During a 1978 interview on The South Bank Show, Paul McCartney was trying to explain where songs come from. The interviewer, Melvyn Bragg, listened as McCartney demonstrated, “You can do it any time. This will probably be crummy, but you can just—”
He began singing, “Melvyn Bragg, was in the parlor, and he said that he was going to have some tea…”
Laughing, he said, “I mean that’s not very good, but you could work on that.”
Then, he tried again, “Melvyn Bragg was in the... and he... gonna have some tea, will you have some tea with me? Melvyn Bragg…”
Still chuckling, he said, “I mean, that’s not good, but that’s the kind of thing it comes from.”
Finally, McCartney noted:
“You just dare enough. I mean, that’s silly, I shouldn’t dare to do that. I’m showing what a lousy writer I am. But that’s what it all comes out of. You just plunk along anything. It can be bad three times, but then maybe the fourth time, a little bit of inspiration will come on that, and just the one little thing will turn that into something good.”
Paul McCartney was displaying his creative process while explaining it. The man who wrote Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby was willing to improvise a silly song on live television to prove his point: You must dare to sound foolish before you can sound like a genius.
(Source: The South Bank Show | 1978)
Foolish fun