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Music

Paul McCartney Whistled the Melody to Kanye’s “All Day” in a Parkinson Interview in 1999

It was inspired by a Picasso painting in a hospital corridor, apparently.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: that Paul McCartney, he's got something.

If it wasn’t obvious from his 60 Gold Disc certifications, the 600 million plus records sold worldwide, and any time spent in the city of Liverpool, Paul McCartney seems to be one of those blokes that tries anything and makes it sound ace. I imagine that guy farts number ones. I bet when he stubs his toe it’s like a bass drum being struck in Abbey Road studios. When he sneezes, it probably sounds like an orchestra playing your favourite song on your birthday. If he chundered outside a pub at closing time, people would be like “what is this marvellous tune on the jukebox!?”

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Now, it has transpired that one of Paul’s fairly innocuous artistic outtakes, laid down during an interview with Parkinson in 1999, was the genesis for the core musical elements of what we now know as Yeezy’s God level banger “All Day”. According to McCartney, the idea for the song - which became the unreleased track "When the Wind is Blowing" - came to him while in hospital after the birth of his second child, and he noticed a painting on the wall in the corridor.

“There was this Picasso print on the wall of an old man playing a guitar. I looked at it all week and towards the end of the week I thought what chords he playing? I’m a guitar player, what is he playing? I noticed he had two fingers here. So I thought I’d try and see what the chord is, and if it sounds any good. Ooh that’s nice. So then I tried to use that as inspiration, and tried to write a song that only used two fingers.”

And you can hear elements throughout Kanye's single, from the backing vocals to the chords, to the straight up sample of McCartney at the end.

Watch the clip from 1999 below.

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