When Paul McCartney Discovered Lennon-McCartney ‘Scam’

Paul McCartney recollects the time he found a reggae music credited to “Lennon-McCartney” regardless of having no connection to the work in his new field set, The 7″ Singles Box.

In the foreword to the liner notes of the set — which contains 80 singles from across McCartney’s solo career — the former Beatle discusses his passion for visiting record stores. “I’ve all the time discovered there’s one thing thrilling about flicking by means of the crates in a file store, on the lookout for that subsequent discovery,” he writes (via Rolling Stone). “I nonetheless adore it and there are some cool unbiased file outlets close to my workplace in London.”

He recalls making an especially odd discovery during a visit to Tony’s Records in Montego Bay, Jamaica. “There have been data you did not know what they have been, they weren’t established artists,” he says. “So it was type of an excellent journey, simply asking the man behind the counter, ‘What’s this like? Is it any good?’

“There would be songs with titles like ‘Lick I Pipe.’ Another was called ‘Poison Pressure’ by Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, written by Lennon & McCartney. I had to buy that one. Had they just recorded one of our songs? No. It was something completely different and we all presumed it might be a couple of guys called Tony Lennon and Bill McCartney. Either that, or it was a total scam.”

The observe, which you’ll be able to hear under, does interpolate the refrain of John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance,” presumably giving Lee the chance to name-check the long-lasting Beatles songwriting partnership.

Listen to Byron Lee and the Dragonaires’ ‘Poison Pressure’

McCartney additionally notes his love of jukeboxes, saying he had one at residence and in his London HQ, the latter of which he acquired whereas filming his 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street. “The jukebox in my office is from a scene in the film Give My Regards to Broad Street. I liked it a lot, so I talked to the guy who had brought it along and I ended up buying it off him,” he says. “It’s such a nice vintage piece and the songs on there — things like ‘Long Tall Sally’ by Little Richard and ‘Hound Dog’ by Elvis Presley — really take me back to my childhood. All these memories of when we were kids, back even before the Beatles.”

McCartney will launch The 7″ Singles Box on Dec. 2. It’s available to preorder now and will retail for just over $600. The set contains McCartney’s first solo single, 1971’s “Another Day” (with the B-side “Oh Woman, Oh Why”) — but, he notes, “It would not embody my final single as a result of I have never written that one but.”