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| Photos taken by Lawrence Blampied (The photos in the original article were tinted blue and washed out. I used AI to turn them into black and white and specified NOT to change anything else. If you would like me to send you the original photos that are blue -- please ask.) |
McCartney Interview Part 2
By Tony Fletcher
Jamming Magazine
No 14 March 1984
Q: Did you succeed in education?
A: No, not really. I think none of us put enough time in, really. We weren't that thick, but we always got reports saying "Could do well if only he'd apply himself ." The year of my GCEs, we were touring in Scotland with Johnny Gentle, which was one of the first big things we were offered. I had to miss my geography exam, but I just thought, "Sorry!" We thought it was such a big opportunity, as it turned out it wasn't. Doing lots of dates with this guy, and if Johnny Gentle suddenly got famous, so did we.
I got some O levels; I think I got one the first year, then maybe a couple more the next. I stayed on into the sixth form because I didn't want to leave school; I didn't want to have to get a job. I wasn't having too bad a time at school. It was a bit of a hassle having to go there, but I didn't hate it too much. Also, I knew this fella who was 24 and at the art college, and I was about 17. The way I looked at it was that there was still seven years where I could lig around in the sixth form and go to art college. I thought I could put off the decision of having to choose what to do with my life.
A: A lot of the people who've made it big thought like that, "Anything but a job."
A: And the joke is you get a job, like the job I've got now, and it's a J-O-B. It's a real job, and I'm always trying to get out of it, but you know, I put in quite a lot of hours, it is a job.
Q: What's the story about being chucked out of Germany?
A. Well, like I was saying before, we lived at the back of the cinema by the bog. It was like a broom cupboard with a push bar exit to get out, I think. So, anyway, this was 20 years ago. I'm trying to remember what the door looked like, you know. I never realized it was 20 years ago. I'm still talking about it as if it were yesterday.
Anyway, we were moving from this club, the Kaiserkeller, to a better engagement, the Top 10, and Pete Best and myself were getting all our gear together, and one of us had a contraceptive ---whatever you want to call it. So, just for a laugh, we pinned it up on the wall as a goodbye gesture. It was just a cement wall without paint or wallpaper, and I think I set fire to it, and it left a little black mark. But the fellow screamed, "Police!" He didn't want us to go to this new club, which would take his business away. So he thought "This is a good excuse." It was really just a harmless thing, but he managed to get us a nick. We were just going along the road, and the police pulled us over. "Hey, come visit us."
Q: Was that the first time you were nicked over there?
A: Actually it was the only time until Japan a few years ago when I had a longer stay in there and more fun, put anyway. But anyway, the police dragged us to an official building where we hung around for hours, and eventually a fella came up and said, "Come with us, we're taking you back to the club," and no sooner said than done, we were on the plane back to England.
Q: How much was Brian Epstein responsible for your success? Was he special, or could another manager have done it?
A: Because he turned out to be special, I'd say he was special. You can't tell if another man would have done it. He wasn't a very good businessman. He used to undersell us, but we never wanted to be overpriced either. But I thought he was great. He was very keen, very showbiz. He was like we were saying earlier, just that generation before us. He may only have been a few years older, but there was a big difference. He studied at RADA, but he hadn't done too well there, so he had this great longing to be an actor. He was living through us a bit, but he would see to it that we had a strong stage act, or that the lighting was good. So, I think he was a big influence. We used to slag him off a lot, as you do with managers, but I liked him. I thought he was great
Q: What was it like being one of the four most wanted men in the world by virtually the entire teenage female population in existence?
A: Terrific, you can't deny it. We were four normal fellows.
Q: Did you take advantage of it?
A: Oh yeah, definitely. We had a great time. That's half of being in a group, or it was then. I remember my dad saying, "I wish I had such experience as you, son." We used to talk about that. He'd say that in his day VD was the big scare, but by the time I was older, they had a jab for it. It was definitely the biggest perk of touring. I can't deny that it was only later I started thinking, "Shit, I probably broke somebody's heart there." You don't think about that at first, but a little later you realize they're real people. But yeah, there were a lot of ladies about.
