TL;DR:
- Paul McCartney’s “Another Day” is about a woman’s boring life.
- It doesn’t live up to the lyrical melodrama of The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.”
- “Another Day” still became a big hit in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Paul McCartney‘s “Another Day” is a terrible song. It has some vague similarities to The Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.” Despite this, it fails to live up to that song in every way.
Paul McCartney’s ‘Another Day’ is an attempt to flesh out a fictional character
Paul is very good at writing character songs. He brought characters many characters to life in his songs, including Eleanor Rigby, Desmond and Molly Jones from “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da,” and the title character from “Hey Jude.” He tries to do the same thing on “Another Day,” to a far lesser effect.
“Another Day” is a song about a woman’s boring, routine life. She gets up, washes her hair, gets dressed, goes to the office, and drinks coffee. This is so dull it makes The Office look like an action movie.
Why Paul McCartney did a much better job when he wrote The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’
On the other hand, “Eleanor Rigby” is also a song about a lonely woman. Like the protagonist of “Another Day,” Eleanor Rigby’s life isn’t great, but at least Eleanor Rigby’s life was dramatic! She wears “the face that she keeps in a jar by the door!” Even her lonely, unmourned death is like something out of a soap opera.
The only dramatic thing going on in “Another Day” is that the protagonist gets to see the man of her dreams. He leaves more often than she’d like, but she seems to see him regularly. Honestly, her life doesn’t sound that bad. In fact, “Another Day” would be interesting if her life were a whole lot worse.
The instrumental of “Another Day” doesn’t help either. It’s generic 1970s pop with some stiff reggae elements thrown in. It’s like Paul was trying to write a reggae-pop song that even fans of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” couldn’t defend. Some of Paul’s post-Beatles singles are still ubiquitous (“Wonderful Christmastime,” “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Band on the Run”) but “Another Day” languishes in obscurity.
How ‘Another Day’ performed on the charts in the United States and the United Kingdom
“Another Day” became one of Paul’s earliest solo hits. It reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the chart for 12 weeks. The tune appeared on some editions of the album Ram. That album reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and remained on the chart for 42 weeks.
The Official Charts Company reports “Another Day” was roughly as popular in the United Kingdom. There, the tune peaked at No. 2 and stayed on the chart for 12 weeks. Meanwhile, Ram hit No. 1 in the U.K. for two weeks, lasting on the chart for 24 weeks altogether.
“Another Day” was a modest hit for Paul but there’s a reason it doesn’t get a lot of love on classic rock radio.
