Paul McCartney has written many songs. He often reverts to the keys and chords with which he feels most comfortable. Thankfully, to gain a better understanding of how McCartney works, he once named his favourite chord.
“A favourite chord. That’s a hard question!” he once said. “But I would say E is a pretty big favourite. It’s one of the early chords you learn.” Indeed the E is often the first chord that young guitarists learn, and it features prominently in some of the easiest songs to play.
The E major regularly features in a number of Beatles classics, including prominent deployment on ‘Please, Please Me’. In fact, as many as 39 songs by the ‘Fab Four’ were played in the key of E. Additionally, it should be noted that the E major chord also features in several of their other songs in different keys.
McCartney also says that an early influence underpins this ubiquity. “In the early days, we used to play the Buddy Holly songs that we listened to a lot,” he said. “He used E and A a lot, so we used E and A lot too,”.
Explaining his love of the E major chord, McCartney continued, “It’s a very pure basic chord and on the guitar. It rings out beautifully because the bottom string is open. So it has a resonance that some other chords don’t have.”
McCartney noted that he loves the possibilities of any chord, but when hard-pressed to name a favourite, he claims that he always comes back to the trusty E major. “They’re all good,” he said, “I love them all basically; it’s hard to pick a favourite! But if I have to pick, I’ll go for E.”
Once toying around with a chord, Macca noted where he goes from there. “Then I just fiddle around with that and try and follow the trail,” he said. “Sometimes, it leads me down a blind alley, so I have to retrace my steps and start again down another road. I’m of the school of the instinctive.”
McCartney then explained that Allen Ginsberg taught him how to use that intuition. “Allen always used to say, ‘First thought, best thought.’ And then he would edit everything,” he said. “But I think the theory is good. ‘First thought, best thought.’ It doesn’t always work, but as a general idea, I will try and do that, and sometimes I come out with a puzzling set of words that I have no idea what I mean, and yet I’ve got to kind of make sense of it and follow the trail.”
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