After releasing their 12th and final album, Let It Be, on May 8, 1970, The Beatles went their separate ways. The end of the Fab Four had quite the effect on each member of the band, but Paul McCartney has revealed how it left him doubting his own songwriting abilities.

This is surprising considering McCartney is one of the most prolific songwriters of the generation. Famously, the star wrote the smash hit Yesterday in his sleep. He once recalled: “I woke up with a lovely tune in my head. I thought: ‘That’s great, I wonder what that is?’ There was an upright piano next to me, to the right of the bed by the window. I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F sharp minor 7th – and that leads you through then to B to E minor, and finally back to E. It all leads forward logically. I liked the melody a lot but because I’d dreamed it I couldn’t believe I’d written it.” Yesterday has since sold more than 1.5 million units worldwide.

But after McCartney split from his songwriting pals, he couldn’t envision himself penning anything half as good as that. 

McCartney recently revealed: “It was quite difficult because I didn’t know what to do at all. And I didn’t really have any brainy ideas, except if I want to continue in music, maybe I’ll form another band. But then, how do you do that after The Beatles? How could anything I do be as good as The Beatles? The Beatles had a very special combination of talents … as has been proved by its longevity. The stuff we did together still sounds good and still lives today.”

The Beatle couldn’t help but reminisce on how easy it felt writing songs with John Lennon.

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McCartney remembered: “So it was a question of how can you get better than that? And I think I just have to say: ‘Well, you can’t. But if you want to keep going, you should maybe think about starting something else.’ So I did.”

In 1971 the former member of The Beatles started Paul McCartney and Wings, a rock band featuring his wife, Linda McCartney, Denny Seiwell and Denny Laine. The band released eight albums over the next decade and even won a slew of awards.

Paul McCartney and Wings won a handful of Grammy Awards, including Best Engineered Recording, Non-Classical, Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus and Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s). In 1973 the band also released a James Bond theme song, Live and Let Die, which accompanied the 1973 film of the same name. The song was a smash hit and reached number one in the USA, selling more than 1 million units worldwide.

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