"Too Many People"
Single by Paul & Linda McCartney
from the album Ram
A-side"Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey"
Released2 August 1971
Recorded10 November 1970
GenrePsychedelic rock
Length4:10
LabelApple
Songwriter(s)Paul McCartney
Producer(s)Paul and Linda McCartney
Paul & Linda McCartney singles chronology
"Another Day"
(1971)		 "Too Many People"
(1971)		 "The Back Seat of My Car"
(1971)

"Too Many People" is a song by Paul McCartney and his wife Linda McCartney, from the 1971 album Ram. The song was issued as the B-side of the "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" single, and was also included on The 7" Singles Box in 2022.[1]

Background

"Too Many People" contains lyrical digs at McCartney's former bandmate and songwriting partner John Lennon, as well as his wife Yoko Ono. According to Ultimate Classic Rock critic Michael Gallucci, it is "McCartney's bitchiest kissoff to his ex-bandmates."[2] McCartney recalled in an interview with Playboy in 1984:

I was looking at my second solo album, Ram, the other day and I remember there was one tiny little reference to John in the whole thing. He'd been doing a lot of preaching, and it got up my nose a little bit. In one song, I wrote, "Too many people preaching practices", I think is the line. I mean, that was a little dig at John and Yoko. There wasn't anything else on it that was about them. Oh, there was "You took your lucky break and broke it in two".[3]

The song begins with the line "piece of cake", which was later revealed to be a veiled comment at Lennon:

Piss off, cake. Like, a piece of cake becomes piss off cake, And it's nothing, it's so harmless really, just little digs. But the first line is about "too many people preaching practices". I felt John and Yoko were telling everyone what to do. And I felt we didn't need to be told what to do. The whole tenor of the Beatles thing had been, like, to each his own. Freedom. Suddenly it was "You should do this". It was just a bit the wagging finger, and I was pissed off with it. So that one got to be a thing about them.

— Paul McCartney, Mojo, 2001[4][5]
Ono and Lennon in 1969.

The line "You took your lucky break and broke it in two" was originally "Yoko took your lucky break and broke it in two", though McCartney revised it before recording the song.[6] Despite this, Gallucci interprets the line as a "dig at Lennon's relationship with Yoko Ono."[2]

Rolling Stone remarked that "Too Many People"'s "incredibly sweet melody is proof that McCartney could use his charm as a weapon when he wanted to."[7]

The introduction to the song, as well as the bridge, alternate the tonic chord of G major with its minor subdominant chord of C minor.[6] This allows McCartney to go from the bridge to a repetition of the introduction music as a means of moving the music back to the verses.[6] According to Vincent Perez Benitez, this strategy "enhance[s] the coherence of the song," in a manner consistent with McCartney's earlier song "Maybe I'm Amazed."[6] "Too Many People" incorporates guitar solos in both the middle and at the end of the song.[6]

McCartney also recorded an instrumental version of "Too Many People" that was released on his Thrillington album. In this version a stereo phaser was used to produce a sound that music journalist Ian Peel describes as coming from a "psychedelic echo chamber."[8]

Recording

"Too Many People" was initially recorded on 10 November 1970 in Columbia Studios in New York City. Most of the overdubbing, including adding brass instruments to the beginning of the song, occurred in January 1971. Additional overdubbing took place in March and April 1971.[4]

Aftermath

Following the release of Ram, John Lennon pointed out several songs that he claimed were attacks at him, among them being "Too Many People".

There were all the bits at the beginning of Ram like 'Too many people going underground'. Well that was us, Yoko Ono and me. And 'You took your lucky break', that was considering we had a lucky break to be with him.

— John Lennon[4]

In response, Lennon wrote "How Do You Sleep?" for his album Imagine, an attack at McCartney, which featured musical contributions from George Harrison. McCartney later wrote "Dear Friend", a truce offering to Lennon, and released it on the album Wild Life with his band, Wings.[9]

Critical reception

Rolling Stone rated "Too Many People" to be McCartney's 3rd greatest post-Beatles song, 2 slots ahead of its A-side "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" and behind only "Band on the Run" and "Maybe I'm Amazed."[7] Billboard described "Too Many People" as "wailing sentimentality."[10] Capital Journal critic Steve Gettinger called "Too Many People" a high point of Ram stating that it is "bright and bitter, carefully constructed" and "unmistakably Beatles."[11] Boston Globe critic Ernie Santosuosso described it as "a loud meditation about society" with a "particularly violent guitar statement," praising the music more than the lyrics.[12]

Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn described "Too Many People" as "a sort of musical extension of Thomas Malthus that includes some of the humorous irony of the vintage Beatles," with lines such as "Too many reaching for a piece of cake" and "Too many hungry people losing weight."[13] Hilburn goes on to state that the song provides a lyrical surprise, which he likens to an O. Henry story, in which the lyrics turn to "a statement about the resolution of ones problems in a difficult self-centered world."[13] Hilburn suggests that this may be a reference to McCartney's experience with the Beatles' breakup.[13]

According to Ultimate Classic Rock critic Nick DeRiso, the song's "haughty sermonizing" towards Lennon is one of the weaknesses of the Ram album,[14] though fellow Ultimate Classic Rock critic Gallucci rated the song as the 4th best Beatles' post-breakup fight song.[2]

Of the instrumental version on Thrillington, Peel states that "rock 'n' roll is transformed into funky jazz with more than a hint of studio experimentation."[8]

Personnel

References

  1. ↑ "' The 7" Singles Box' – Out 2 December 2022". PaulMcCartney.com. 10 November 2022. Retrieved 5 December 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 Gallucci, Michael (22 October 2013). "Top 10 Beatles Post-Breakup Fight Songs". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
  3. ↑ "Paul McCartney 1984 Playboy Interview". The Trustees of Indiana University. Archived from the original on 10 November 2012. Retrieved 6 May 2008.
  4. 1 2 3 "Too Many People". The Beatles Bible. 4 March 2012. Retrieved 2023-01-01.
  5. ↑ Blaney, J. (2007). Lennon and McCartney: together alone: a critical discography of their solo work. Jawbone Press. pp. 45–46. ISBN 978-1-906002-02-2.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 Benitez, V.P. (2010). The Words and Music of Paul McCartney: The Solo Years. Praeger. pp. 28–29. ISBN 978-0-313-34969-0.
  7. 1 2 Dolan, Jon; Vozick-Levinson, Simon; Hermes, Will & Sheffield, Rob (September 13, 2017). "Paul McCartney's 40 Greatest Solo Songs". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 2020-06-19.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. 1 2 Peel, Ian (2013). The Unknown Paul McCartney. Titan. ISBN 9781781162750.
  9. ↑ "Dear Friend". The Paul McCartney Project. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  10. ↑ "Billboard Album Reviews" (PDF). Billboard. 29 May 1971. Retrieved 2020-06-29.
  11. ↑ Gettinger, Steve (19 June 1971). "Paul (and Linda) McCartney album has ups and downs". Capital Journal. p. 7. Retrieved 2020-06-27 – via newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ Santosuosso, Ernie (30 May 1971). "McCartney LP Needs Lennon". Boston Globe. p. 32. Retrieved 2020-06-27 – via newspapers.com.
  13. 1 2 3 Hilburn, Robert (23 May 1971). "Disappointing Solo Album From Paul McCartney". Los Angeles Times. p. 47. Retrieved 2020-06-27 – via newspapers.com.
  14. ↑ DeRiso, Nick (May 15, 2016). "How Paul McCartney's 'Ram' Became a Moment of Handmade Genius". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved 2022-05-20.
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