Paul McCartney said that this song is a tribute to women everywhere. It was inspired by a photo of a woman in Vietnam suckling her child, over the caption "Mountain Madonna." The photo appeared in the January 1965 issue of National Geographic as part of an article called "American Special Forces in Action in Viet Nam." "She looked very proud and she had a baby," McCartney told the magazine. "I saw that as a kind of Madonna thing, mother and child."
The piano arrangement was lifted from a '50s jazz classic: "Bad Penny Blues" by Humphrey Lyttleton.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney took imitation to a high level, often going into character as some of their favorite musicians when they crafted songs. When McCartney started playing the boogie-woogie piano on this track, he thought of Fats Domino, specifically his 1956 song "Blue Monday," and crafted the song in Domino's style. The Fat Man recorded the song himself later in 1968.
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