Picture Paul McCartney standing in the Scottish Highlands in 1968. The countryside stretches out in front of him. A long, winding road disappears up into the hills. He starts writing a song.
That song was never supposed to belong to the Beatles.
McCartney wrote “The Long and Winding Road” as a piano ballad in January 1969. He has publicly said that he never intended for the band to perform it. According to American Songwriter, he wrote it specifically for Tom Jones, on the condition that Jones would release it as his next single. Jones had to pass; his record label had already committed to releasing “Without Love.”
McCartney also revealed in another interview that he wrote the track with someone like Ray Charles in mind. It was meant for mainstream balladeers. A demo even went out to Cilla Black. None of those doors opened.
So the song found its way to the Beatles instead. John Lennon and George Harrison contributed recordings from 1969, and producer Phil Spector took over from there. Spector built up elaborate arrangements around the track, which McCartney despised. The disagreement ran so deep that McCartney went to the English High Court seeking to dissolve the Beatles’ legal partnership.
“The Long and Winding Road” was released as part of the Let It Be album, just one month after McCartney announced the Beatles were finished.
Despite all that heartache, the song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1970, where it stayed for two weeks. It was the band’s second number one hit of that year. And it was their twentieth and final number one ever.
The track has been covered many times since, including by Aretha Franklin and, yes, by Tom Jones himself, the very man McCartney first wrote it for.
A song born from a rainy Scottish road, passed over by the artists it was meant for, and released at the exact moment a band was falling apart. And somehow, it became one of the most beloved songs our generation has ever heard.