Vocals, Yamaha grand piano
- Millennia Ensemble :
- Strings and brass
- Nigel Godrich :
- Producer
- Darrell Thorp :
- Engineer
- Joby Talbot :
- Orchestra conductor, String arrangement
- Dan Grech-Marguerat :
- Production assistant
- Session Recording:
- September 2003
- Studio :
- RAK Studios, London
- Session Overdubs:
- April 2005
- Studio :
- AIR Studios Lyndhurst, London, UK
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 This Never Happened Before has been played
Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert.