Paul McCartney became a singles machine after the Beatles split. In fact, he’s released more solo songs than his three former bandmates combined. They only burnished his incredible career stats.
In all, McCartney has written or co-written a record 32 chart-topping Hot 100 singles. Seven of them were with Wings, his Beatles successor band, or as a solo artist. He also co-wrote No. 1 songs for Peter and Gordon, Elton John, Stars on 45, Michael Jackson, and Stevie Wonder.
McCartney has likewise released more chart-toppers than any other act in the U.K., where he’s been part of 24 No. 1 singles – including two as a solo act and with Wings. “Ebony and Ivory,” with Wonder, topped the U.K. charts, too.
What Are Paul McCartney’s Best Deep Cuts?
He eventually became one of the rare acts to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame both with a band and as a solo artist. Singles certainly helped secure that legacy. But McCartney has also sold millions and millions and millions of albums.
He’s released nine platinum or multi-platinum studio LPs in the U.S. since leaving the Beatles. A similar number topped the album charts in the U.K. By 2020, he’d become the first act to place an album in one of the top two Billboard chart positions in each of the last six decades. So, there’s clearly more to McCartney’s storied career than best-selling singles.
Deep cuts power those albums, connecting the more well-known songs while completing each era’s creative picture. In some cases, they’ve become fan favorites. But by definition a deep cut can never have been released as a single or B-side. They’re to be discovered while the album spins.
We’ve taken a look back at the best of them in the following countdown of Top 20 Paul McCartney Deep Cuts. Here’s how we ranked them:
No. 20. “Sweetest Little Show”
From: Pipes of Peace (1983)
If Pipes of Peace sounds like Tug of War leftovers, that’s because it’s exactly what this was. McCartney called Michael Jackson back in for another duet, but “Say Say Say” came off as utterly facile after “The Girl Is Mine.” McCartney’s scattered attempts at modernizing his sound feel forced and became immediately dated. Even a collaboration with Ringo Starr (“So Bad”) falls flat. “Sweetest Little Show,” another of those held-over tracks, stands out because of its effortless, Wings-like exuberance. There’s a reason for that: It grew out of a July 1980 jam with the now-departed Denny Laine. Later, a fun interlude on guitar sparked this spontaneous round of applause from the assembled studio assistants, and McCartney left it in.
No. 19. "Heart of the Country"
(Ram, 1971)
If the opening song on Side Two of Ram sounds like it burst from an idyllic rural hillside, that’s because, well, it did. “Heart of the Country” celebrated the quiet life McCartney made for himself with Linda McCartney at High Peak Farm in Kintyre, Scotland, far away from the Fab Four mobs – and it did so in an appropriately simple way: McCartney only used six of the available 16 tracks at CBS Studios in New York, with future Wings co-founder Denny Seiwell playing a homemade drumkit constructed from a nearby plastic trashcan.
No. 18. “Magneto and Titanium Man”
(Venus and Mars, 1975)
Impish and ear-wormy, “Magneto and Titanium Man” finds McCartney happily inhabiting the Marvel Universe, decades before that was a thing. He’d nostalgically picked up a comic book on a whim during his regular Saturday trip to the market while on vacation in Jamaica – and then found himself hooked all over again. “It took some skill – not to mention perspective and imagination – to pull off these illustrations,” McCartney said in The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. “So, I decided it would be nice to bring these two comic book characters into a song.”
No. 17. “Momma Gets By”
From: The Boys of Dudgeon Lane (2026)
While John Lennon told stories of deep personal import and George Harrison wrestled with eternity, McCartney often explored the small moments that make up nameless people’s lives. “Momma Gets By” is his best late-career example. It also reinforces a tandem idea: McCartney approaches it all with an open-hearted curiosity. As with the long-suffering wife of this song’s shiftless male protagonist, he loves them.
READ MORE: Ranking Every Beatles Solo Album
No. 16. “That Would Be Something”
(McCartney, 1970)
A groovy little lovestruck piffle, “That Would Be Something” is emblematic of this debut album’s general aesthetic. McCartney layers in every element, including the sung (not played) drum fills. Like a lot of McCartney, there also isn’t much going on lyrically with “That Would Be Something” – and yet it somehow charms. In this way, McCartney had inadvertently set something of a solo standard. (Check out the similarly nonsensical “Getting Closer,” Wings’ Top 20 hit from 1979.) Asked what a “pure McCartney song” might be during a 1986 BBC documentary, he demurred at first. Then McCartney admitted: “Something like ‘That Would Be Something,’ I think is very me.”
No. 15. “Get On the Right Thing”
(Red Rose Speedway, 1973)
Another Ram-era leftover, this track has Beatles-esque pretensions — and that gives “Get on the Right Thing” much of its continued resonance. There’s a lot to love here. McCartney sings in the style of his old Little Richard send-ups for one of the last times on an original song. His vocals ascend into a rattling fervor, then whoop and call all the way back down while still tracing a chaptered compositional style that recalls the best moments from Abbey Road. “Get on the Right Thing” also rocks in a way that drive-by fans might never have guessed after wading through the gauzy web of strings on “My Love,” heard earlier on Red Rose Speedway.
No. 14. "One of These Days"
From: McCartney II (1980)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the strongest tracks on this goofball experimental dud of an album finds McCartney at work with an acoustic guitar. Sure, he double tracks and weirdly synthesizes his voice but that’s the extent of the adornments to be found on the quietly effective “One of These Days.” “Quietly effective” may sound like a back-handed compliment; but in the ’80s, and on an LP that found McCartney focused so completely on at-home doodles with a new-fangled keyboard, that counts as high praise.
No. 13. “Dominoes”
From: Egypt Station (2018)
An endearing career travelogue, “Dominoes” finds McCartney once again reclaiming his own considerable legacy in The Beatles.. He starts with a lithe acoustic riff that would have been at home on The White Album, then continues to flip through his back pages: There’s the crackling cadence of his ’80s albums, the enveloping background vocal style of his ’70s work, and backward guitar straight out of his ’60s work.. His lyric about how one thing can unexpectedly lead to another underscores this stirring musical journey.“Dominoes”. then ends with a delicately conveyed note-perfect line: “It’s been a blast.“
READ MORE: Top 10 Beatles Guitar Solos Not By George Harrison
Weird Facts About Rock’s Most Famous Album Covers
Early on, LPs typically featured basic portraiture of artists.. Then things got weird.
Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
You Think You Know The Beatles?
