Young Boy

“Young Boy” is the fifth track on the 1997 album Flaming Pie (working titles for this song were “Poor Boy” and “Find Love“). From Club Sandwich n°82, Summer 1997:

The emerging talent of young James McCartney as a guitarist has latterly been prompting son-to-father questions about “early days”. Among the pieces remembered and re-played from the vinyl years has been ‘My Dark Hour’, a scorching rock number recorded by Steve Miller and (hiding under the pseudonymous surname Ramon) Paul McCartney back on 9 May 1969, immediately after a Beatles session for Abbey Road broke up in disarray after an Apple business squabble. Paul played drums, bass and sang the backing vocals while Miller did the rest, and the piece was finished inside the evening. Listening again with James to ‘My Dark Hour’ in 1994, Paul was prompted to contact Miller and suggest they resume the double-act after an interlude of some 25 years. So, together with his family, and engineer Geoff Emerick, he made the trip out to Miller’s home studio in a snowbound Sun Valley, Idaho, in February 1995, as soon as the Beatles had completed their work on ‘Real Love’. Remembering fondly what had transpired that night back in London, the two musicians set to work in a similar manner: Paul and Steve played guitar tracks, then Paul drummed and Steve wound up the lead guitar, Paul added bass and the lead vocal, and Steve contributed the harmonies. The song they were singing, ‘Young Boy’, was another one written by Paul under a self-imposed deadline, and in similar circumstances to ‘Somedays’ in that he took himself off to a quiet room while Linda concerned herself with cookery matters. The date was 18 August 1994 and the location this time was the Long Island home of-famous chef and culinary author Pierre Franey, for whom Linda was making a meal, watched too by New York Times food writer Bryan Miller and a photographer. While his wife prepared an assortment of vegetarian dishes Paul took himself off to the den, began strumming some favoured chords (C, A minor, E minor) and out popped ‘Young Boy’ (albeit, at this time, ‘Poor Boy’), recalling not only his own earlier days but those of his son and his son’s friends who find themselves at that age where Great Questions are asked of oneself. Paul re-emerged into the kitchen while Linda was baking a cake and played his new song to the audience of four, telling the Times writer “I do it [songwriting] very simply at first, just to get the feeling. It’s just like cooking: a simple expression can be the best.”

Mark Lewisohn, in Club Sandwich n°82, Summer 1997

I hadn’t seen Steve Miller since one night at Olympic Studios in 1969, when there was an unfortunate business meeting and a Beatles session broke down. On the spur of the moment Steve and I had got together and by about three or four in the morning we’d done ‘My Dark Hour’ together, which he released on his next album. I played it recently to my son James, who’s interested in finding out what his Dad did back then, and he liked it. He even liked my drumming, although it’s a little bit heavy on the tom-toms. So that reminded me of Steve, I called him up, we got our friendship going again, I told him I had a song and reckoned we could do it well together and he invited me out to his studio in Idaho. We had a great time there, hanging out and recording. Working with him again was like falling back into a pleasant old habit. Steve’s tough to produce because he’s a great perfectionist, but I just told him to whack up the guitar. I love his guitar playing.

This was another song written when I’d set myself an arbitrary deadline. We were in Long Island and Linda was cooking with Pierre Franey for a New York Times article. I had taken my guitar, and was sitting around in a nearby room when a song came up. It wrote itself: I was thinking about all the young people I know, and remembering my own early days. There’s a funny side story to this: I left the room after I finished writing the song and when I went back in there a few minutes later I got a shock because a girl was lying on the couch. She’d been there all the time, and I hadn’t seen her.

This was another written against the clock. I wrote it in the time that it took Linda to cook a lunch for a feature in The New York Times. It was great to renew my Sixties friendship with Steve Miller; working with Steve again was like falling back into the old habit.

Paul McCartney, from the album liner notes

“Young Boy” was another of these “set yourself an arbitrary deadline” goal. In fact, it started to be just a “Poor Boy”. “Just a poor boy looking for a way to find love”. The “Poor Boy” reminded me like an old Elvis song and “Poor Boy” just had too many connotations. So “Young Boy” was better, I liked the word better, “Young Boy”.

And I started making up this song, you know, just thinking about all the young people I know who are in that position, who are just starting off on a romance or starting to find their partner or whatever. And I just became a subject, you know, I remember it well enough myself. “Looking for a way to find love”… I mean I remember this whole process of finding out somebody who’s for me. But how am I ever going to meet her? Just 300.000.000 of them. It’s very perplexing at that age – fingers crossed – that’s all you can do.

First of all, I called up Steve Miller. I said, Look I have a song, a song called “Young Boy”, I think we could do it great, how about it, he said, “Come out”. He’s got a studio in Sun Valley Idaho. I said, “yeah, alright, I’m off”.

Paul McCartney, in the “Flaming Pie Radio Special”

I invited him over to my studio and we recorded “Young Boy” which was really a lot of fun. It was really a neat trip for me because it was completely different than anything than I would normally play and record. And so I got to play lead on top of, you know, some different changes and stuff and singing some different kinds of harmonies it was really fun. For me, it’s sort of like being around Mozart or something. It’s a remarkable experience because Paul is so talented. He plays drums, he plays bass, he plays guitar, and he was in the Beatles, a great band… And he writes classical music and he’s just an amazingly creative person to be around. He’s absolutely pleasant, very polite, really fun to work with, and we have nothing but a good time every time we get together.

Steve Miller, in the “Flaming Pie Radio Special”

In the UK, “Young Boy” was issued as a the first single from “Flaming Pie” in April 1997. Two promotional videos were created to promote it – the first one was produced by Geoff Wonfor, the second one by Alistair Donald.

“Young Boy” and “The World Tonight” were included in the soundtrack of “Fathers’ Day“, a comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and starring Robin Williams, Billy Crystal, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Nastassja Kinski, released in the US on May 9, 1997. Specific 5.1 mixes were built for the movie.

Lyrics

Variations

• A Album version
• A1 Early mix, released on the Capitol 3 track album sampler
• A2020 2020 remaster
• A5.1 "Father's Day" 5.1 movie mix
• B Home Recording
• C Acoustic guitar demo, from "Flaming Pie" EPK #2

Officially appears on

Bootlegs

Related films

Videos

Live performances

“Young Boy” has been played in 3 concerts.

Latest concerts where “Young Boy” has been played

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