Q: What about drugs? Because even from the first stage, you must have been offered everything under the sun.
A: Well, it was cigarettes to start with, then scotch and Coke, and when we went to Hamburg, it was pills, speed. And then later we went to America, and it was marijuana, and that was about the size of it, except for a little bit of coke, for me, anyway. John, I think, later got a little bit heavier, but it came off being available everywhere. All the gangsters in Hamburg used to have pills to stay up all night, so used to give them to us. Predledin, they were called. "Zu vant, some prellies boys, yay ya schnatz und prellies?" They were just getting off on us silly Englishmen.
Q: Later on, though, after Beatlemania, when you were a studio group, did you not go through heavier stuff?
A: No, nobody got into heroin.
Q: But Sergeant Pepper was meant to be connected with LSD, is that true?
A: Yeah, there was a lot of LSD around at the time. It definitely got into the music; it was the fashion; it became what everybody was doing. You'd go down to clubs and people would come to you and say "You want some acid? You want to go back to our flat?" which you'd end up doing.
Q: In those cases you must have had heroin forced on you a lot.
A: No, heroin was the one thing you drew the line at.
Q: And I've thought with you having experienced everything imaginable, you'd have said that there, What is there left that we haven't tried?
A: The thing is, we were like anyone who plays around with drugs; you play around with them. Actually, I'm not saying like anyone, because there are a lot of people who are very different, but our approach was: as long as it's not really dangerous, we'll do it. I think a lot of people overdid acid. Some of the people who took more trips still get flashes. They suddenly buzz without meaning to. I think we were very lucky with it, really. It didn't get to us.
Q: Did you see much of what went on around you? Because I imagine you had to be pretty well shielded; you couldn't just walk the streets on your own.
A: Well, you could; that's a myth actually. I used to go around a lot, and I still do. If I want to, from here to over there, I won't do anything special. I won't panic. I'll just go out the front door. You'll be surprised. People may notice you, but what are they going to do? They're not going to jump on you. It's never happened. Even then, when we got to the gig, there would always be a gang of girls outside waiting for us. You expect that, but I've always felt that was just normal living.
I've always seen pretty much how people are like now. I wouldn't know what goes on down at the 100 Club or anything. I see all the kids outside as I go past, but I don't know what goes on; half the people who walk down Oxford Street don't know either. So I don't know all the cult things, but what goes on generally, I've always been up with. I'm a little bit out of touch with certain things, like I sent a fella out to buy some scotch, and I didn't give him enough money, but generally I think I'm more in touch than some people. For instance, I was always against the Common Market, right from the off. People were saying, "Oh, you're so out of touch," but they were wrong. I was pretty in touch. Nobody that I know really digs the Common Market, not ordinary people like the milkman or someone.
Q: Why did it take four solid years before you moved away from simple love songs towards other stuff like "Sergeant Pepper"? Was that just the way lyrics went at the time?
A: I don't know, really. I never thought about it. I think the love stuff, you and me, boy and girl, was just the early part of the development to us. It was just the commercial songs, and we got hooked on little things like we always had a "me" or "you" or something personal in the title. "Please, Please ME", "Love ME do," "Can't buy ME love," "She Loves YOU," "From ME to YOU."
Q: but did you always mean the lyrics?
A: No, I didn't. I still don't always mean the lyrics. It's just not the kind of writing I do. They're not always personal, but sometimes they're just made up.
Q: So, what you were trying to do is just write a good song and say the words of the song, like "She Loves You" are going to mean something to someone?
A: Yeah, not all the songs were that, but that was the idea of it, writing something that people would want.
Q: Because I would say, though, that with that you were saying earlier about the amount of girls available, you couldn't have been in love much.
A: No, you're right, but you don't have to be in love to write a love song.
Q: What records by the Beatles are you the most pleased with?
