McCartney's lyrics reveal failing marriage

Sir Paul McCartney wrote songs about his failing marriage more than a year before he broke up with Heather Mills, it has emerged.

Friends have told how he poured out his heart in his album last year with several thinly-veiled comments about the relationship.

In the album - Chaos and Creation In The Backyard - McCartney appears to accuse his 38-year-old wife of humiliating him, shunning his attempts to rebuild their friendship and preferring publicity to love.

One of the most startling examples comes in the bitter track Riding to Vanity Fair, which at the time some claimed could have been about Geoff Baker, the PR man he sacked, or even John Lennon.

The song, according to friends, has much more to do with Miss Mills, who gave an interview to the American magazine weeks before their marriage in 2002.

'All Paul's emotions and troubles because of the marriage to Heather are in that song,' one close friend told the Sunday Mirror yesterday.

'He is saying how the love has gone out of their relationship and is putting the blame squarely on Heather.

'Paul tells Heather how she has humiliated him and treated him like a fool. He says he was prepared to put up with that treatment because he loved her. He wrote how he permanently wanted her to be his friend.

'But the song says she turned down the chance - because she was more interested in publicity.

'Paul was using Vanity Fair to symbolise her love of the limelight generally.'

One line says: 'I was open to friendship, But you didn't seem to have any to spare, While you were riding to Vanity Fair.' The song was recorded at the Ocean Way Recording Studio in Los Angeles last March, 14 months before 64-year-old Sir Paul decided to end their fouryear marriage. The album, released in September last year, reached number ten in the UK charts.

Other songs such as Friends To Go, Certain Softness and Anyway, viewed with the benefit of hindsight-all suggest more than a hint of Heather as inspiration.

The News of the World claimed Sir Paul and his wife were close to agreeing a ￡40million divorce settlement. But a source close to Miss Mills denied this.

Paul's omen in a song

Riding To Vanity Fair 'You can put me down, But I can laugh it off, And act like nothing's wrong You're not aware, Of what you put me through, But now the feeling's gone I was open to friendship, But you didn't seem to have any to spare, While you were riding to Vanity Fair.'

Friends To Go 'I've been waiting till the danger is past, I don't know how long the storm is gonna last, if we're gonna carry on I'll be waiting on the other side, for your friends to go.'

Certain Softness 'A kind of wildness, in her style, haunts my memory, more than I ever thought it would, A touch of wildness, in her style, got me hooked.'

Anyway 'If we could be, closer longer, That would help me, help me so much, We can cure each other's sorrow, Won't you please, please, please get in touch.'