Paul McCartney is a multiple Grammy Award-winning English singer-songwriter, poet, composer, multi-instrumentalist, entrepreneur, record producer, film producer, painter, and animal rights activist. He gained worldwide fame as a member of The Beatles, alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular music in rock and roll history.^[1] After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda Eastman McCartney, and singer-songwriter, Denny Laine. He has worked on film scores, classical and electronic music, released a large catalogue of songs as a solo artist, and taken part in projects to help international charities.

You Tell Me

McCartney said of this song: “I started off just remembering summers. ‘Were we really there?’ ‘Was it real?’ Sometimes for a lot of people your memories, particularly childhood memories, seem so golden and you think, ‘Did it really never rain all summer or am I just imagining the sunny bits?’ And then the phrase, ‘You tell me,’ began to be the theme of the song. I wrote it out in Long Island, during one of those summers. I was just looking at a red cardinal. For someone English it’s magical, seeing a bright red bird coming out of a tree, so he appeared in the lyric. A lot of it was actually just there as I was writing. It became a tribute to golden summers.”

There isn’t an actual video for this song, so instead of making one of my own, I decided to go with one that Frank Withers put together using film footage of a trip to Seattle with his girlfriend in 1970.  (H/T Marty Lawson)

http://djallyn.org/media/Seattle1970-you-tell-me.flv

ahh 1,2,3
When was that summer when the skies were blue
The bright red cardinal flew down from his tree
You tell me

When was that summer when it never rained
The air was buzzing with the sweet old honey bee
Let’s see
You tell me

Were we there was it real
Is it truly how I feel
Maybe
You tell me

Were we there is it true
Was I really there with you
Let’s see
You tell me

When was that summer of a dozen words (dozen words)
The butterflies and humming birds flew free
Let’s see
You tell me

Let’s see
You tell me (you tell me)

• Audio from the 2007 album, Memory Almost Full:

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Other songs posted for this artist

Too Many People ~ Paul McCartney