The Paul McCartney Lyric Inspired by a Book of Poetry and the Memory of Social Unrest
"Pipes of Peace" was a song that was a big hit in Great Britain for Paul McCartney upon its release in 1983. Once he received the brief for the song, he used some seemingly contradictory inspirations to pull the lyrics together.
When we think of songwriting, we usually associate it with spontaneous activity, a writer (or writers) conjuring a song from scratch with no forethought about where it might go. There are some occasions, however, when a song will be requested for some specific occasion, requiring a different set of skills.
Such was the case with “Pipes of Peace,” a song that was a big hit in Great Britain for Paul McCartney upon its release in 1983. Once he received the brief for the song, Macca used some seemingly contradictory inspirations to pull the lyrics together.
Paul McCartney wrote so many songs for his 1982 album Tug of War that there were plenty that simply didn’t fit on the record. He had the idea to use the leftovers as the basis for another full-length-album, Pipes of Peace, released in late ’83.
The title track was one song that was written fresh for the second album. That’s because McCartney wrote it specifically to fulfill a request. A musician friend of his connected him to a children’s charity that wanted an anti-war song aimed at younger folks.
That set McCartney off and running, even though he would eventually come at the song from disparate directions. The opening line (I light a candle to our love) came when he happened upon a book of poetry by Radindranath Tagore. Macca paraphrased a similar line from Tagore to start off “Pipes of Peace.”
Later in the song, McCartney sings about Songs of joy instead of “Burn, baby, burn.” That’s a reference to a line that emanated during the riots in the Watts section of Southern California in the mid-’60s. Here, he uses the phrase as a way of contrasting the positivity he feels is needed.
“Pipes of Peace” might not seem like a momentous song in McCartney’s career if you’re a U.S. fan. That’s because it was only the B-side of a single in America. But in the United Kingdom, it was an A-side and it went all the way to No. 1, the only time he managed that as a solo artist in the UK.
McCartney begins “Pipes of Peace” by focusing, as he and The Beatles had often done in the past, on love, first and foremost: In love our problems disappear / But all in all, we’ll soon discover / That one and one is all we long to hear. In this case, he’s referring more to a universal love, the kind that would ideally end all conflicts.
He directs the song to the children being born to the world. He imagines an all-encompassing war being finally put to rest, hoping that it will solve the problems: Then will the work be done? His hope is that children can live their lives free of the burden of war: Let us show them how to play the pipes of peace.
While the song ascribes to an optimistic outlook, it doesn’t shy away from harsh reality: What do you say? / Will the human race be run in a day? He also suggests that ours isn’t the only realm needing cooler heads to prevail: Or will someone save this planet we’re playing on? / Is it the only one?
To emphasize the intent of the song, McCartney employed a children’s choir to help sing the refrain of “Pipes of Peace.” His original assignment got the neurons firing, and with help from some outside sources, he delivered a track that imagines how the world could be if the adults in charge could ever recapture their childish innocence.
Photo by Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
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