Hot As Sun – The Evolution of An Early McCartney Composition

Hot as Sun is the fifth track on McCartney’s eponymous debut album, released in February 1970.

It might surprise people to learn this guitar-based instrumental had actually been written as long ago as 1959 in the forerunner of The Beatles, The Quarrymen. McCartney joined The Quarrymen in July 1957 and the band became known as “The Beatles” from March 1960.

Like The One After 909, Hot As Sun remained on the shelf, but was rehearsed during the Let It Be sessions in January 1969, and can be heard here:

Musical Evaluation

What are the main musical features of Hot As Sun as it stands in January 1969?

• It is at the relatively sedate pace of 93 bpm
• It is in the key of G major and moves between primary chords with the addition of the tonic seventh (G major, G7, C major, D major).
• The guitar melody is based in sixths
• There is a short chromatic passage at 0:23, where the sixths pass through C/A – C#/Bb – D/B and then back, suggestion a harmonic progression of C major – C# diminished – D7.
• McCartney scat-sings the melody with vocalisations which are intended to evoke some unspecified exotic language

The decidedly gentle atmosphere evoked by the track is achieved by the use of phrases which gently rise and fall as notated below (sounding an octave lower):

The melody in sixths rises in sequence in the second bar (up a third), reaches an apex at the beginning of bar two on the notes G4 and E5 and then falls in triplets to land on E4 and C5 in the following bar. From 0:16, the sequence in thirds is continued, but this time it is based on a falling pattern.

Hot As Sun on McCartney

Moving to the 1970 version of Hot As Sun on McCartney, let’s hear the melody again in this new context.

After the shortest of snare fills the track launches straight into the main melody.

Again, the track is at the fairly languid pace of 95 bpm, only fractionally faster than the version that The Beatles rehearsed.

The slow rate of chordal change (harmonic rhythm) contributes to the relaxed and stable character of the track.

By the time of the McCartney recording, the bass line has been fully realised and consists of three repeated bars that is a syncopated take on a common “walking bass” pattern:

By the third bar, the pattern shifts to fit in with the chord of C major.

Which National Features Give the Track its Character?

In the Let it Be rehearsal, McCartney provides a little commentary on the track. We can hear McCartney at 0:30:

Welcome to the South Sea Islands, where the sound of a wave landing on the sand brings joy to the air.

So where do we think McCartney have in mind, when he describes these “South Sea Islands”?

Remembering back to our high school geography, the South Sea Islands are commonly understood to stretch down from Hawaii to New Zealand in the South Pacific:

There are elements of the Hawaiian style in Hot As Sun; but only in a broad and generic fashion.

For example, the pedal steel guitar originated in Hawaii in the 1920s. A key feature of the pedal steel technique involves the use of harmonised sixths, which are in abundance in Hot As Sun. The steel string guitar on the track is recorded very brightly, and gives the impression of a steel guitar.

The only thing that is missing is any use of slide bottleneck technique in McCartney’s playing. Hot As Sun consists of parallel sixth movements and could indeed be played in a bottleneck or slide style, but unlike George Harrison, McCartney never developed a proficient slide guitar technique in his career.

Calypso?

Hot As Sun displays some elements of the Calypso style. Indeed, there is an ill-defined blur between the styles. For example, Harry Belafonte’s Jamaica Farewell begins with an acoustic guitar solo in sixths, features the primary chords of A, D and E major and has a syncopated bass line that is stylistically very similar to Hot As Sun.

It is impossible to escape the significance of Belafonte’s Calypso album, released in 1956. It became the first LP record album to sell over one million copies.

As a teenager in the late 1950s, McCartney would have been been acutely aware of Belafonte and undoubtedly absorbed traits of the calypso style, as a part of his ever-widening musical palette.

Transition to Reggae

For whatever, reason, the decision was taken to pull Hot As Sun out of the bag one more time for the last tour of Wings. By this point, the track was performed with a pronounced reggae groove.

For example, in the Kampuchea concert on 29th December 1979, Denny Laine introduces Wings’ performance with:

“we’re going to do a bit of Caribbean number with Paul on the guitar”.

The most pronounced Reggae element in the performance entails Laurence Juber’s staccato off-beat chordal accompaniment.

But the original melody is still intact, and it is clear to see how McCartney performs the piece by means of sixths that rise and fall up the fretboard, based on strings one and three.

Both Calypso and Reggae stem from the Caribbean, but the rise of Calypso can be traced to Trinidad and Tobago; Reggae emerged in the late 1960s in Jamaica and immediately caught the attention of McCartney.

Here, McCartney describes becoming aware of reggae for the first time:

In the 1970s and 1980s, McCartney released tracks such as C Moon and How Many People that were clearly indebted to reggae.

Conclusion

• Hot As Sun has a long history from the early Quarrymen days
• It involves a gently-rising and falling melody in sixths
• The track was perhaps conceived as a tribute to Hawaiian music, which is characterised by pedal steel phrases in sixths
• Elements of syncopation link the track to the Calypso tradition and other generic Caribbean traditions
• McCartney would have been aware of the calypso craze in mid-late 1950s, spearheaded by Harry Belafonte.
• By the late 1970s, McCartney had given Hot As Sun a pronounced reggae feel, reflecting his evolving musical tastes and preferences.

Finally

In 1978, singer Noosha Fox recorded a version of the song that featured lyrics written by Tim Rice. You can decide if the predominant style here is Calypso or Reggae – please leave a comment below!