A: Being sensible? As a record, I probably like "Yesterday" that and "Here, There, and Everywhere", "Strawberry Fields", "Hey Jude", and some of the other big ones, but if you said "You can only take one," I wouldn't take "Hey Jude", because I've heard it so many times! There's a crazy B-side I like, "You Know, My Name, Look Up the Number." The B side of "Let It Be". I love that one. It's just an insane track. What I remember from the session, and all the laughs, we were just in pleats making that record, so that to me is one of my favorites.
Another is "She Said, She Said." I just like those more off-the-beaten-track tracks. That's how you used to choose material. We never do the big hits by the Shirelles; we'd do "Soldier Boy", even though they were girls singing to a soldier boy. We changed the words a little bit.
Q: What about LPs? Does any one in particular stand out?
A: I like Rubber Soul, Sergeant Pepper, and Abbey Road. I listened to Abbey Road recently and thought, "Wow, that's good!" I like the White Album as well.
Q: I know the official reason for why you stopped playing.
A: What is the official reason? I don't even know that.
Q: I'm talking about why you stopped playing live.
A: That just happened. We did this one concert in America when it was raining with water coming in the amps, and we hated it. We did the show, but hated every minute of it. And then at the end of it, we were put inside this metal little van, and we're sort of clattering around in there, I think. As we were sitting in there, John and George just said, 'Sod this. ' But they'd been saying all this touring, we were just shattering ourselves, and I think that was when I said, "Sod it. I agree with you", that made three of us.
So we went into recording, we decided to just keep recording, and if anybody said, "When are you going to tour next?"We would say, "We're not sure." We weren't going to announce that we'd stop touring. We just decided to quietly pull out of it and get into recording more. Nobody knews that for a couple of months because we finished our live commitments. We were doing some recording and it looked fine. After a few months, people said, "Hey, wait a minute, when are you going to tour again?" Here, people said, "It looks like you've given up touring," and we said, "Well, sort of, maybe."
Q: The story goes that it was a pretty big thing when you stopped touring. Your next single, "Penny Lane / Strawberry Fields Forever", failed to go to number one for the first time since you started, and that was meant to be a direct reaction to your not touring.
A: I can't remember, really. It may have been that we were doing this quiet thing I was telling you about, and one of the newspapers said, "Are you giving up touring?" And we said, "Yeah," and that hit the papers, making it look like we've done it officially.
Q: Apple, widely regarded as your downfall, came about partially because of Brian Epstein's death, didn't it? Do you have.. do you reckon if Brian had been about, he'd have made things go more the way you wanted to?
A: I don't know. Someone else asked me that recently. The thing is, his influence had stopped a couple of years before he died anyway. His influence, like George Martin's, had mainly been in the earlier days. As we grew up into men rather than little boys, we started to want to make our own decisions a lot. So it might have been okay if Brian had been alive still, but you can't really tell. It might even have been more disastrous because he was changing as well. I don't think it'd been done any different from the way it was done. It was just like a tree growing. If it's going to grow right through this wall, it will. We did it all naturally, you know. You can only guess at what might have happened if we'd done it all another way.
Q: Apple did go drastically wrong, though, didn't it?
A: The thing is that with a company that's gone "drastically wrong", it still got over a million in the bank, so it couldn't have gone that wrong. Yeah, it went wrong, but not as much as you'd expect it to be bankrupt. It still got a lot of money in the bank, being the Beatles company, having the Beatles records, and having a lot of it. It's hard to explain, but there's all sorts of company laws. You can't dissolve a company. Don't ask me why, I don't know. 10 years and we still haven't sorted it out. You wouldn't believe the stories on Apple, that's the new Beatles story. Sometime, if anyone can get it together, but it didn't actually wrong. It didn't go as right as we wanted it to, like we wanted it to go smooth, never break up, make a lot of money, and be terrific, be good for people, be good for us, and everything, but it was during the time we were breaking up anyway, so it wasn't actually the company's fault, it was us breaking up within the company. There's still endless negotiations, still meetings in New York to try and decide the fate.
