It’s a trademark of the McCartney songbook: Silly Love Songs, My Love, Maybe I’m Amazed, When I’m 64, Martha My Dear – the list could go on and on, including his solo work outside of The Beatles and Wings. When people say “they don’t make songs like they used to” I refute that it is a quality issue. Music has never sounded better and artists can lean on decades of history and innovation to create brand new sounds but rather the “soul” of the music isn’t as strong; metaphors are layered on and the messaging isn’t as simple (a byproduct of a postmodern world in which connection is becoming increasingly difficult), so in an effort to bring the soul back to love music I want to highlight my favourite “yearning” songs from two of the greatest to ever do it, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. 

Here there and everywhere 
Here there and everywhere stands out as a completely individual song, the Beatles’ harmonies are much more prevalent in the mix creating a soft and intimate atmosphere as Paul tells us in the first lyric ‘To lead a better life I need my love to be here…’ .
He is wholly consumed by his love and nothing outside matters even in the slightest “Both of us thinking how good it can be. Someone is speaking but she doesn’t know he’s there” the simplicity is what sells it, everyone understands the feeling of being in love and being drawn to a singular person like a bee to honey. There’s no level of complexity that can sell how simple the intangible feeling is.
A subtle guitar and drum track is only required on a song that easily could’ve been a cappella. Even when you don’t have them near you they’re all you need as “to love her is to need her everywhere”. Having girlfriends and wives around the studio would be one of the straws to break the camel’s back in the Beatles but their devotion to loving their wives can never be understated and is reflected in all of their works, especially Paul’s. 

As 
An epic in every sense of the word spanning seven minutes (distinctly longer than the average length of four minutes a song was in 1976) and having three separate worlds each having their own voice, we open the song melodically as Stevie tells us “You can rest your mind assured. That I’ll be loving you always” and “As now can’t reveal the mystery of tomorrow. But in passing will grow older every day”. These themselves paint a picture of true love but to yearn it consumes your whole soul and being to yearn is to need no one else. How long will Stevie love this person?
‘Until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky. Always
Until the ocean covers every mountain high. Always
Until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea. Always
Until we dream of life and life becomes a dream’ 
We shift dramatically down a few octaves as a choir begins backing Stevie up forming a cacophony of noise, the piano is getting louder, the drums are getting faster like a heartbeat we feel his unmatchable desire. But this love isn’t just for him this world is for the world to understand, we’re buried into the instrumental’s increasing pace and intensity when a new voice blasts out; raspy, at his wits end, devoted screams out at us
‘Change your words into truth and then change that truth into love
And maybe our children’s grandchildren
And their great-grandchildren will tell I’ll be loving you‘
‘As’ stands as a testament that no matter what is going on in the world love will always survive and it’s the only thing that unites all of humanity together as an all-consuming feeling.

Knocks me off my feet 
There’s a sense of worry within a relationship; am I love-bombing or becoming repetitive and they’re gonna stop loving me as intensely as I love you as the phrase ‘I love you becomes null and meaningless’. Stevie sets the scene in a park strolling with the one he loves personifying the as an ethereal listener taking the words from their hearts and making them be felt ‘I don’t want to bore you with it. Oh, but I love you, I love you, I love you.’ The words could stretch on forever and take up all the time in the day as a pure show of devotion and love with it being mentioned 25 times in the song. 
‘I reach out for the part of me that lives in you that only our two hearts can find.’ The unity that love and relationships provides acts like a safety blanket for those internally. If this song were released more contemporaneously, you’d find some metaphor about a night out or a reflection on the togetherness yet there is such a simple tenderness in referring to a solution only being found through conjoined hearts and minds in a relationship.