Linda McCartney

Released: October 26, 1998

Songwriter: Pat Ballard

Producer: Lee “Scratch” Perry Paul McCartney

Sandman, bring me a dream
Make him the cutest that I've ever see
Give him the word that I'm not a rover
Then tell me that my lonesome nights are over

Sandman, I'm so alone
Don't have nobody to call my own
Please turn on your magic beam
Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream
Then tell me that my lonesome nights are over

Sandman, I'm so alone
Don't have nobody to call my own
Please turn on your magic beam
Mr. Sandman, bring me a dream, Oh

Before she met Paul McCartney, Linda Eastman McCartney (1941-1998) was a professional photographer. Despite the name, she had no connection to the Eastman Kodak fortune – rather, her family were Jewish immigrants who moved to America at a time when it was common for Jewish-Americans to choose English last names as a way to assimilate.

In May 1967, Paul was in the audience at a small music club when he struck up a conversation with Linda. In May 1968, he made an excuse to see her the next time he was in New York. Within a month, they were inseparable, and they stayed devoted to each other until she died of cancer in 1998.

Paul’s biographer called the marriage “by far the happiest and most durable in pop.” With Paul as a coach, Linda went on a notorious rise from totally untrained musician, to a (self-acknowledged) mediocre member of Wings, to the respected counter-melody, co-writer, and muse of Paul’s late-career music. In 1975, she added “activist” to her resume, when she and Paul became the most famous converts to vegetarianism at the time.

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Wide Prairie

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Wide Prairie (1998)

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