Q: Do you know why you did split in the end?
A: No, not really. The only thing I always reckon is you get teams of people, like a football team or something, and they go and do the big thing, but there's an inevitability they're not going to stay together. There's an inevitable breakup of a team, but the very nature that you're holding on. I think we kind of did everything, achieved all our ambition, cracked America, cracked the world, did everything we wanted to, and then somehow we just wanted to start to split it up. Someone would want to do a solo thing, and then in the end John started to get very strong with Yoko, and we started to get our own family things. We just kind of drifted apart, then it got to be bitchy.
We were drifting apart, and therefore the business had to be sorted out. "That's mine. What do you mean?" That got very difficult, because Allen Klein came in and screwed us silly.
Q: You're the one who said from the start that Allen Klein's dodgy
A: (In quite sad acknowledgment) um
Q: You were proved right by that.
A: Yeah, at first the word was that we were going to go along with him, because maybe he was bad, maybe he was good, but we should give him a try. So we started to negotiate this deal, and I said, well, the Beatles are a big act; they're not chicken feed involved. We can get a really good deal with this fellow; he's lucky if he can get 15%, but everyone was so keen for him that they said "No, give him 20%." So I agreed. The idea being that we'd give him a trial, but during the trial run he said one thing to me, then I'd see another thing in the papers. So I started to suspect him, and at that point I tried to get out of it all, but everyone said "No, we're going to sign with him." It was the first time in my life I felt I'd been done the dirt with the other guys. I said to them, "This is very weird. This is the first time. We've been mates till now." But it was three to one. They agreed to go with him, and I said, "No, no way." So I started boycotting the whole thing, not going in, being on strike, and having go-slows, you know, anything I could to hold him off, and in the end it was proved.
The worst thing I had to do, worst thing was sue the Beatles. I said, "No. I went to sue Allen Klein. I don't want to sue the Beatles, I haven't got anything against them." They said, "But all these companies are in the Beatles' name. You can't sue Allen Klein without suing the Beatles." It was just the way it was legally set up. I had to, so that was a very tough decision. I spent a few months making my mind up whether to do it or not, but the result was that I either stayed with Allen Klein or did the suing. It was out of it. So I sued them in the High Court, and they looked at all the evidence, and there in it we proved that he'd been screwing us. Our side won, and the judge said something like, "This man, Klein, has the patter of a second-class salesman", so that blew him out a bit. All the other Beatles realized what he'd been doing, and they tried to get out of it. Then later they came back and said, "Thanks, we're glad you really held it all up." But at the time, when they didn't think he was wrong, I took some stick.
Q: Has he now got away with having ripped you off?
A: Well, this shows you how small-minded he was. He actually got $5,000,000 for managing us for a year. There's me trying to get him 15% and all that. Somehow he actually got paid $5. 000, 000 for one year's work, to which I said, "Come on, look at that. You're kidding. You mean this guy is straight?" Why wasn't it $4,700, 000? How come it's such a round figure, and then he wasn't content to just take the 5 million and do something honest with it. What he eventually did was... He's just been in nick in America. What they did him for was selling sample records. He had loads of people peel the little white things off and sold them. He must have made a little profit on that, but that was the only thing they nicked him on in the end.
Q: Do you believe any of those stories that Brian was murdered?
A: No. I don't think he even committed suicide. It was just accidental. I mean, I don't know. Noday knows, not even the man who says he was murdered, Norma Phillips. It's Phillip Norman, really. I think it was just accidental, because he used to booze a lot, and he used to take pills a lot. I think the two caught up with him one night. He probably forgot he had taken them; he had so many drinks, started taking some pills, and if they were tranquilizers, he probably forgot how many he had. "I can't sleep. I'll have another." I don't think he particularly wanted to die, but we were a little bit removed from it anyway. None of us saw him, none of us found him. We just had to believe whatever we were told by the people in his house. I don't think he committed suicide, and I don't think he was murdered, that just fits in more neatly with recent sensationalism about the Beatles.
