Paul has probably forgotten about the incident by now
But I clearly remember that Saturday morning
In the sun-filled drawing room of his elegant home
In St John’s Wood. His brother Michael and I
Relaxing over coffee and the morning papers
When he came bounding in like a young puppy.
‘I’ve gorra new song, d’ye wanna hear it?’ Needless
To say, we nodded and lowered our newspapers.
He was already at the baby grand. ‘It’s a gear tune,
But I haven’t got the words sorted yet,’ he explained
By way of introduction, and then began to sing:
‘Hey, dude, get off of my cloud. Dumpty dumpty
Di dumpty three is a crowd di dumpty dum di dumpty
Dumpty dum Or I’ll push you off like Humpty Dumpty.’
And so on and so on. And as the final chord faded
Michael and I made the required appreciative noises.
To have done otherwise would have seemed churlish.
‘No, seriously,’ he said, ‘what do you really think?’
I knew from the way he was looking directly at me
That it was the truth he wanted. ‘To be honest, Macca…’
I hesitated, but his eyes were begging me to continue.
‘I think that the lyrics are working against the melody.
There’s a lovesong in there, trying to get out, but…
Well, it sounds more like Jagger than McCartney.’
The reference to the Stones brought him to his feet.
To underline my point Michael sang the opening bars
Of ‘Get off of my cloud’ while his brother, head lowered,
Leaned against the piano as if his world might collapse.
I had to think on my feet, so I stood up and said,
‘What about “Hey, Jude?” You know, use a girl’s name?’
Paul looked puzzled. ‘That’s a funny name for a bird.’
‘It’s short for Judith,’ I explained with all the confidence
Of someone having it off with a girl called Judith.
‘Forget the dude. Forget pushing people off clouds.
Forget Humpty Dumpty. Think of the lovely Jude
And you’ve got another number one on your hands.’
He didn’t say anything before going back upstairs
But the gentle squeeze of my shoulder spoke volumes.
As we left the house we could hear his guitar
As he unpacked his rich mind-hoard of love lyrics.
Outside, Michael and I selected a couple of the likeliest-
looking Beatles groupies and whizzed them down to the pub.