Paul McCartney’s Epic SNL 50th Anniversary Performance: A Beatles Blast at 82

Living legend Sir Paul McCartney, at 82 years young, showed he can still rock with the best of ‘em with this nostalgic performance of three Beatles classics. The British rock icon helped celebrate Saturday Night Live’s star-studded 50th anniversary show with the three closing songs from Abbey Road, “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight,” and “The End.” McCartney held it down on piano for the first two songs, before busting out a Les Paul to close the medley with a hard rocking rendition of “The End.”

It was a real treat to see Sir Paul shred it up on lead guitar at 4:20, as it’s a rare sight to see the frontman take a solo. Sir Paul rocked the stage with a crack band, and the feel-good set is a must-watch for any Beatles fan. Sir Paul’s voice has matured over the years, and while he doesn’t sound like the 26-year-old who recorded those songs, we wouldn’t have it any other way. What a gift to be hearing the greatest songwriter of all time still up there performing his hits in 2025.

Watch the video down below and don’t forget to share this beautiful song with your friends and family…

Saturday Night Live uploaded Sir Paul’s medley to YouTube on February 17, 2025, and it’s already blown up to 1.8 million views in the two weeks since. Fans loved to see the great man do his thing for the 50th anniversary show, and added comments such as “If you can sing songs you wrote when you were 25 this well at 82 you’re a legend” and “To see Paul still singing after all these years is amazing, beautiful and brings tears to my eyes.”

Sir Paul has made performing the three closing songs from Abbey Road a regular fixture in his live shows over the years. Perhaps the greatest rendition of the medley is when he performed it at the Royal Albert Hall benefit concert Music for Montserrat, which was organized by Beatles producer Sir George Martin. Sir Paul is in absolutely top-notch form here on the mic, as are the band and orchestra.

Paul McCartney wrote and performed lead vocals on the studio versions of “Golden Slumbers,” “Carry That Weight,” and “The End.” The three songs close out Abbey Road, which was the final album recorded by The Beatles. It seems to us that McCartney consciously presented the trio of songs as the swansong of The Beatles. In particular, the lyrics of “Carry That Weight” can be interpreted as McCartney’s exploration of how The Beatles would wrestle with the titanic legacy of the band as they went their own way into solo careers.

The fact that all four Beatles sang the main hook of “Carry That Weight” in unison, which they rarely did, reinforces this. In the film Imagine: John Lennon, Lennon concurs with this interpretation, saying that McCartney was “singing about all of us” in the song. The fact that Sir Paul chose these songs for the 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live fits in with the theme of the medley, given the gravity of such a big anniversary.