You Gave Me The Answer – René in Switzerland asks…

The spring sun has started to show its face here in London (as well as the occasional snow shower, which as odd as it is we’ve taken to be the weather’s tribute to Prince’s song, ’Sometimes it Snows in April’). The season – definitely a favourite here in our office – is traditionally associated with new beginnings, and this year is no different.

As we start to put away our winter wardrobe and dust off the spring collection, we’ve begun making plans to spend as much time outside as possible and enjoy those first budding rays of the year. What a perfect time of year then for Paul to launch his brand new ‘One On One’ tour!

So far Paul’s performed concerts in Fresno, Portland, Seattle and two nights in Vancouver, and this weekend he kicks off the next dates in Little Rock, Sioux Falls and two nights in Minneapolis. After this, Paul heads down to Argentina.

And if this brand new tour wasn’t enough, we also have lots of exciting things happening for Paul’s forthcoming release Pure McCartney. While there is much, much more to come, one of our favourite things about this release is re-discovering some of Paul's ‘deep cuts’ through the new website feature ’Sticking Out Of My Back Pocket'. So far this has included the tracks ‘Bip Bop’, ‘Too Much Rain’ and the subject of this month’s question from René in Switzerland; ‘Dear Boy’. Rene asks: "On ‘Dear Boy’ there is some nice counterpoint going on. When you are recording your music, do you build up the vocal-harmonies intuitively, or do you arrange and write them down first?”

Before flying off to start his tour in North America, we spoke with Paul who responded: "Thank you for your question, René. I wrote the song without counterpoint before the studio. And then in the studio, I came up with the harmony parts. So the answer is that it’s a combination of both!"

This question called to mind a songwriting Q&A we set up at the tail-end of 2014 with Lily Cole’s Impossible platform. In that Q&A Paul answered a similar question about how complete a song will be before he takes it into the studio. If you’d like to learn more about Paul’s writing process, you can read that Q&A by clicking HERE!

You can also learn more about the track 'Dear Boy' in the new website feature 'Sticking Out Of My Back Pocket’, published this week. The feature includes Paul talking about how Linda's vocals helped shape the tune. Learn more about ‘Dear Boy’ by clicking HERE!

Do you have exciting adventures planned for spring? Let us know in the comments below…