When The Wind Is Blowing

“When The Wind Is Blowing” is a song written by Paul McCartney in 1969.

In 1999, during a television appearance on “Parkinson” with Michael Parkinson, Paul played a few notes of the song (referring to the track as “Two Fingers“) and explained that he had been inspired to write it after seeing a print of Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist” hanging in the hospital room where Linda was staying following the birth of their daughter Mary in 1969.

I remember when Linda and I had just had our first baby which was Mary – we already had Heather but our first baby together was Mary. And Mary was born and I was at the hospital basically the whole week, you know, just while Linda recovered and took it easy – and we liked the chips in this place too – so we’re sitting around all week and enjoy just having had this lovely baby… And there was this Picasso print on the wall of an old man playing the guitar and I looked at it all week, and towards the end the week I thought what chords he’s playing on the guitar what was he playing. I noticed he’s just had two fingers here… You get that chord there guys… Just two fingers there and so I thought well I’ll try and see you know what the chord is… How it sounds anyway… I tried to use that as the inspiration and tried to write a song that only had used two fingers so I’ll play a bit of these. Note carefully, two fingers all the time, my hand never leaves my wrist. That’s how it goes anyway…

Paul McCartney – Interview with Michael Parkinson, 1999

In December 1969, during the home studio sessions for his debut solo album “McCartney,” Paul recorded an early version under the working title “Rupert.” This recording remains unreleased.

In October 1970, Paul recorded a new version during the sessions for his second album “RAM,” by which time the song had acquired its definitive title, “When The Wind Is Blowing.” This version remained unreleased until its inclusion on the 2018 reissue of “Wild Life.”

The track was at one point considered for the soundtrack of a planned full-length animated film based on Rupert The Bear, a project that was ultimately abandoned and reworked into a short film. Wings recorded another version in 1978, which has circulated on bootlegs.

It was also shortlisted for inclusion in various iterations of the Cold Cuts project, Paul’s planned collection of outtakes, but the project itself was never released.

In 2015, the melody of “When The Wind Is Blowing” was repurposed as the instrumental hook for Kanye West’s 2015 single “All Day.”