Too Many People

Summarize Timeline Fact Check

"Too Many People" contains lyrical digs at McCartney's former bandmate and songwriting partner John Lennon, as well as his wife Yoko Ono. According to Ultimate Classic Rock critic Michael Gallucci, it is "McCartney's bitchiest kissoff to his ex-bandmates."^[1] McCartney recalled in an interview with Playboy in 1984:

I was looking at my second solo album, Ram, the other day and I remember there was one tiny little reference to John in the whole thing. He'd been doing a lot of preaching, and it got up my nose a little bit. In one song, I wrote, "Too many people preaching practices", I think is the line. I mean, that was a little dig at John and Yoko. There wasn't anything else on it that was about them. Oh, there was "You took your lucky break and broke it in two".^[2]

The song begins with the line "piss off, cake", which was later revealed to be a veiled comment at Lennon:

Piss off, cake. Like, a piece of cake becomes piss off cake, And it's nothing, it's so harmless really, just little digs. But the first line is about "too many people preaching practices". I felt John and Yoko were telling everyone what to do. And I felt we didn't need to be told what to do. The whole tenor of the Beatles thing had been, like, to each his own. Freedom. Suddenly it was "You should do this". It was just a bit the wagging finger, and I was pissed off with it. So that one got to be a thing about them.

The line "You took your lucky break and broke it in two" was originally "Yoko took your lucky break and broke it in two", though McCartney revised it before recording the song.^[5][6] Despite this, Gallucci interprets the line as a "dig at Lennon's relationship with Yoko Ono."^[1]

Rolling Stone remarked that "Too Many People"'s "incredibly sweet melody is proof that McCartney could use his charm as a weapon when he wanted to."^[7]

The introduction to the song, as well as the bridge, alternate the tonic chord of G major with its minor subdominant chord of C minor. This allows McCartney to go from the bridge to a repetition of the introduction music as a means of moving the music back to the verses. According to Vincent Perez Benitez, this strategy "enhance[s] the coherence of the song," in a manner consistent with McCartney's earlier song "Maybe I'm Amazed". "Too Many People" incorporates guitar solos in both the middle and at the end of the song.^[5] The bridge is in the key of A minor.^[8]

The basic track for "Too Many People" was recorded on 10 November 1970 in Columbia Studios in New York City. The musicians were Paul McCartney on acoustic guitar, Hugh McCracken on electric guitar and Denny Seiwell on drums. Paul did not explain the song's lyrics to McCracken or Seiwell when he played it for them. Seiwell stated: "Our headspace was that we were in there trying to do the best job. [...] So we stayed away from all that crap. Paul never brought it into the studio either. We respected him and he respected our professionalism—it was better left unsaid."^[8] After recording the basic track, McCartney and Seiwell added percussion, including shaker and cowbell, after which McCartney recorded the two solos in the bridge in one take.^[8]

Overdub sessions for Ram took place in January 1971 at A&R Studios in New York City. On 28 January, McCartney overdubbed brass players to "Too Many People", specifically the song's opening and before the two appearances of the lyrics "you took your lucky break".^[9] Paul and Linda McCartney's vocals for the song were recorded on 10 February, with Paul triple-tracking his lead vocal.^[10] Additional backing vocals by the McCartneys and percussion noises using a wooden pallet by Paul were added on 18 March, this time at Sunset Sound Recorders Studio in Los Angeles. Engineer Eirk Wangberg remembered Paul asking him to set up a microphone on the pallet: "Then he hopped onto [it] and started jumping on each quarter [note]. What a sound it gave on tape!"^[11] Mixing for the Ram songs took place during April.^[12]

Following the release of Ram, John Lennon pointed out several songs that he claimed were attacks at him, among them being "Too Many People".

There were all the bits at the beginning of Ram like 'Too many people going underground'. Well that was us, Yoko Ono and me. And 'You took your lucky break', that was considering we had a lucky break to be with him.

In response, Lennon wrote "How Do You Sleep?" for his album Imagine, an attack on McCartney, which featured musical contributions from George Harrison.^[13][14] McCartney later wrote "Dear Friend", an attempt at reconciliation with Lennon,^[15] which was recorded in July 1971 with his newly-formed band Wings and released on their debut album Wild Life in December 1971.^[16]

Rolling Stone rated "Too Many People" to be McCartney's 3rd greatest post-Beatles song, 2 slots ahead of its A-side "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" and behind only "Band on the Run" and "Maybe I'm Amazed".^[7] Billboard described "Too Many People" as "wailing sentimentality."^[17] Capital Journal critic Steve Gettinger called "Too Many People" a high point of Ram stating that it is "bright and bitter, carefully constructed" and "unmistakably Beatles."^[18] Boston Globe critic Ernie Santosuosso described it as "a loud meditation about society" with a "particularly violent guitar statement," praising the music more than the lyrics.^[19]

Los Angeles Times critic Robert Hilburn described "Too Many People" as "a sort of musical extension of Thomas Malthus that includes some of the humorous irony of the vintage Beatles," with lines such as "Too many reaching for a piece of cake" and "Too many hungry people losing weight." Hilburn goes on to state that the song provides a lyrical surprise, which he likens to an O. Henry story, in which the lyrics turn to "a statement about the resolution of ones problems in a difficult self-centered world." Hilburn suggests that this may be a reference to McCartney's experience with the Beatles' breakup.^[20]

According to Ultimate Classic Rock critic Nick DeRiso, the song's "haughty sermonizing" towards Lennon is one of the weaknesses of the Ram album,^[21] though fellow Ultimate Classic Rock critic Gallucci rated the song as the 4th best Beatles' post-breakup fight song and Ultimate Classic Rock critic Brian Wawzenek rated it as the 4th best song inspired by Yoko Ono.^[1][6]

An instrumental cover version of "Too Many People" was released on the album Thrillington in 1977. Recorded in June 1971 by Paul, this recording prominently features horns and opens with studio chatter from the orchestra members, similar to the opening for the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (1967).^[22] In this version, a stereo phaser was used to produce a sound that music journalist Ian Peel describes as coming from a "psychedelic echo chamber."^[23] Of the Thrillington version, Peel states that "rock 'n' roll is transformed into funky jazz with more than a hint of studio experimentation".^[23]

The Ram recording was later released on the compilation albums Wingspan: Hits and History (2001) and Pure McCartney (2016). A mono version was released on the Paul McCartney Archive Collection reissue of Ram in 2012, as well as The 7" Singles Box in 2022.^[22][24]

According to Luca Perasi:^[22]

• Paul McCartney – lead and backing vocals, acoustic and electric guitar, bass guitar
• Linda McCartney – backing vocals
• Hugh McCracken – acoustic and electric guitar
• Denny Seiwell – drums, percussion, shaker, cowbell
• Unknown musicians – horns