McCartney's 'Freedom' rings on new album

By Rachel Wells
CNN Showbiz Today Reports

"Driving Rain" is McCartney's first original album of rock songs since his wife's death from breast cancer in 1998

NEW YORK (CNN) -- "We wrote a new song the day after the attack and it's about freedom!" Paul McCartney shouted from the stage at the end of his six-hour, star-studded benefit show.

With the debut of "Freedom," McCartney brought the "Concert for New York City" to a close, and brought the house down.

"The freedom that you enjoy in America, you know, 'Give me your huddled masses,' this is where people came for a new life and for this freedom," McCartney said about the writing of the song. "It's not sort of a war song, in as much as it's a defense of democracy and freedom." The tune generated an emotional response from both the thousands of fans gathered at Madison Square Garden and the millions watching the show live on television October 20.

Given the great interest in the anthem, McCartney made the song available as a single, with proceeds benefiting the Robin Hood Relief Fund.

He also quickly added it to his new album, "Driving Rain" -- his first collection of new songs in four years.

The last-minute decision threw record distribution logistics into a tailspin. The track isn't even listed in the CD liner notes. But "Driving Rain" was an album McCartney said he hadn't wanted to over-plan. In fact, he didn't even meet the members of his new band until the first day of in the recording studio.

"I want to try to keep it really spontaneous," said McCartney. "Like, you know, certain periods of the Beatles, when John and I would show up Monday morning and we'd say, 'Okay, it goes like this' and even George and Ringo didn't know what song we were going to do. But it worked, and we were having a lot of kind of fun making up what we're going to do."

The Beatles have been in the news quite a bit recently. John Lennon's songs and presence have been remembered at several concerts for the terrorist victims; George Harrison reportedly has been undergoing treatment for brain cancer this year.

About Harrison, McCartney told "Showbiz Today Reports" only that he saw him recently. "He's doing just fine," McCartney said.

Another single from "Driving Rain," called "From a Lover to a Friend," will be featured in the Tom Cruise movie "Vanilla Sky," coming to theaters in December.

In the movie, the song will likely be heard loud and clear. The competition is a little fiercer in the record stores -- when "Driving Rain" is released Tuesday, it will go head-on with new albums from Garth Brooks, Michael Jackson, and Britney Spears.

Competition, though, isn't what drives McCartney. It's the "freedom" he finds in making music, he said.

"As far as songwriting is concerned, when I sit down at the piano or the guitar, I'm still excited at the idea of being like allowed to do it," he explained.