Hosanna

This delicate, life-affirming acoustic-based song is one of two tracks on New that was produced by Ethan Johns (the other is "Early Days"). The American knob-twiddler has also worked with the likes of Kings of Leon and Laura Marling. Macca and Johns hit it off immediately after meeting up at London's AIR Studios, where they cut this ballad to analog tape using vintage instruments. "The first day we had was remarkable," recalled Johns to Rolling Stone. "He walked in with this incredible song, we threw up a couple of microphones and within four hours, we had this great track. I think we did an edit between the first two takes. It had an incredible feel – a really evocative piece of music, a very interesting lyric, and the performance was great. Then we started to experiment with it, and I put a bunch of psychedelic strangeness on it. You have fun. 'Oh, try this! Do that!' It's just very inspiring to be around." Johns added that he was impressed by how open McCartney was to collaborating. "The first thing he said was, 'What do you feel like doing?' I could have said, 'Let's spend the day making percussion loops with drum machines,' and he would have been, 'Great! Let's do that!' I don't think he ever said 'No,' which is kind of the mark of who he is as an artist, really. He's always up for trying something new."

Some of the tape loops that McCartney did for this song were done on the same machine that he used in The Beatles days, which he still carries around with him.