Paul McCartney has never been shy about his admiration for Elvis Presley. The King of Rock and Roll was one of McCartney’s earliest and most important influences, long before The Beatles became a worldwide sensation.
Like the rest of his bandmates, McCartney grew up captivated by Presley’s revolutionary sound and style. While each Beatle found inspiration in Elvis, McCartney’s connection to his music remained deeply personal, and three specific songs stood out as his lifelong favourites.
The first track that made a lasting impression on McCartney was ‘Heartbreak Hotel’. Released in 1956, the song turned Elvis into a global phenomenon and introduced rock and roll to an even wider audience.
For McCartney, hearing ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ for the first time was an unforgettable moment. “It was electrifying. You heard people saying, ‘I’ve never heard anything like that before, man,’” McCartney recalled in an interview with npr’s Fresh Air.
“You hear on the radio Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel. It was like, ‘Oh my God, what is that?’ Now that we know it so well, you think, ‘Oh, it’s Elvis singing Heartbreak Hotel.’ There will be listeners who can remember that moment when you heard that.”
Another Elvis song that holds a special place in McCartney’s heart is ‘All Shook Up’. The track isn’t just a catchy rock and roll classic; it also has an unexpected memory attached to it. In an interview with Taylor Swift for Rolling Stone, McCartney recounted how ‘All Shook Up’ once helped him shake off a headache in his teenage years.
“I remember once, a friend of mine from Liverpool, we were teenagers, and we were going to a fairground. This girl was so beautiful. Everyone was following her—it was like a magical scene,” McCartney recalled.
But the magical moment didn’t last, as he soon found himself with a pounding headache. “So we put on the Elvis song All Shook Up. By the end of that song, my headache had gone. I thought, you know, ‘That’s powerful.’”
Of all the Elvis songs, ‘I Want You, I Need You, I Love You’ may be the one that resonated with McCartney the most. Speaking to guitar writer Tony Bacon in an interview published at Reverb, McCartney shared how the song brought him to tears when he listened to it as an adult.
“I suddenly realised the last time I listened to this thoroughly was before The Beatles, before all that happened to me, and it just stripped it all away. It actually got me crying, pow. Really did it to me”, he said.
“It was like I was a kid playing snooker again and listening,” he added. His children were stunned when they saw how well he remembered the lyrics, singing along with him as he belted out, “Hold me close, hold me tight…”