I never know what I’m going to write about, so I think there is a psychological aspect; just what mood you’re in. [...] To tell you the truth, though, I never think about it now. It’s sort of just the mood I’m in that day. [With ‘Tug of War’ track,] ‘The Pound Is Sinking’ - god, I’ve just read that there’s a recession or something. I’d start with a joke, “the pound is sinking/ the peso’s failing,” you know, whatever. I don’t actually start by thinking, ok, this is going to address a dark mood or subject. I find myself just putting what’s in me into the song. Often, sometimes, I don’t know what I’ve written. [...] I mean, I wrote the song ‘Yesterday,’ and years later someone said to me, that’s probably about your mum dying ten years before. “Why she had to go/ I don’t know she didn’t say.” I never thought that, but now, I think, it might be. All this psychological stuff finds its way into your songs. Because I don’t think them out too much, I let them just fall out, sometimes this stuff is in there without me knowing.
Paul McCartney
