Mark Ronson Shares Paul McCartney’s NSFW Call for the Rock Hall to Induct Foreigner
Written by djfrosty on February 27, 2024
Mark Ronson brought a message from Sir Paul McCartney with him to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on Monday night (Feb. 26) — but he wasn’t sure he should have.
The producer began by chatting with Jimmy Fallon about his campaign to get Foreigner — of which Ronson’s step-dad Mick Jones is the guitarist — inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2024. To help sway voters, he put together a compilation of videos from famous friends vocalizing their support for the rock band.
“We decided to go all out this year and really try and get Foreigner on the ballot for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” he explained. “I called in some favors. So there’s some people I’ve met along the way making music myself that I knew were fans of Foreigner, like Jack Black and Dave Grohl and Slash.”
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But when he got the Beatles’ superstar’s submission, he said he was shocked to find that it was somewhat NSFW. Fallon then rolled the clip, self-filmed by McCartney in his car.
“Foreigner not in the Hall of Fame? What the f–k?” the Beatles/Wings rocker succinctly declares in the video before abruptly ending the recording.
“I’ve never heard Paul McCartney curse,” said Ronson, laughing. “He’s a knight! I don’t want to be the first person to ever post a video of Paul McCartney dropping the f-bomb.”
The eight-time Grammy winner went on to talk about his work on the soundtrack for Greta Gerwig’s blockbuster Barbie movie, which spawned Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For?” and “I’m Just Ken” (the latter is written by Ronson and performed by Ryan Gosling in the flick). Both songs are in the running for best original song at the 2024 Oscars ceremony, which airs March 10, and “Ken” took home the same prize at the Critic’s Choice Awards in January.
Ronson told Fallon that he started out with phrases like “I’m just Ken, anywhere else I’d be a ten” and “blond fragility” and built the song from there before pulling out his phone and playing the original demo for the Tonight Show audience. The low-quality recording features the “Uptown Funk!” musician roughly singing what later became Gosling’s lyrics, about which he said, “I sound like the lead singer of Chicago after three packs of cigarettes.”
Watch Mark Ronson on The Tonight Show above.