You'll rarely find someone as famous as Paul McCartney who deals with the constant demand for his attention with as much equanimity and understanding. The guy wasn't labelled the "nice" Beatles for nothing, after all.

But it must wear on him at times. McCartney has even referenced his frustration in song now and again. His 1997 song "The World Tonight" calls out paparazzi and references the odd feeling of always being the center of everyone's attention.

Paul McCartney's solo career has included a lot of dizzying high points. Flaming Pie, released in 1987, is generally considered one of his best solo releases. Coming on the heels of his participation in The Beatles Anthology project, it came at a time when demand for his music was high.

Speaking of Anthology, Jeff Lynne produced the songs that the three living Beatles created from old John Lennon demos. McCartney must have enjoyed the experience because he enlisted Lynne to produce several songs on Flaming Pie. This batch included "The World Tonight", which McCartney released as the album's first single.

In the song, McCartney addresses someone who's harassed by paparazzi. He also mentions that same person in the center of a circle, as if surrounded by onlookers. While he doesn't take on the identity of that person in the song, he obviously experienced similar occasions in his life. In his book The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present, he talked about how it felt to be in the middle of it all for so long:

"As young Beatles, once we got famous and our families and friends started seeing us on television, the first thing they said to us was, 'Oh, you've changed.' And we said, 'We haven't changed. Your perception of us has changed. We're just the same four guys, going round the world, having a laugh, but you see us differently.'"

"The World Tonight", a churning mid-tempo track with a lot of minor keys, starts off with McCartney projecting his past experiences onto an unnamed person. "I saw you sitting at the center of a circle / Everybody, everybody wanting something from you." Not exactly an inviting scene by any means.

The narrator continues to spy this person from a distance. He sees them "swaying to the rhythm of the music" and then "praying to the voice inside you." It seems like they have more going on inside them than they're willing to allow their public face to show.

Later, McCartney hits out at the photogs who were oh-so-prevalent in that era. "I saw you hiding from a flock of paparazzi / You were hoping, you were hoping / That the ground would swallow you." When he switches to the first person, he drops a killer line that references his longevity in the public eye: "I go back so far, I'm in front of me."

In many ways, "The World Tonight" resembles The Beatles' "The Fool On The Hill", also written by McCartney. Both focus on characters who seem calm at the center of the storm. And both protagonists are misunderstood by the flurry of those wanting to get at them. In the chorus, McCartney suggests that he knows way more than he's letting on: "I can see the world tonight." Similar to this line in "The Fool On The Hill": "And the eyes in his head / See the world spinning round."

"The World Tonight" uses the switching perspectives to obfuscate McCartney's intention. But a close reading, and his comments about the song, make it clear that he was letting us know that there's more going on behind his smiling, pleasant persona than anyone might imagine.