3 Folk Rock Songs You Didn't Know Paul McCartney Wrote

Paul McCartney is one of the most successful musicians ever, on account of how he wrote many classic rock songs from the '60s that are worth a head-turning amount of money with the Beatles, as well as for his work with Wings and as a solo artist. But McCartney is also prolific and versatile, composing for others in styles that differ from his preferred pop-rock: He wrote many songs that best capture the poetic soul of folk rock. That genre, which paired lyrically weighty works played on primarily acoustic instruments with the hard-charging and percussive elements of mainstream rock, was among the prevailing sounds of the '60s.

As the Beatles' stature and influence grew throughout the '60s, McCartney's services as a songwriter were sought out by other rising stars from the U.K. Those acts didn't really try to ape the Beatles either, giving McCartney a creative outlet for his folkier, gentler, acoustic guitar-driven songs. Here are some underrated Paul McCartney songs with a folk rock feel that the Beatle wrote for Peter and Gordon, Mary Hopkin, and Rod Stewart.

The backing track of "A World Without Love" sounds like the mid-1960s Beatles performing in the style of an early '60s folk revival act like the Kingston Trio. The guitar is just that jangly and pleasant, and the harmonies that strong, respectively. But "A World Without Love" is only sort of a Beatles song in that it was written entirely by Paul McCartney.

Peter Asher and Gordon Waller formed a folk duo while still in their teens, and shortly thereafter were signed to U.K. label EMI. Looking for originals that they could release, Asher asked McCartney, who at the time was in a relationship with his sister, Jane Asher. McCartney offered the gentle, moony, generally pro-love ditty "A World Without Love" — a song he wrote when he was 16 — deeming it not appropriate for the Beatles and way better for a low-key folk act like Peter and Gordon. That was the duo's first single, and it took the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week in 1964 during the throes of Beatlemania.

In 1968, Paul McCartney produced "Those Were the Days" for Mary Hopkin, a folk rock singer signed to the Beatles' personal label, Apple Records. A modernized cover and English-language version of a Russian folk song, it was a No. 2 hit in the U.S. and reached No. 1 in the U.K. About a year after McCartney helped launch her career, Hopkin reached out about recording a follow-up single with the Beatles' near-magic touch. McCartney said okay, and he dashed off "Goodbye" without much pomp. 

"I didn't have in mind any more Russian folk songs, so I just wrote one for her. I thought it fit the bill. It wasn't as successful as the first one, but it did all right," McCartney said in "Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now." Indeed: The bouncy folk song "Goodbye" peaked at No. 13 in May 1969, Hopkin's second and second-biggest U.S. hit, but it went all the way to No. 2 in the U.K. That marked the last McCartney-Hopkin collaboration. 

Ironically, Hopkin wanted to lean more heavily into the folk sound that McCartney had set her up with on her 1971 LP "Earth Song/Ocean Song." McCartney didn't feel like producing such a project, so he opted out and left the job to longtime David Bowie collaborator (and future Hopkin spouse) Tony Visconti.

After coming up with the Faces, and before his forays into disco, pop, and early 20th-century American standards, Rod Stewart differentiated himself from other 1970s rockers with a decidedly folkish feel. He preferred the accompaniment of acoustic guitar, mandolin, and other old-fashioned string instruments that helped the thoughtful lyrics get the proper focus on songs like "Maggie May" and "Reason to Believe." In 1974, Stewart briefly popped onto the U.S. pop chart with "Mine for Me," which topped out at No. 91. As folk adjacent as his other, bigger hits of the era, the tune was written by Paul McCartney along with his Wings bandmate and spouse, Linda McCartney.

When Stewart performed with the Faces in London in November 1974, he asked the McCartneys, who were in attendance, to join him in a performance of "Mine for Me." Asked to comment about how and why he gave away a song to Stewart, Paul McCartney called it a real pleasure. "It's nice to write for someone like Rod, because he's got such a distinctive voice. You can hear him singing it as you are doing it," he said (via "The Beatles Diary: Volume 2").