Queenie Eye

Photo ©2013 MPL/Mary McCartney

“Queenie Eye” (no relation to Queenie Epstein, Brian’s mum) is the new single from Paul McCartney, and will be made available for radio play from October 8th. Currently, a video is being shot for the song, and according to The Independent , celebrities like Johnny Depp and Sean Penn are making cameo appearances in the music video.

Richard Porter, London’s own Beatles guide, ends his walking tours at Abbey Road and reports that Kate Moss and Meryl Streep also has been seen on the premises these past two days. You’ll remember Johnny Depp also appeared in McCartney’s video for “My Valentine” from last year’s “Kisses on the bottom” album.

No word as of yet about the single appearing on any physical format. If that should happen, we’d be hoping for “Secret Life of a Party Girl” on the B-side. McCartney has a long history of tucking away otherwise unavailable songs on the B-sides of 7″ vinyl singles, the last time he did this was with “Summer of ’59” on the B-side of “Jenny Wren” in 2005 (Parlophone R6678).

You can listen to Queenie Eye here.

The song is based on a common children’s playground game. It is played with a ball by four or more players.
A person is picked to be the “Queenie,” and that person turns her back to everyone else. The “Queenie” then throws the ball over her shoulder and one of the other players needs to catch it or pick it up. Everyone, except the “Queenie”, puts their hands behind their backs so that the “Queenie” does not know who has the ball. The “Queenie” then turns around and everyone shouts:

“Queenie, Queenie who’s got the ball?

Are they short, or are they tall?

Are they hairy, or are they bald?

You don’t know because you don’t have the ball!”

Another version of the chant is:

Queenio, Queenio, who’s got the ballio?

I haven’t got it

It isn’t in my pocket

Queenio, Queenio, who’s got the ballio?

The “Queenie” has to guess who has the ball through a process of elimination. If the person with the ball is the last one to be picked, that person becomes the new “queenie.” The player must admit to having the ball or will automatically be “out”. The player who is the “Queenie” must not look when throwing the ball or the “Queenie” herself will be “out”. The lyric “O-U-T spells out!” is probably from this part of the game, and was also famously used by the Beatles in their Christmas 1967 song “Christmastime is here again”.