Now we bring you, Fourfiveseconds

I asked Alexa Auto to play some Paul McCartney songs, and suddenly “FourFiveSeconds” started playing from the back speakers in my car. I wondered, what song is this? The acoustic guitar sounded like classic McCartney, but I couldn’t hear his voice. When I looked it up, I found out the story was even more interesting than I thought. The track is a real collaboration between Rihanna, Kanye West, and Paul McCartney. They recorded it in relaxed sessions with McCartney on guitar, and they used an iPhone to capture everything. Months later, when McCartney heard the finished song, he didn’t recognize his own part. West had taken one of his chord progressions, sped it up, and built a new song around it. Even more surprising, those high-pitched background vocals you hear about 55 seconds in that sound like Rihanna or maybe a child? That’s actually McCartney. His voice was changed so much that even the Beatles wouldn’t have recognized it. The song works because each artist brings something important: Rihanna’s powerful vocals that cover almost three octaves, Kanye’s honest verses and creative production, and McCartney’s subtle guitar playing that ties it all together.

The story behind “FourFiveSeconds” is a little more straightforward. As McCartney explains it, “A lot of what we did was just telling each other stories,” while he noodled around on an acoustic guitar and they recorded everything on an iPhone. Months later, when McCartney got the record, the Beatle didn’t even recognize his part, because West had taken one of his chord progressions, sped it up, and made it into the basis for a completely new song. There are even some high-pitched, unrecognizable background vocals about 55 seconds into the song that sound like they might come from Rihanna or a small child, but McCartney pointed out, “That’s me.”