Paul McCartney wrote this with Denny Laine, his bandmate in Wings. The song is a tribute to the Kintyre Peninsula in Scotland where Paul and his wife Linda had a farm. The Mull is the area at the tip of the peninsula, known for its beautiful scenery and tranquil atmosphere. After a difficult breakup with The Beatles, McCartney went there to avoid a nervous breakdown.
This was barely noticed in the US, but in Britain it was the best-selling single of the '70s, selling in excess of 2 million copies, which was more than any Beatles record. The US single was actually a bigger hit for its B-side, "Girls' School", than for this song. It peaked at #33 early in 1978. The UK sales figures are astonishing: when the Official Charts company compiled a list in 2012 of the top-selling singles of all time, "Mull Of Kintyre/Girls' School" was #4, just below "Bohemian Rhapsody."
In an amazing coincidence, the biggest hit singles of the 1970s in the UK and US - this song and Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life," respectively - had virtually simultaneous chart runs. Even their reigns at #1 in their respective countries overlapped for 2 weeks in December 1977.
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