Badfinger – Come And Get It

The Song Paul McCartney Wrote In A Whisper At Midnight

Late one night in the summer of 1969, while Linda slept upstairs, Paul McCartney crept downstairs at his London home on Cavendish Avenue and quietly recorded a song idea into his tape recorder. He didn’t want to wake her. That hushed, barely-there demo would become “Come And Get It” — released by Badfinger on December 5, 1969 in the UK and January 12, 1970 in the US — and it changed everything for a struggling Welsh band that had almost given up hope.

The single hit No. 4 in the UK, No. 7 in the US, and topped the charts in New Zealand. Not bad for a song handed over by a Beatle who was too busy finishing Abbey Road to keep it himself. At a time when Apple Records was signing hopeful acts left and right and watching most of them disappear, this one was a genuine chart hit — proof that lightning could strike on the label more than once.

The origin story reads like something out of a novel. On July 5, 1969, The Iveys — Badfinger’s former name — gave an interview to Disc and Music Echo complaining that they felt neglected by Apple and The Beatles. McCartney happened to read it. A few weeks later, he slipped into Abbey Road early — half an hour before a Beatles session — used Ringo’s kit, recorded piano, bass, maracas, and double-tracked vocals, and had a fully-formed demo done in under an hour. John Lennon watched quietly from the control room. The song, written as a wry comment on Apple’s financial chaos, was McCartney’s way of throwing the band a lifeline.

What makes the recording session genuinely fascinating is McCartney’s iron grip on it. He told the band — now renamed Badfinger, after the working title “Bad Finger Boogie” for “With a Little Help From My Friends” — to copy his demo note for note, beat for beat. They pushed back. They wanted to put their own stamp on it. McCartney wouldn’t budge. He even auditioned each of the four members to find the right lead vocalist: Pete Ham was deemed “too muggy,” bassist Ron Griffiths sounded too much like Reg Presley of the Troggs, and so rhythm guitarist Tom Evans got the job. McCartney also added tambourine himself during the session at Studio Two on August 2, 1969.

“Come And Get It” was the lead single from Magic Christian Music, Badfinger’s debut album under their new name, and it served as the opening theme for the film The Magic Christian, starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr. The closing credits featured an alternate version with an additional string arrangement but without the piano — a subtle difference most viewers never caught. Ron Griffiths, ironically, had already left the band by the time the single came out, even though his face appears on the UK picture sleeve.

The song’s legacy kept growing long after its initial chart run. McCartney’s original demo finally surfaced on Anthology 3 in 1996, and fans were stunned by how close it was to Badfinger’s finished record — a testament to just how completely McCartney had mapped it out alone in his kitchen. In 2015, Hollywood Vampires — Alice Cooper, Joe Perry, and Johnny Depp — covered it on their debut album, with McCartney himself joining on bass and piano for the recording. A reformed Badfinger re-recorded it in 1978 for K-Tel Records with Evans again on lead vocals, helping pitch the band to Elektra Records and ultimately landing the Airwaves album.

Classic Rock critics have consistently rated “Come And Get It” as among Badfinger’s finest moments — some call it their signature song outright. It’s hard to argue. McCartney’s instinct was right: the demo was the blueprint, and the blueprint was perfect. As he put it later, he was afraid giving the band too much creative freedom would “cock it up.” It didn’t. What came out of that August session was a recording that still sounds effortless more than five decades on — a pop gem conjured in a whisper and handed to a band that needed it most.