It’s hard to imagine a songwriter as legendary as Paul McCartney ever stealing lyrics to a song. It’s even harder to imagine that McCartney would admit to the theft. However, the famed Beatles songwriter did very much admit to stealing the lyrics to one of the band’s most beloved songs, “Golden Slumbers”.
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The admission came about during an episode of McCartney’s podcast Paul McCartney: A Life In Lyrics in April 2024. The singer/songwriter spoke candidly about being influenced by a number of other songwriters. That is certainly not a rare thing. Countless incredible musicians and songwriters have been inspired by those who came before them. However, McCartney did admit that he literally stole some lyrics from another song. Those lyrics were added to the chorus of “Golden Slumbers” from the 1969 album Abbey Road.
Why Did Paul McCartney Steal The Lyrics To “Golden Slumbers”?
“That chorus [for ‘Golden Slumbers’] that I’ve used as a chorus, literally, is the lyrics to an old Victorian song,” McCartney said on his podcast.
The pod’s co-host Paul Muldoon, who is a talented poet in his own right, tried to intervene when McCartney made the bold admission.
“Is this what we call sampling?” asked Muldoon.
“Well, it’s called stealing,” McCartney said quite boldly.
At least the man is honest. But why exactly did McCartney lift the chorus lyrics to “Golden Slumbers”?
The former Beatles member went on to explain that he didn’t quite remember what the melody of the original song was. He only remembered that he found the song as sheet music on his piano back home at some point during his childhood. Because McCartney couldn’t read music at the time, he latched onto the lyrics, which were perfectly legible to the young soon-to-be star.
“I put my own melody to it and just took these words,” he said.
McCartney didn’t quite explain why he took the lyrics to add to the song. But, we can assume that he just simply liked them enough to use them. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, either. It would be questionable if McCartney revealed that he had a habit of stealing other people’s music on the regular. But when it comes to “Golden Slumbers”, McCartney simply breathed new life into a virtually ancient tune that may be long forgotten at this point.
Photo by David Harris/Keystone
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