Back in 1995 Paul Weller became involved with The Help Album, a charitable record which set out the aim of raising money to provide aid to war-stricken areas such as Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Taking inspiration from John Lennon’s Instant Karma!, the project followed the premise that records—like newspapers—should be released as soon as they are created. With that in mind, songs on The Help Album were all recorded in a single day.

The likes of Oasis, The Stone Roses, Radiohead, Massive Attack, Portishead and more all joined the record, producing exclusive cover versions of tracks that were created in a single day. While many of the bands included decided to do special renditions of their own songs, Weller went the extra mile and created his own ‘super group’ for his effort.

Weller, the former member of The Jam, decided to write a handwritten letter to Paul McCartney inviting him to participate in the recording of a version of The Beatles song ‘Come Together’. Weller’s plan was to create his new band, The Smokin’ Mojo Filters, and he managed to recruit the likes of Noel Gallagher, Steve Cradock, Steve White, and Carleen Anderson for the track.

However, one person remained on his hit list and that was one half of the song’s creator, a former Beatle who could bring the cover version up to the dream levels that Weller had envisioned; Paul McCartney himself. Using Melody Maker writer Paolo Hewitt who faxed his letter over to Macca, Weller asked: “We’d love you to come down [to Abbey Road], even better if you’d fancy doing the track with us.”

Weller continued: “I hope you’ll consider it and as a personal thing to me, I’d love to do a track with yourself!”

McCartney did receive the letter and did accept Weller’s request, heading down to Abbey Road studios on Monday September 4th, 1995 to record the song. You can read the original letter and see the performance, below (or Here).

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