"My Love" is a song by the British–American band Paul McCartney and Wings that was first released as the lead single from their 1973 album Red Rose Speedway. It was written by Paul McCartney as a love song to his wife and Wings bandmate Linda. The single marked the first time that McCartney's name appeared in the artist credit for a Wings record, after their previous releases had been credited to Wings alone. Released on 23 March 1973, the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the US for four weeks and peaked at number 9 on the UK Singles Chart. The single was viewed as Wings' first significant success in the US and helped Red Rose Speedway achieve commercial success.
Wings recorded "My Love" at Abbey Road Studios in London in January 1973. The song is a piano ballad and features an orchestral arrangement by Richard Hewson that was recorded live with the main track. The recording also includes a guitar solo by Henry McCullough that some commentators view as a highlight of the track. In his improvised playing, McCullough imposed his own style on a Wings song for the first time, countering the more regimented approach favoured by McCartney.
Despite its commercial success, "My Love" was given an unfavourable reception by many music critics, some of whom considered it overly sentimental and lyrically inconsequential. A live version of the song was included on Wings' 1976 album Wings over America, and McCartney has continued to perform it in concert as a tribute to Linda following her death in 1998. He included the song in the musical programme for Linda's memorial services in London and New York City, where it was performed by a string quartet. Tony Bennett, Nancy Wilson, Brenda Lee, Andy Williams and Harry Connick Jr are among the many artists who have covered the song.
Background and composition
Paul McCartney began writing "My Love" on piano as a love song to his wife Linda. He said he wrote it early on in their relationship; McCartney biographer Luca Perasi dates the composition to 1969 or 1970. The song is a piano ballad in the style of McCartney's Beatles song "The Long and Winding Road".
After forming the band Wings with Linda in the summer of 1971, McCartney included "My Love" in the set lists for the group's two concert tours in 1972. When they performed it at Nottingham University on 9 February for Wings' public debut, the song included Linda singing lines in response to McCartney's lead vocal. According to Perasi, the performance was otherwise "almost identical" to the version that the band subsequently recorded for official release.
The song is in the key of F major. It opens with an extended ambient note before the vocal enters. The composition has an AABAA structure followed by an outro, with the A sections comprising verse-choruses and the B section containing a bridge. According to musicologist Vincent Benitez, the verses establish a "sense of instability" through lyrics such as "And when I go away" and "And when the cupboard's bare", implying distance and material emptiness, respectively, and this mood is supported by the inclusion of chords such as Bmaj7 and D9 that suggest a departure from the home key. He says the choruses and the bridge then convey the emotional security provided by the singer's lover – lyrically, and through the incorporation of a plagal progression (in the chorus) and other chords that correspond with F major. The outro consists of the first part of the bridge; McCartney sings "Only my love does it good" before pausing and then returning with a prolonged vocalisation of the word "to" then resolving to "me".
Recording
McCartney invited Richard Hewson, with whom he had worked before while with the Beatles, to arrange the orchestral accompaniment for "My Love". The song was recorded live at Abbey Road Studios in London with a 50-piece orchestra accompanying the band. The session took place in January 1973, late in the recording for Wings' second album, Red Rose Speedway. McCartney played Fender Rhodes electric piano on the track, while Denny Laine substituted for McCartney on bass guitar. The idea to tape the basic track and the orchestral arrangement simultaneously went against music industry convention, since the session musicians were paid by the hour. Hewson recalled that he recruited "the best jazz musicians I knew ... They had this particular warm sound" and that the reason for the live recording was because McCartney wanted to capture "a certain feeling". In music journalist Tom Breihan's description, although the song appears to lack a formal structure, "It chugs and twinkles with the slow confidence of an old torch song, while the orchestra ... swells and contracts."