Paul McCartney: Chat with a Modern Legend

 

This is an article about Paul published on October 2, 1966, in the San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle (reprinted form the London Sunday Times)

Paul McCartney was in his new mansion in St. John's Wood. He lives alone. A Mr. and Mrs. Kelly look after him.  Nothing so formal as a housekeeper and butler.  Their job, he says, is just to fit in. 

The house had a huge wall and an electrically operated black door to keep out non-Beatle life. Inside, there is some carefully chosen elderly furniture.  Nothing flashy, affected, or even expensive looking.  The dining room table was covered with a white lace tablecloth. Very working class posh. 

McCartney, along with John Lennon, is the author of a song called "Eleanor Rigby." No pop song of the moment has better words or music. 

"I was sitting at the piano when I thought of it.  Just like Jimmy Durante. The first few bars just came to me. And I got this name in my head - Daisy Hawkins picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been.  I don't know why. "

"I can hear a whole song in one chord. In fact, I think you can hear a whole song in one note if you listen hard enough. But nobody ever listens hard enough. 

"OK, so that's the Joan of Arc bit. I couldn't think of much more, so I put it away for a day. Then the name Father McCartney came to me - and all the lonely people. But I thought people would think it was supposed to be my dad sitting knitting his socks. Dad's a happy lad. So I went through the telephone book, and I got the name McKenzie. 

"I was in Bristol when I decided Daisy Hawkins wasn't a good name. I walked round looking at the shops and I saw the name Rigby. You got that? Quick pan to Bristol. I can just see this all as a Hollywood musical...

"Then I took it down to John's house in Weybridge. We sat around laughing, got stoned, and finished it off. I thought of the backing, but it was George Martin who finished it off. I just go bash. bash on the piano. He knows what I mean. 

"All our songs come out of our imagination. There never was an Eleanor Rigby.

"One of us might htink of a song completely, and the other jsut add a bit. Or we might write alternate lines. We never argue. It just doesn't matter that much. I care about being a songwriter. But I don't care passionately about each song."

"'Eleanor' is a big development as a composition. But that doesn't mean 'Yellow Submarine' is bad. It was written as a commercial song, a kid's song. People have said, 'Yellow Submarine? What's the significance? What's behind it?' Nothing. Kids get it straight away. Kids have got it. It's only later they get messed up.

"I tried once to write a song under another name, just to see if it was the Lennon-McCartney bit that sold our songs. I called myself Bernard Webb - I was a student in Paris and very unavailable for interviews. The song was 'Woman,' for Peter and Gordan. They made it a big hit. Then it came out it was me. I realized that when I saw a banner at a concert saying 'Long Live Bernard Webb.'

"I really can't play the piano or read or write music. I tried three times in my life to learn but never kept it up for more than three weeks. The last block I went to was great I'm sure he could teach me a lot. I might go back to him. It's just the notation - the way you write down notes, it doens't look like music to me."

"John's not trying acting again, and George (Harrison) has got his passion for the sitar and all the Indian stuff. He's lucky. Like somebody's luck who got religion. I'm just looking for something I enjoy doing. There's no hurry. I have the time and the money.

"People think we're not conceited, but we are. If you ask me if I wrote good or bad songs I'd be think to say bad, wouldn't I? It's true we're lucky, but we got where we are because of what we did.

"The girls waiting outside. I don't despise them. I don't think fans are humilating themselves I queued up at the Liverpool Empire for Wee Willie Harris' autograph. I wanted to do it. I don't think I was being stupid.

"I can go out and around more than people think without being recognized. People never really believe it's you. They don't really expect to see you in the street, so you can get away with it.

"I think we can go on as the Beatles for as long as we want to, writing songs, making records. We're still developing. I've no ambitions, just to enjoy myself. We've had all the ego bit, all about wanting to be remembered. We couldn't do any better than we've done already, could we?"