Songfacts®:

• McCartney told America Online (AOL) the details behind this song: "Sometimes I just sit down and try and write a Pop song. I've done it throughout my life and it's an interesting thing to do, to make something kind of catchy that might be attractive. It starts off, 'I've got too much on my plate.' The way I write I just follow that thought and think, 'What did I mean by that? Explain yourself.' So I think, 'Well what I meant was...' After I'd got the verse, this idea of my past, my 'Ever Present Past,' came about. No deep meaning in it. I think what happens with me is I just write a thing and people read into it. I like that because I think often you do things in a subliminal way you don't actually realize what you are doing. So something that I might think is a simple statement, somebody might go, 'Yeah, but it means that.' I like multiple meanings to these things even though I often start it off as a phrase that's really to help me write the song, to get me to the next bit."
• Paul says the opening line to the song was taken from something his mother would say: "I have too much on my plate, no time to be a decent mother." He changed the last word to "lover" to make it appropriate for him to sing. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Ken - Louisville, KY