Written by McCartney as a pastiche of The Beach Boys, its inspiration came from the Chuck Berry song Back In The USA, from Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s “I’m Backing Britain” campaign of the time, and reportedly from one of the Beach Boys themselves – Mike Love. Love, a fellow follower of the Maharishi in India during the late 60s, overheard Paul McCartney playing a rough version of “U.S.S.R.” on an acoustic guitar in Rishikesh and said to him, “You ought to put something in about all the girls around Russia.”

Paul McCartney desribed the song this way:

It’s tongue in cheek. This is a travelling Russkie who has just flown in from Miami Beach; he’s come the other way. He can’t wait to get back to the Georgian mountains: “Georgia’s always on my mind”; there’s all sorts of little jokes in it… I remember trying to sing it in my Jerry Lee Lewis voice, to get my mind set on a particular feeling. We added Beach Boys style harmonies.

During the recording of this song, Ringo Starr had briefly quit the band, so McCartney ended up playing the drums here.