Paul McCartney has always worn his influences on his sleeve and is typically an open book on the subject. While he vehemently denied Nat King Cole played a part in shaping The Beatles classic ‘Yesterday’, there is another song in their canon that the late jazz supremo influenced.
McCartney maintains that ‘Yesterday’ arrived to him in a dream, which led many to wrongly assume that he stole it and highlighted similarities with Cole’s track ‘Answer Me, My Love’. However, any likeness between the two songs is purely coincidental, with a spokesperson for McCartney once declaring to the BBC: “To me, the two songs are about as similar as ‘Get Back’ and ‘God Save the Queen’.”
Nevertheless, McCartney is an admirer of Cole’s artistry, and in 1968, channelled his love of the musician into The Beatles song ‘Mother Nature’s Son’. While the creation was also partially inspired by his experience of Indian culture, where he witnessed a moving lecture from Maharishi, Cole played a significant role sonically.
The trip to India awakened The Beatles, transforming their perspective on life. It opened their eyes to a whole new way of life, which inadvertently changed their approach to music as they incorporated Eastern influences into their sound. However, it was on a spiritual level that the Fab Four were most invigorated.
Even upon returning home to the UK, the essence of the Maharishi stayed with the band and continued to shape the reinvigorated tone of their songwriting. Shortly after coming back, McCartney visited his family home in Liverpool and wrote ‘Mother Nature’s Son’, which later appeared on The White Album.
In Many Years From Now, McCartney recalled: “I seem to remember writing ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ at my dad’s house in Liverpool. I often used to do that if I’d gone up to see him. Visiting my family, I’d feel in a good mood, so it was often a good occasion to write songs. So this was me doing my mother nature’s son bit.”
“I’ve always loved the [Nat King Cole] song called ‘Nature Boy’: ‘There was a boy, a very strange and gentle boy…’ He loves nature, and ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ was inspired by that song. I’d always loved nature, and when Linda and I got together, we discovered we had this deep love of nature in common. There might have been a little help from John with some of the verses,” he added.
Although McCartney admitted that John Lennon may have assisted with the lyrics, it’s very much a solo composition. During the recording, which took 24 takes, no other member of the group contributed, highlighting their fractured relationship at the time.
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Listen to ‘Mother Nature’s Son’ below.
