When Paul McCartney released “When Winter Comes” in 2020, it felt like a time capsule — a quiet, hand-written note from another era. Though newly unveiled as the closing track on McCartney III, the song had been recorded nearly three decades earlier, in 1992, during the Flaming Pie sessions. Produced by George Martin, it was a piece of music that had patiently waited to be heard, its simplicity growing only more profound with age. And when it finally arrived, it did so like the final words of a long conversation — tender, personal, and timeless.
The recording itself is deceptively humble: just Paul’s voice and an acoustic guitar. No strings, no orchestration, no studio gloss — only the sound of wood, breath, and sincerity. But as always with McCartney, simplicity is deceptive. Within those few chords lies a lifetime — the calm of the countryside, the intimacy of home, and the quiet rhythm of a life rooted in love and care.
He begins softly:
“When winter comes and food is scarce, we’ll warm the animals in their coats of love…”
The lyric unfolds not like poetry, but like conversation — plainspoken, observant, and deeply human. It’s a portrait of everyday stewardship, the kind of love that is lived rather than spoken. McCartney’s pastoral imagery — mending fences, planting crops, preparing for the season’s change — recalls the domestic peace he found with Linda McCartney on their farm in Scotland. Yet beneath the rural details, the song hums with emotional depth. It isn’t just about animals or fields; it’s about endurance, responsibility, and the tenderness of shared life.
💬 “And when winter comes and Christmas is near, I’ll find my love and bring her cheer…”
That single line transforms the song from meditation to benediction. The love McCartney sings of is not grand or dramatic — it’s quiet, familiar, enduring. In a career filled with sweeping ballads like “Maybe I’m Amazed” and “My Love,” this song feels like a late chapter — love as constancy, not fire. You can hear Linda in every pause, every breath — not through words, but through presence.
Musically, the song bridges McCartney’s past and present. The fingerpicked guitar evokes Blackbird and Mother Nature’s Son, while its conversational tone recalls the intimacy of Junk and Heart of the Country. Yet there’s something distinctly autumnal about it — a stillness born of age and perspective. His voice, youthful when recorded but older when released, carries both warmth and wisdom, like the sound of memory catching up to time.
In choosing to close McCartney III with “When Winter Comes,” Paul created more than an album ending — he completed a circle. The McCartney trilogy — 1970, 1980, 2020 — each marked moments of solitude and reinvention. This final track brings it all home: from the restless young artist of McCartney to the reflective elder of McCartney III, still singing about the simplest and most profound of things — love, care, continuity.
The song’s message could not be more fitting for the man who wrote it: that the beauty of life lies not in its spectacle, but in its small acts of kindness — in the tending, the mending, the keeping. And when McCartney’s voice trails off on that final phrase, it feels like the closing of a book — not with sadness, but with peace.
Because “When Winter Comes” isn’t about endings. It’s about preparation, renewal, and faith in the seasons of love. It’s Paul McCartney, after a lifetime of melodies, returning to the quiet truth that began it all:
that the simplest song, sung honestly, can warm the whole world —
even in winter.