Paul McCartney shares romantic true story behind ‘My Valentine’

Beatles legend wrote the song after his first holiday with his future wife, Nancy Shevell

Paul McCartney has revealed the moving inspiration behind his song, “My Valentine”.

The Beatles star has been divulging some of the stories and influences behind his best-known songs while in the Fab Four, as well as his work as a solo artist and with his post-Beatles band, Wings.

He wrote “My Valentine” for his wife Nancy Shevell, whom he met in 2007. The song was included on his 2012 album, Kisses on the Bottom, which comprised several cover versions of tracks by songwriters Billy Hill, Frank Loesser and Irving Berlin.

In the latest episode of his podcast, McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, the 81-year-old explained that he went on a holiday with Shevell before they were “an item”, but he already knew he was in love with her.

“I had fallen in love with my lady Nancy, but we weren’t an item yet, and in my case I was looking over my shoulder for paparazzi,” he explained.

They went on holiday to Morocco with McCartney’s brother and his wife, to a quiet hotel the singer knew about, where they stayed in separate rooms.

Sir Paul McCartney and his wife Nancy Shevell after he was made a Companion of Honour (Steve Parsons/PA) (PA Archive)

“And it rained the whole bloody time,” he recalled. “Might as well have stayed in Manchester. It just rained. But we had a great time, and the lovely thing was, I was getting to know Nancy, and as you do in those occasions, I apologised for the rain! Like it was my fault.

“I said, ‘I’m really sorry about all this rain.’ And she said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’”

McCartney reminisces about that conversation in “My Valentine”, as he sings: “What if it rained?/ We didn’t care/ She said that someday soon, the sun was gonna shine/ And she was right/ This love of mine/ My valentine.”

He and Shevell recently appeared together in a display of support for the Paris Fashion Week show by McCartney’s daughter, designer Stella McCartney, where he was reunited in public with his former bandmate, Ringo Starr, who attended with his wife, actor and model Barbara Bach.

Nancy McCartney, Sir Paul McCartney CH MBE, Sir Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach attends the Stella McCartney Womenswear Fall/Winter 2024-2025 show as part of Paris Fashion Week (Getty Images)

In the same episode, the legendary artist had some derision reserved for critics of his “schmaltzy” love songs, questioning what would cause someone to be so cynical about romance.

Poet Paul Muldoon, who presents the podcast, noted in the episode released on Wednesday 6 March that McCartney’s songwriting has made some “harder boiled” music fans and critics “dismissive”, as they accuse him of being “sentimental” and “lacking in sophistication”.

The “Can’t Buy Me Love” singer remarked: “I think a lot of people who are cynical about it, haven’t been lucky enough to feel it. You often wonder what the critic who damns it looks like, what his or her life looks like.

“I often want to get a photograph of them and go, ‘Oh it’s him, of course, I’m not listening to him.’ Because you kind of outlive them, anyway. They come and go.”