album notes

Released to widespread critical acclaim, and earning Paul three Grammy nominations, Chaos And Creation In The Backyard saw McCartney hand over production to the R.E.M and Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich. “When Paul and I got together we had a common goal,” said Godrich.  “We wanted to make a great album that was true to Paul.  I think that’s exactly what we did.” “We really made a lot of it up as we went along,” added Paul.  “I’d try something and if it didn’t work I’d try something else until it did.  It was like making a go-cart in the backyard.”  Featuring a black-and-white cover image, taken by his brother Mike, of a young Paul absentmindedly strumming a guitar in his back garden, and with a song inspired by George Harrison ('Friends To Go'), it's a deeply personal collection of songs enhanced by Godrich's fairly stark production. It also features 'How Kind Of You', which was triggered by Paul's love of language. “I suddenly started to notice that posh British people not only have a different accent, they have a different vocabulary. There’s a gentility to it,” Paul recounts. “So it’s all written from the point of view of a rather genteel language and me examining this way of putting the same thoughts.”