Q: The thing to sell that book, Shout, basically.
A: Yeah, this Albert Goldman, who wrote that book about Elvis, is supposed to be warming up to John, but seeing where he's at, you know what to expect. He's going to dredge up all sorts of things that he's going to tell us about John, some of which I don't even know. Generally, I think it will be pretty much bullshit. John's got a little heavier toward the end of his life. No, actually he cooled out totally towards the end of his life. Five years before he died, he wasn't on any drugs or anything; he was just totally together. But when he and Yoko first met, they were pretty crazy, so there may be little secrets from those days, but you always get those things.
"Beatles pissed on nuns" is one story, which wasn't true at all. All it was was we were staying in this place where you had to go down about five flights of stairs to go to the toilet, so sometimes we pissed out the window. Good old English medieval habit. And of course, what happened was one day, right down the road from where we were pissing, there happened to be some nuns. They didn't see us, but somebody did. The papers picked it up, and it went from being a joke to being a fact. All that hell-raising stuff wasn't half as bad as it was made out to be.
John saying we were bigger than Jesus. It was just a small little quote out of a whole big interview.
Q: Wasn't it just a small quote in the Evening Standard, but The New York Times or something picked up on it and made it into a massive issue?
A: Yeah, they mean like John was really boasting about it, which he wasn't. He just happened to say it. It's just a manner of speech, but of course, the Bible Belt Americans weren't going to have that as a manner of speech. Thank you very much. They were going to have that as a major controversy. I remember some young 10-year-old kid banging on the window of our coach, "You blasphemous fiends!!" He was really possessed, like a little Omen kid. We really thought he'd get us.
Q: What don't you like about Shout?
A: Shite as I call it? I couldn't believe some of the facts and the serialization in the Sunday Times, so I read the book. The trouble is, there are some bits of it that I'm not in that suddenly seem very believable, like a really good story. Then I'll see a fact that I know is not true, and I'll think, "Wait a minute, what am I doing believing these other bits about Brian Epstein's youth and John's family background?" I think there are certain facts that are quite fascinating, and certain things that it gets over that aren't too bad, but the crime of it is for him to call it "The true story of the Beatles", and yet he never interviewed any of the Beatles.
Q: I didn't think it was too bad.
A: My problem is, to me, I come over as this very together guy, always got his finger on top of everything, the man with no problems, school, a doddle -- got all the exams. This is the sort of image of me, actually; I had murder getting through exams, like I was saying about being on tour during the GCIs. I was like the kid who was getting the cane, just like John was, but he makes me the very shrewd, always going to succeed guy, and John is a kind of cute working-class hero. An actual fact, though, John was just as shrewd and ambitious as I was. What does me in, is he adds to this image, I resent that, because I know I'm not that, and I know I've never been that.
Like in the book, I almost kill Stu Sutcliffe. The way it comes over is that I used to really put Stu down, whereas in actual fact, I had a little bit of a thing against Stu, but that was for one reason: he couldn't play bass. I had a purely musical thing about it: "What are we going to do about a bass player who can't play bass?" The other great legend is Pete Best. Why did they get rid of this poor lad? Because George Martin told us "Your drummer can't drum. Get rid." What were we going to do? Try and pretend he's a wonderful drummer? We knew he wasn't as good as what we wanted in the group, so we got another drummer that we wanted. He was called Ringo. It had got to the stage that Pete was holding us back. You can't help it. There's somebody in the group who doesn't click, like Stu. Stu was a great guy, a lovely guy, and I didn't understand him. It's true. There's a lot of people in my life I haven't understood. I'm not the world's most psychic person. I make a lot of mistakes, and I misread people. I've read a lot of stuff about Stu since that I didn't know about. I was taking him all wrongly, but it certainly wasn't just me who was getting at him. Everyone had their little goat suddenly come out. I was seen as the go-getter and the ambitious one in the group, and John's portrayed as the kind of nice guy who always falls into the situation. He has George standing there with his pectrum, always waiting for a solo. Now that does George injustice. There's a lot more to George than just this idiot waiting for a solo.
