McCartney -Just an Ordinary Millionaire

 McCartney - Just an Ordinary Millionaire

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Evening News (London)

November 30, 1979

    Suddenly, last summer, much to the surprise of the world, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr got together with a few friends to play some rock and roll. It was a performance that, for a decade, they had insisted would never happen. 

    "But no, it didn't feel strange at all," said Paul McCartney, dismissing the post-Beatle years of backbiting and love and hate with the cursory wave of his hand. "It was all pretty straightforward. We were having a bit of a booze-up and a laugh together, and we were with each other again. It felt pretty normal. It was only the next day, when everyone was making a huge fuss about it that I realized that our playing together was halfway important to anyone else."

     The occasion for this emotive music reunion was a wedding party held by guitarist Eric Clapton and the grounds of his baronial hall at Ewearst in Surrey. Guests included Mick Jagger, David Bowie, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and McCartney. 

    "It started with all the grown-ups sitting around having a drink and chatting. Some of our kids got bored, so they started playing with some of the musical instruments that had been left lying around on the stage.

     "Eventually, one of the adults got up, and then we all did. So there was George, me, and Ringo on stage, and suddenly everyone was joking about whether this was a reunion."

     The spontaneity and the sheer fun of the occasion seemed to have rekindled in McCartney the joy of his early Beatle days, so much so that guardedly, quietly, his thoughts have been turning toward the possibility of another reunion at a concert.

     Recently, the idea was given further impetus when an agent claiming to represent the United Nations approached each of the Beatles to ask them to play a benefit concert to raise money for the Vietnamese boat people.

     "George rang me up to talk about it," says Paul, "I said I'd told the guys that Wings were rehearsing and we didn't want to do anything yet but that we would try to do something sometime.

    " And George said, 'I thought that if you were doing something, maybe we'll get together and do something' or whatever. So that was just left. Then, just a week ago, I got a letter from Kurt Waldheim, the UN Secretary-General, saying that the guy who approached us hadn't been authorized to do so, but it would obviously be a great idea to do something, particularly with the situation in Cambodia now. So would I please take his letter as an invitation to do something, either individually or with The Beatles.

     "To tell the truth, I never think in terms of the Beatles because that was 10 years ago, and if I did, I'd be living in the past. So I tend not to think about it unless someone asks me, or something gets together, or unless, like at Eric's wedding, it just happened."

      Nevertheless, Paul has provisionally agreed to play a show with Wings at the end of December to raise money for the United Nations. "If we're lucky, and if he'd like to do it, there may be a chance George will play with us, but I've still got to ring him up and Ringo.

     "If people are in town when we're playing places, and they feel like doing it, then there's always a chance. But I wouldn't come to any show expecting it. I like to keep quiet about it because if anyone is going to be there, the last thing we need is a load of people saying that this is a big, special reunion."

     "I've never ruled out the possibility of The Beatles playing together for a show. I've always said, yeah, if anyone said we really want to do this and the four of us are really keen to do it, then yes."

     Sadly, there seems to be little possibility that John Lennon will be lured out of his hermit-like existence in his New York apartment block. "I have no idea if John wants to do anything again," says Paul. "I haven't spoken to him for quite a while because he's been keeping himself, quiet. But if you think about it, there's a fella whose father left home when he was a little kid, who lived with his aunt and his uncle. Then his uncle died, then his mother remarried, and used to come to visit him, but lived with another man, and while she was coming to visit him, one night when he was 16, she got knocked down by a car and killed. So that guy has grown up in a world where, basically, he's never had any family. He then got married to Cynthia, but he was in the middle of all the 60s dope and everything, and he never really got with a family. Now he's married again to Yoko, who, for him, is the love of his life. He believes he's found it, and they now have a son, and I think he's just taking every second that's left to him to enjoy that. And there's nothing wrong with that."

     Paul freely admits that there is a certain amount of pressure on him to follow John's example. "I'd love him to give up touring altogether," Linda tells me, but it's a bit like being married to a husband who is mad about golf. You might be able to talk him into giving up golf and staying at home with you and the children, but you'd be taking away a part of him. And marriage should be a give-and-take thing.  You should each share in the thing your partner wants to do. But in our case, it's more than just the fact that we have to go away from home. And I don't want that. I don't like it.  

    "It's also about me playing in the band. I mean, if you had a scale of musicians, Paul would be right at the very top, and I'd be right at the very bottom."

     Paul is similarly ambivalent about going back on the road. "If we didn't tour, my whole life would just be at home with the animals and the kids," he says. "That would be very nice. But I think everyone likes to feel that they have something other than just their home.

     "I still really don't know why I want to go out and play concerts. I haven't got a real answer, but we have just had a few months off now. We kind of feel that we have got a new band, and we really want to get out with that new band and play."

     Thus, it is that on Monday, the latest version of Wings begins a series of concerts at the Lewisham Odeon, the Rainbow, and the Wembley Arena. The lead guitarist, Lawrence Juber, and drummer, Steve Holly, have never played publicly with the band before, so it's no surprise that they were a little nervous.

     Yet McCartney himself, after all his years of experience and success, still suffers badly from nerves before a tour. "I've always been nervous about going on stage," he says. "The first time it ever happened was when I was a kid and won the Coronation essay in Liverpool in 1953. I went to the town hall where the Lord Mayor was, and I sat there in my short trousers with my mum and dad, hoping they wouldn't call out my name. I didn't care whether I'd won the prize or not, but they called my name, and my legs, for the first time ever, turned to jelly. But I pulled myself together and got up on the stage, and no one even knew I was nervous."

     Mind you, McCartney does have slightly more reason than most entertainers to feel confident. Every ticket for his current series of concerts was sold out within hours of going on sale, and his name appears three times in the Guinness Book of Records for achievements like being the most successful songwriter in the history of popular music. 

    This Midas Touch extends to his business activities with his vast music publishing catalog and fabulous art collection. McCartney's millions make him a prime candidate for the title of wealthiest man in Britain. 

    "The big draw is that everyone says that money corrupts, power corrupts, and I'm aware of that. I've seen all the films like everyone else. But most of my life, I was not well off, not until about 10 years ago, really, and most of the time, my biggest problem is trying to avoid all the pitfalls everyone else falls into. 

    "So I don't really feel I'm letting it corrupt me. You know, I've got power, but I don't really wield it over everyone just because I don't like people who do that. I try to make sure that everyone who works for us gets a great deal. I try to look after everyone and make sure they're happy."

     He also quietly gives away large portions of his vast income. He is reluctant to talk about this side of his life, however. "Coming from a working-class family, charity is a funny thing. I mean, in the street where I came from, a lot of people didn't want charity. They didn't like the people who gave the charity. Now, I'm one of those people who can give to charity, and naturally, I want to do it.

     "The last thing I want Linda and me to be is Lord and Lady Muck. I try to support charity quietly, but I don't want to set up a charitable foundation, as people are trying to persuade me to do. I don't want to end up as some kind of benevolent being. I'm much too ordinary for that."

     McCartney's awareness of the dangers of extreme wealth has led him to go to extreme lengths to ensure that he doesn't remove himself from reality. He refused to let a chauffeur drive him, and rather than live in a conventional rock shore mansion, he and his wife live with their four children cramped into a two-bedroom home on the Sussex coast for half of the year.

     Faced with this whole life is really amazing. "Well," he says, "I can't believe how well I live because I can actually still sit and chat with people. I can go into conversations with them dead easy and not feel too bad by it all.

    " But really it's the kids who give me the most happiness, more than my music. It seems tough for some people who have got a lot of money. They say 'the best things in life are free,' but I really think that.