Seize The Day

This emphatic call to arms is a track from McCartney III, an album recorded at Paul McCartney's English home while in lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic. He wrote this song for those gripped with doubts about the future. Speaking with BBC 6 Music interviewer Matt Everitt, McCartney explained that the song's message was about "just reminding myself and anyone listening that, yeah, we better grab the good stuff and... try and get on through the pandemic."

I don't care to be bad I prefer to think twice All I know is it's quite a show But it's still alright to be nice Yankee toes and Eskimos can turn to frozen ice McCartney wrote the song on piano and started improvising lyrics. He told NME that by the time he got to the line "Yankee toes and Eskimos can turn to frozen ice," he didn't have a clue what he was singing about. "But it's best not to question too deeply a lyric," McCartney said. "So instead of it making an amazing amount of sense it becomes a little bit surrealistic."

When the cold days come and the old ways fade away There'll be no more sun and we'll wish that we had held on to the day Seize the day Once he got to the chorus, McCartney started singing about "the cold days." That led to a lyric about enjoying the present and not worrying about tomorrow. He told The Sun: "There will be cold days, days that will test us, but we should remember to enjoy this day. Really it's 'carpe diem' but that didn't fit... although I must admit, in one of the demos, I start trying to throw it in!"