"Temporary Secretary" is a song by Paul McCartney, featured on his 1980 album McCartney II. In 2013, Rolling Stone ranked it the #36 all-time McCartney post-Beatles song, calling it a "cult favorite" and an "oddly catchy electro-popnugget, about a slightly creepy-sounding guy looking to hire a temp." In 2014, "Temporary Secretary" was ranked as the 167th greatest song of all time by critics of NME magazine. They described it as "wonky electropop that didn't sound so much ahead of its time as out of it altogether."
Background
McCartney later said that he had had temporary secretaries, and that there was a real Mr. Marks.
Release
"Temporary Secretary" was released as a third single from the album only in a form of 12" single, along with the ten-minute "Secret Friend" as its B-side, but it was limited to 25,000 copies and therefore failed to chart. A 7" single exists only as a demo for radio stations. It exemplifies both the whimsical nature of the album and McCartney's use of synthesizers and other electronics in the creation of the album. McCartney said the song was an "experiment." He performed it livefor the first time more than 30 years later at the O2 Arena in London on May 23, 2015.
Reception
Music website Allmusic.com said of the album, McCartney II: In contrast, music website popmatters.com said, in reviewing the 2011 reissue of McCartney II: Beatles biographers Roy Carr and Tony Tyler described the song as built from an initial, repetitive synthesizer theme, with more substantial instrumental portions added over time, and finally an insubstantial vocal. They said the song was done without commitment and that it "grows irritating towards the end." Rolling Stone Magazine rated "Temporary Secretary" to be McCartney's 37th greatest post-Beatles song. In 2020, Ellen DeGeneres’ company A Very Good Production and Parkes and MacDonald Productions and 30th Century Fox Television co-produced an adaption of the song for TV, co-produced by Hello Sunshine and distributed by Warner Horizon Television and 30th Television.