Q: Paul is dead.
A: That's right, I am an imposter, but the money's good. This mafia-style operation has been paying me to be Paul McCartney. As you can see, I've learned the history quite well, and I've got the accent just about off.
No, what happened was a guy from our office, called Peter Brown, rang me up and said, "Paul, there's a rumor in America that you're dead. What do you want me to do about it?" And I said, "Is there Peter? Oh, really? Well, what can I do about it? Tell them it's not true." And that's how I done it. All happened over in America, so I didn't see it. I didn't hear about it at all. People were telling me all the DJs in America are building this rumor that's sweeping the country. They say "You didn't have any shoes on on the cover of Abbey Road, therefore..." But if you look at the photo session from Abbey Road, you see me sitting on the steps with sandals on. It was a hot summer day, so I took my sandals off to walk across the road. Now that's the truth, but the rumor was it was the sign of a dead man.
Q: Did you mind it though?
A: Oh no, it was hilarious. There was nothing I could do. I just couldn't take it seriously.
Q: One thing that has been proved wrong by my meeting you is I always believed that the image of Paul McCartney these days to be true, the multimillionaire businessman surrounded by bodyguards and aides.
A: Well, how do you feel about it? It's incredible, but there's nothing I can do about it. They write in every single article they do that I make £20 million a year. That's the figure they have got hold of. I don't know where they got that from, but what am I gonna do? Write up to everyone and say "It's not true?" When I walk out of here, I walk in the street and on my own, not with millions of people. I've got an office, yeah, but so have you. Okay, mine's pretty ritzy, but I want to do it like that comes out. But I honestly don't know where half my image comes from. If I tell you some of the true facts about how I live, I mean some of them are just too true, too far out, the true story.
Q: You mean down to earth?
A: Yeah, like Harvey Goldsmith came down once, and in his chauffeur-driven car, he saw my house and said, "No, no, keep driving. He couldn't live there; that must be just the little lodge house", because he believes that image too. Well, the thing with me is that you'd expect me to live in a mansion, but what I like about how I do it and how I am. One of my sources of satisfaction is that it isn't like that at all. Would you believe that I've got four kids and we live in a two-bedroom house? That freaks me out, whether it freaks you out or not. Okay, we're building a new house, and the kids are getting a bedroom each, which is what you'd expect. I mean, it's not going to be a mansion, because I'm not like that. You see, I've tried all that big lifestyle. I've had chauffeurs, and I hate being driven; I'm the driver, and I like to drive myself. I've had live-in couples, which I've hated, because they take over. It's like living with your bloody auntie or something. When I had that, I thought, "Bloody hell, this is worse than living with your parents." So I'm off all of that stuff. I don't do anything.
The big thing I'll use my money for is really for jibs and perks. In other words, instead of taking a lousy flight somewhere on Plummet Airlines, I might hire a jet. I'll do that kind of thing just to make it more comfortable, and a bit of flash. Actually, it's not being flash, it's doing the practical thing, getting a really safe plane that'll get me down in half the time. That's the kind of thing I go for, you know. I'm not really into flash stuff. I'm not a jewelry man, or a house man. The kids don't go to private schools. Another reason that I'm quite proud of myself is that the kids, so far, aren't basket kids. They're really good kids. They're kids you can sit down and chat with; you can go out with the older one and find out her interests. They're just very normal kids. There's nothing snobbish about them. It's quite funny. I remember once thinking, "If I have a kid in their teens, there's nothing that would freak me out. Long hair? I wouldn't mind, because I've been through that. Crazy fashions? I wouldn't mind, because I've been through that. And yet when my kid started going punk, I suddenly realized what my parents had thought about me, which is like, "Is that gonna mean she'll get onto glue or something?" That I'll sit up worrying about if I give her total freedom and say, "Yeah, go with all that fashion", is that going to mean I'm pushing her into heroin? Then I suddenly realized, "Oh God, I thought I'd never do this. I was going to let them do whatever they wanted", but in the end I found myself realizing, so this is how my parents felt, because one thing parents are all the time is worried, you can't help it, but it does mean you care.
