Paul McCartney has had a legendary career as a musician, both as a member of the Beatles and as a solo artist. He’s written iconic songs like “Yesterday” and “Hey Jude” with the Beatles, “Live and Let Die” for a James Bond movie, “Maybe I’m Amazed,” and more. Even today, he’s still performing in concert in his 80s, and his work continues to be played by old and new fans.

McCartney’s songs are frequently energetic, exciting, reflective, fun, and emotional. They span decades, starting with his time in the Beatles with John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. In the 1970s, he helmed a band named Wings that included his wife, Linda McCartney. Since then, he’s played with a variety of artists, including two duets with Michael Jackson and “Ebony and Ivory” with Stevie Wonder.

But for the singer himself, after all the hits and all the performances, there’s one song that still sticks out in his catalog for his emotional connection to it, making him choke up when he plays it all these years later.

The birth of a song after death

The break-up of the Beatles became official in 1970 when McCartney announced his departure from the band, but it had been brewing for years. Members of the band wanted to explore different music, financial issues with its record label caused problems, and personal tensions hit a boiling point. It was messy.

A decade later, any possibility of a reunion disappeared.

On December 8, 1980, John Lennon was returning home to his residence at the Dakota in New York City when he was shot by Mark David Chapman. Chapman reportedly had an obsession with killing Lennon, and after he shot the singer four times, he stayed on the scene of his attack reading a book until he was arrested.

In the wake of his death, McCartney recalled that he had trouble talking about the event because it was such an emotional moment for him.

“I can’t just go on TV and say what John meant to me,” he said in an interview in 2022 about that moment. “It was just too deep. It’s just too much. I couldn’t put it into words.”

But he did find his voice a year after Lennon’s death during a recording session for the album Tug of War, which was released in 1982. McCartney used the time to write “Here Today,” a reflection on his relationship with his friend and former bandmate.

“I found a room and just sat on the wooden floor in a corner with my guitar and just started to play the opening chords to ‘Here Today,’” he explained.

“Here Today” is a conversation McCartney imagines between himself and his former bandmate if he was still alive to talk to. McCartney explained it by saying, “The song is me trying to talk back to him, but realizing the futility of it because he is no longer here, even though that’s a fact I can’t quite believe, even to this day.”

Playing it is still emotional

Even though it was released in 1982, McCartney still plays it live at concerts, and the song can be very emotional for him to perform after all these years.

“At least once a tour, that song just gets me. I’m singing it, and I think I’m OK, and I suddenly realize it’s very emotional, and John was a great mate and a very important man in my life, and I miss him, you know?” he told The Guardian in 2004.

He frequently pairs the song now with the Beatles’ hit “Blackbird” when performing it live, bringing audiences on an emotional ride.

“It’s a very charged experience to perform this song in concert,” he wrote in a 2021 collection of lyrics. “It’s just me and a guitar. In the current show, I do ‘Blackbird’ and then ‘Here Today,’ and I’m stuck in the middle of a great big arena with all these people, and a lot of them are crying. It’s always a very sentimental, nostalgic, emotional moment.”

McCartney also released a book in 2002 titled Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics, 1965–1999 that included the lyrics to the song, which appeared there with the title “Here Today (Song for John).”

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