‘Mull of Kintyre’: The surprising Paul McCartney song that entered a chart battle with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’

Posted On October 22, 2024October 22, 2024

Everything about ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen is big. Its sound spans raucous rock riffs, opera influences, and twinkling keys. Its lyrics detail life and death, fantasy and reality, devils and Galileo. Its success, sitting at number one in the United Kingdom for over two months and still finding its way into the charts even now. And last but not least, its legacy, remaining one of the most well-known songs ever created almost half a century since it was first released.

There are few songs that could claim to compete with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in size, impact or success, but a Wings hit penned by Paul McCartney and Denny Laine is one of those few. After finding success with the Beatles in the 1960s, McCartney embarked upon a solo career and started a new band called Wings, recruiting his wife Linda, Laine, and Danny Seiwell to support him. 

Together, they released the gorgeous ‘Silly Love Songs’, the beloved ‘Band on the Run’ and a truly iconic Bond theme in ‘Live and Let Die’, but their most commercially successful hit in their homeland might surprise you. In 1977, Wings released a folk ditty called ‘Mull of Kintyre’, featuring a wash of bagpipes and a simple acoustic guitar strum. “Mull of Kintyre, oh mist rolling in from the sea,” McCartney sang just atop, “My desire is always to be here.”

While everything about ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is big and anthemic, ‘Mull of Kintyre’ harnesses quite the opposite energy. It’s humble and quiet, a quaint ode to Scotland lacking in iconic riffs and operatic sections. Still, that didn’t stop the song from attaining some levels of success comparable to the Queen hit. 

It wasn’t necessarily the most striking song McCartney had created for Wings, and it certainly wasn’t as grand or expansive as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, but it would endear itself to audiences nonetheless. After it was released in November 1977, it shot to the top of the charts, where it remained for nine weeks, matching the time Queen’s signature hit had spent at number one.

Although most people wouldn’t consider ‘Mull of Kintyre’ to match up to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in terms of legacy and impact, it very nearly rivalled the Queen track in sales. When the UK’s Official Charts collated a list of the best-selling songs of all time, ‘Mull of Kintyre’ managed to make its way into the top five, sitting just behind ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.

The Queen track was the third best-selling song of all time, while McCartney’s effort with Wings took fourth place. It’s somewhat surprising to see them sit side by side on this list. While ‘Mull in Kintyre’ is a gorgeous song, it hasn’t quite had the same cultural impact that ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ has. It hasn’t lent its name to a biopic; it rarely appears in lists of the greatest songs ever written, and most of us couldn’t recite every word to it as we could with the 1975 Queen hit.

Still, the numbers don’t lie, and ‘Mull in Kintyre’ did sell almost as many copies as ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. Perhaps this proves that sales don’t always match up to legacy or long-standing success – there is so much more to a song than how many records it shifts. Creating an anthem for the ages takes a lot more than placing at number one. 

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