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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy \/ Capitol Records)<\/p>\n
Sat 3 January 2026 16:47, UK <\/p>\n
Ever since Paul McCartney<\/a> was a child, he\u2019s been an admirer of Frank Sinatra. Who hasn\u2019t been? He\u2019s the king of cool. In fact, he\u2019s pretty much the inventor of it.<\/p>\n His swagger enamoured Macca when he was growing up in Liverpool. One of the first songs he ever wrote as a teenager was a tribute to the legendary New Jersey singer. Years later, McCartney tried to pass it on to Sinatra, but sadly, he wasn\u2019t interested. Simply put, it wasn\u2019t ever really suitable.<\/p>\n The crooner always had mixed thoughts on The Beatles. He famously gave the band his seal of approval when he covered the George Harrison creation, \u2018Something\u2019, but he also mocked them as \u2018mop top\u2019 kids, and seemed to think that rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, as a genre, wasn\u2019t really to be taken seriously. <\/p>\n Interestingly, Sinatra wasn\u2019t always sold on the group<\/a> being a success in the States, either. In the book George Harrison on George Harrison, a brutally honest quote from Sinatra reads: \u201cI thought the Beatles would die in New York. I was very surprised by the reception they got. I guess I was wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n Sinatra\u2019s cover of \u2018Something\u2019 is as close as he got to crossing paths with The Beatles. However, at one point, McCartney was asked to write a track for the vocalist, and bizarrely, he decided to gift Sinatra with the oldest song in his back catalogue. After all, it had been written with him in mind in the first place. But maybe he should have known better by this stage?<\/p>\n So, what song did McCartney offer to the king of swing?<\/p>\n McCartney had yet to find a home for the song despite writing it decades ago when he was 14 and in the midst of a Frank Sinatra phase. When he first penned \u2018Suicide\u2019, McCartney believed the only songwriting blueprint to follow was the one crafted by the swinging Sinatra. It was jazzy, performative, and primed to be paired with the chinking of fine crystal glasses.<\/p>\n McCartney later told<\/a> the McCartney Archive Collection about Sinatra\u2019s early influence on his songwriting. \u201cI had my Dad\u2019s old piano at home, that I used to tinker about on when there was no one in the house. And my feelings were, then, that if you were ever going to be a songwriter, the height of it all was Sinatra,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Enthusiastically adding, \u201cThat would be the greatest stuff that you could do, really a little bit before rock \u2018n\u2019 roll, so you were thinking of standards and things. So around that time I wrote \u2018When I\u2019m Sixty-Four\u2019 and this other thing. I thought it would be a bit of a Rat Pack, smoochy, with words like \u2018When she tries to, run away, uh-huh\u2026\u2019 Boom! And stabs from the band, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n The former Beatle then spoke about the time Sinatra came calling, and he decided to offer up \u201cthis other thing\u201d, which was not to the American singer\u2019s taste. McCartney added,<\/a> \u201cIt was a real early song of mine, and I used to do it as a joke, really. I actually once got a request from Sinatra for a song\u201d.<\/p>\n Adding, \u201cAnd I spoke to him on the phone and told him about it, \u2018Great, Paul, send it along\u2019. \u2018Thank you, Frank\u2019. And I sent it him, and he thought I was taking the piss. \u2018Is this guy kidding?\u2019 You know, sending Sinatra a song called \u2018Suicide\u2019. He did not get it! But I did think, \u2018Oh God, maybe I should have changed it a bit to send it to him\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n