Q: The kids must get a lot of stick at school, though.
A: They get it all. Yeah, but the thing is they've learned to live with it, because there's nothing I can do about it. What can I do? Unmake myself? Turn the video backwards? They are Paul McCartney's kids. All we do is just treat it real normal. I don't open fetes or anything at the school. If I ever go down there, it's just as a real ordinary parent. I buy my coffee for 10p at the school play, natter about school stuff. I don't feel famous. I know I am, and sometimes I'm proud I am, and all that. But day-to-day life, I like to be the way people are, just what I am. That's one of the weird things that does happen. Your fame destroys you. We started off with you saying, "What would you advise people?" You've got to watch that. You might get a bunch of money and think, "Now I've never allowed myself a bloody great car, but I would love a black Cadillac, so I'm going to do it." A lot of people just do it for fun like that, but then you've got a black Cadillac, and you're a black Caddy man. You don't realize lifestyle, but it is.
Q: Are you pleased with all the music you've made since the Beatles split?
A: Not all of it. I mean, the obvious thing after you've been in a big group like that is, how do you follow it? I just went back to square one, got a little group together again, and we went back to playing small halls. So some of the music was done under a lot of pressure. Me trying to figure out what I was going to do, so some of it was a bit daff, but on the whole, looking back at how I've hung in there. Every so often, there's a good little record come out.
Q: Did you think when you did "Mull of Kintyre" that it would be....
A: That's huge? No, no way. I didn't even think it would be a hit. We did it in Scotland, in our barn, and pipers, who played on it, all had their cans of McEwans getting tanked up, and they all said, "Oh, this is a hit." Two year olds up to 50 year olds, they all agreed it was a hit, but we put it out at a time when there was a lot of new wave and punk stuff starting, and I thought that it was just going to get left out. It's funny, there's me in the height of punk putting out a Scottish waltz, but it was one of those records that just appealed to people. You can't tell what it was, but it just did.
Q: The thing that I would say, the Beatles, while I wasn't there with the music, I can still listen to it and love it, thinking "This is timeless." But what you've done since the Beatles, I've never been able to get into. Do you think maybe as you've got older, you've written stuff, not as good?
A: What do you mean?
Q: or maybe of somebody who is older?
A: Yeah. Well, that would be true. The last thing I want to do is think, "Yeah, well, I did all my best stuff with the Beatles, and there's no way I can do anything good anymore." I'd have to take up gardening full time! But I think the public looks at it like that. "I've heard everything by the Beatles. Now I'm going to check out everything by Wings. It'll be duff in the comparison." I think the Beatles stuff is better because it's a group, all that stuff we've been talking about, but I think there is stuff I've done since that is good. I mean, I've heard "Mull of Kintyre" myself, and you might not like it, but I thought, "Yeah, that's a good record." "Band on the Run" as well.
Q: Maybe it's a difference that "She Loves You" sold to practically every teenager in Britain, and "Mull of Kintyre" to practically every housewife.
A: Yeah, that's what you'd think, but when you look at it, there was a million people who boguht that record. I mean, eight and nine year olds, that's the thing about it, it's a British record, it's got weird appeal, but even not going on sales, I think that one does something. The way I look at it is that I'm hanging in there. I couldn't possibly do the Beatles again. I couldn't keep up that standard. That was the Beatles, that was me riding with John Lennon. I think if you look at it now, you'd think, did the Beatles in a story, nothing, which I don't agree with. I think if you look and search a bit more, you'll find there is some good stuff in there that you might not get into until later in your life. So, really, you know, I've always thought of myself as hanging in there. My motto is "E for effort."
And so the interview ended, Paul going off to finish some recording, me left marveling at how frank he had been. Whatever you think of Paul McCartney, hopefully this interview will have opened your eyes.
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