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Released in 2005

This Never Happened Before

Written by Paul McCartney

Last updated on January 19, 2021

Album This song officially appears on the Chaos and Creation in the Backyard Official album.

Timeline This song was officially released in 2005

Timeline This song was written, or began to be written, in 2003, when Paul McCartney was 61 years old)

Master album

Related sessions

This song was recorded during the following studio sessions:

Related interviews

“This Never Happened Before” is a track from Paul McCartney’s 2005 album “Chaos And Creation In The Backyard“. From an interview of Paul by Gary Crowley:

It’s Never Happened Before is a straight love song and, you know, I’m a lover not a fighter as they say.  I think that’s such an important thing in the world and it gets spoken of, sung about a lot but I, certainly you know Silly Love Songs, what’s wrong with the message of that?  I love that, I love to do that so this one was really exactly that.  It just kind of wrote itself a bit, you know, it just (sings) ‘I’m very sure it’s never happened to me before.’  The chords, it’s always a big help if you get a nice little chord sequence and the opening chords to the verse of that go a nice place so they settle you down with your melody and you feel like you’re going somewhere, so that was what was happening and wrote it and recorded it, one of the very first things we did with Nigel at Rak, that was one of the things to see if we could sort of get it on and I thought, ‘This is good.  We’re going to go somewhere with this’.  That and Follow Me were really the first two that Nigel and I did together and nice little story about it was, I was in America and I was actually getting a massage and I happened to play it and the girl who was doing the massage said, ‘Oh, I love that song, it’s magnificent,’ and she happened to tell me she was getting married so very quietly I just sort of sent her, a few weeks later, she told me when she was getting married and you know where it would be so I got her number off her, sent her a little letter saying, ‘Look, if you love it that much, why don’t you play this at your wedding?’ so I said, ‘but this is highly bootleggable,’ I said, ‘so just play it and send it me back.  You can’t keep it, but,’ I said, ‘I’ll send you the proper record when we’re done with it,’ and it was great, really lovely. They did do that.  They got married to it and it was like their first dance.  Highly romantic stuff this and, but it was very nice because she just wrote me a letter, thanks and all that and told me about the wedding and all that, about her husband but she just put this one little line, she said, ‘You know we had a great time. We laughed.  We cried,’ and I thought that sums up that song for me.

Paul McCartney – from 2005 UK promotional-only interview CD, recorded July 2005 at Air Studios in London

“This Never Happened Before” was released to radio stations in the United States in 2006, peaking at #27 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart. It was intended to be the 3rd single from “Chaos And Creation In The Backyard“ (after “Fine Line” and “Jenny Wren“) but got cancelled. It was thought that the single would have included three unreleased songs from the “Chaos And Creation In The Backyard” sessions: “A Modern Dance”, “Perfect Lover” and “Watching My Fish Drown”.

In 2006, “This Never Happened Before” was included in the soundtrack of the movie “The Lake House”.

Lyrics

I'm very sure

This never happened to me before

I met you and now I'm sure

This never happened before

Now I see

This is the way it's supposed to be

I met you and now I see

This is the way it should be

This is the way it should be for lovers

They shouldn't go it alone

It's not so good when you're on your own

So come to me

Now we can be what we want to be

I love you and now I see

This is the way it should be

This is the way it should be

This is the way it should be for lovers

They shouldn't go it alone

It's not so good when you're on your own

I'm very sure

This never happened to me before

I met you and now I'm sure

This never happened before this never happened

This never happened before this never happened

This never happened before this never happened before

Variations

  • A Album version
  • A1 Promo edit (labelled as "edit 2" on the promo CD)

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

Live performances

Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert.

Going further

Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind the Songs (Vol. 2) 1990-2012

This new book by Luca Perasi traces Paul McCartney's post-Beatles output from 1990 to 2012 in the form of 250 song entries, filled with details about the recordings, stories behind the sessions and musical analysis. His pop albums, his forays into classical and avant-garde music, his penchant for covering old standards: a complete book to discover how these languages cross-pollinate and influence each other.

The second volume in a series that has established itself as a unique guide to take the reader on a journey into the astonishing creativity of Paul McCartney.

Read our exclusive interview with Luca Perasi

Buy on Amazon

Paul McCartney writing

Talk more talk, chat more chat

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Claire Lloyd • 8 years ago

I'd really love to get a copy of the single; This Never Happend Before from the Chaos and Creation in the Backyard album. I've read that it was only released as a promotional copy so I know it's not going to be easy! If you can recommend anywhere I can try I'd be beyond grateful, or even better if I can get the single from you....?

Many thanks,

Claire

admin • 8 years ago

Hi Claire,

Thanks for your message.

I would recommend getting "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard - Ultimate Archive Collection" - it's available as a download on a very popular Beatles forum ; and contains everything related to "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard" in very good quality.

All the best.

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