Paul McCartney song that was a big hit not long ago (9)
I believe the answer is:
yesterday
'song that was a big hit not long ago' is the definition.
'yesterday' can be an answer for 'song' (I've seen this before). I'm not certain of the rest of the definition.
'paul mccartney' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'paul' could be 'st' (St Paul is an example) and 'st' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for yesterday that I've seen before include "short time ago" , "Beatles' song" , "Macartney song" , "Much-recorded song" , "Song by Lennon/McCartney" .)