Hey Jude, a compilation made up of cuts The Beatles had previously failed to release on an album in the U.S., including “Paperback Writer,” came out on February 26th, 1970. Paul came up with the idea on a drive to the studio and then thought of forming the song as a letter. Its first appearance on an album was on the 1966 British compilation A Collection of Beatles Oldies, but didn’t appear in the U.S. until the 1970 album Hey Jude. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two non-consecutive weeks. Paul McCartney explains how he developed the idea for “Paperback Writer” on the way to Abbey Road Studios.
“I had a long drive out there, so I’d start writing on my way out, start thinking, anyway. I remember I had the whole idea. That was just one that I had. Often John had one. But with ‘Paperback Writer’, I just had the whole thing. And I virtually came in, had the bowl of corn flakes and said, ‘Hey, listen, how’s about if we write it like a letter? Dear sir or madam, and then comma, next line, paragraph.’ And I just wrote it all out on a little piece of paper. And John just sort of sat there and said, ‘Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.’ That just kind of flowed, and I sort of wrote that.”
