With whimsical Edwardian ditties and some of the greatest love songs ever written, Paul McCartney established himself as the more wholesome member of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting partnership early doors. However, Macca’s songwriting talents certainly weren’t limited to tunes like ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’ or ‘Here, There and Everywhere’. The Beatles’ songwriter also had a darker, more cutting edge to his songwriting, too, and the 1969 track ‘Come and Get It’ is one of the greatest examples of that fact.
Originally written and composed by McCartney during an early session for Abbey Road, when he arrived at the studio much earlier than his bandmates, the song details the songwriter’s disenfranchisement with the music industry.
At that time, The Beatles’ Apple Corps was rapidly deteriorating, marred by mismanagement and far too many shady businessmen looking to make a few quid from the band. What’s more, the band had hired infamous music mogul Allen Klein only a few months prior, and McCartney was seemingly the only band member who saw through his deceiving ways.
Driven by his frustration with the industry and the business side of The Beatles, ‘Come and Get It’ is much more savage and driven than many of McCartney’s other efforts at that time. Nevertheless, the anti-capitalist leanings of the track suited the fact that it was originally written for the soundtrack of the 1969 comedy film The Magic Christian, which starred Ringo Starr alongside Peter Sellers.
The song was performed by Badfinger, one of the various bands signed to the Apple label at that time, and it ended up being their first record under the Badfinger name, having previously recorded as the Iveys throughout much of the 1960s. Although the Welsh outfit wanted to record the song in their own proto-power-pop style, McCartney dictated that it should be exactly like the demo version he had created during the Abbey Road sessions.
Seemingly, that plan worked out quite well for Badfinger. The single reached number four in the UK singles chart, and seven in the US, marking the greatest commercial success for any Apple band other than The Beatles, and firmly establishing Badfinger in the musical mainstream. Following on from the single, the band achieved a few more hit singles, in the form of ‘Day After Day’ and ‘No Matter What’, but the sinking ship of Apple meant that they didn’t see much reward for their efforts.
The issues of Apple weren’t helped by Badfinger’s own struggling finances, spurred on by misguided management and an effort to dodge paying taxes. It took until 1973 for them to split with Apple, signing a new contract with Warner Bros and releasing two albums with the new label in 1974. Ultimately, though, the momentum of their early success on ‘Come and Get It’ had been largely forgotten, and the Warner-era albums flopped.
Ironically, the band that performed McCartney’s song about the ruthlessness, exploitation and mismanagement of the music industry had fallen victim to those issues themselves. By the end of 1974, the band were embroiled in legal battles between Warner Bros and Apple, and had virtually nothing to show for their early successes. In April 1975, the pressure became too much for lead singer Pete Ham, who committed suicide by hanging.
His suicide note namedropped Badfinger’s manager, Stan Polley, calling him a “soulless bastard” and blaming him for the mismanagement and financial ruin of the band. In hindsight, ‘Come and Get It’ seems to have predicted the whole tragic affair, giving McCartney’s song an unparalleled feeling of darkness and morbidity within his extensive discography as a songwriter.
