John on the phone

 

This isn't the best photo in the world -- it is a little blurry and a little dark.  But it is John on the telephone so it is worth posting! 

Living in a Home in the Heart of the Country

 

Tracks posted these photographs on Facebook with the following text:

Two previously unseen snapshot photographs taken at High Park Farm, the Mull of Kintyre farm owned by Paul McCartney. The images were captured shortly before Wings departed for their Wings University Tour in February 1972 and offer a rare, candid glimpse into life at the farm.

One photograph shows Denny Laine (left), Henry McCullough (centre) and Paul McCartney (right) relaxing outside a stone outbuilding, surrounded by several of McCartney’s dogs and puppies.

The second photograph features Paul’s adopted daughter Heather McCartney together with his daughters Mary McCartney and Stella McCartney, alongside Henry McCullough’s daughter Jesse McCullough, seated in the fields with the family’s pets.

Both photographs come directly from the estate of Henry McCullough and have not previously been published. Preserved within his personal archive, they provide an authentic and intimate glimpse into the relaxed environment surrounding Paul McCartney and those close to him at his Kintyre farm during this formative period.

An Early Wings Flight

 

Paul and Linda are Still Madly in Love (1972)

 

Paul and Linda and Still Madly in Love

By Celia Brayfield

British Cosmopolitan

January 1973

    They were late.

    The scene was Paul's press agent's house. The cast-- the usual bunch of hangers out; three thinly disguised groupies, a press agent, and me. Correction: four thinly disguised groupies and the press agent. In the kitchen, a heap of freshly squeezed orange halves bled onto the worktop, their juice chilled in the fridge. Upstairs, the bedroom had been tidied, decorated with fresh flowers, a bowl of fruit, new posters. A virgin bottle of scotch, and stood to hand -- normal courtesies and normal life, but in the world of pop music, about equivalent to Mary Magdalene's precious pot of ointment.

    They were still late.

     Gloom descended when the only Beatle record in the house turned out to be a John Lennon. Every time the phone rang, it galvanized the room like an electric shock. By way of conversation, I mentioned that I'd never actually met a Beatle before, as previous interviews had always miscarried when the hallowed one failed to show up. Tact has never been one of my outstanding qualities. I had butterflies in my stomach-- ironed ones with ski boots on.

     Every time a car passed in the mews outside, our collective gaze whipped toward the front door, whipped away as we remembered to be cool, roamed the room in feigned indifference.

     A taxi was ticking over outside, someone paid the driver, it drove off. A sharp rap of knuckles on the kitchen window jolted us out of our seat. I leapt forward like a puppet yanked on a string, recollected my cool, carefully, adopted a natural pose, as if I didn't know who was outside the door -- and there they were, two small, slim people holding hands in the doorway, furiously cracking jokes because they were as nervous as we were.

     But what do you say to a Beatle? In some ways, I'd known this man intimately all my adult life. I spent every penny I had on hearing his voice, plastered my bedroom and my school desk with his photograph, hitchhiked 300 miles in a snowstorm just to see him, read every printed word ever written about him. He'd made me cry, laugh, leave my parents' home,  grow up. He'd been there when I first fell in love, first went to a dance, first broke my heart, first earned a paypacket. I knew the way his left eyelid drooped, the way his hair grew, the sort of jokes he was making. But of course, as a person, I didn't know him at all. It was as if the Mona Lisa had stepped out of her frame and was shaking hands and apologizing for her Italian accent. 

    Of course, we got over it. Upstairs in the immaculate interview room, he clowned around with my tape recorder and admired my spotted platform shoes. I admired his studded blue jean jacket with "Wild Tiger" written on the back, and Linda poured out the orange juice, and it was all right. He seemed like a nice guy really-- a  bit of a raving egotist, but aren't we all?  The trouble isn't talking to him, it's getting him to stop talking to you, and answering Linda's questions for her. She managed to slip in the odd couple of sentences in her low, dry voice, but a lot of the time, obviously used to being overpowered in public, she just narrowed up her eyes and patiently gazed into the middle distance. 

    She's no raving beauty, this renegade society chick who finally pinned down the last bachelor Beatle and completed the fission that Yoko Ono had begun. Before her Paul had been a lost child, the friends of his prolonged adolescence drifting away, the magic bubble of the Beatles finally bursting around him. The enormous pressure of his situation -- almost unique, only three other men in the world could share the experience-- would have crushed a weaker personality, but Paul, with Linda, pulled through, pulled himself together, calmed down, and metamorphosed from a flower child to a family man. 

    They met in a London club of dazzling corniness called the Bag o' Nails.

     Paul: "Yeah, we met down at the Bag, luv. Met down at the Bag when Georgie Fame was playing one night, and I went down with a guy who used to work for us, and Linda was over on an assignment. I spotted her..."

    Linda: "... and he's been regretting it ever since..."

     Paul: "...and I just thought, 'Great chick'."

     Linda: "... cool blonde chick..."

     Paul:  "...yeah, I just likeD the look of her, you know. That's how it always is, isn't it, when you meet, you just like the look of them, really. And we just got on very well. Then we, like, didn't see each other for a while. Then the next time we met, we got on well again, kind of thing. And we just took it from there. We met at the Bag first, then we met in New York, then we met in Los Angeles. (Oh yes, we're real jet setters) You know, then we met in London, then we stayed together. But I just thought she looked good. What were you wearing? I can't remember. Was it that yellow blouse?..."

     Linda: "A black and white striped blouse."

     Paul:  "There, you see. I can't even remember. "

    They're coming up for their fourth wedding anniversary this spring, and New Year's Eve is another anniversary for them. 31 December 1970 was the date Paul started legal proceedings to finally break up the Beatles. The time Paul and Linda met was crucial for him. Immediately after John had first said, "I want a divorce", and they had all had to face the possibility of a split seriously for the first time. For Paul, it wasn't just a professional end of the road and a personal breakup with good, old friends --it was something of a failure too, because since the death of their manager, Brian Epstein, Paul had taken charge of the group, a responsibility that he just wasn't ready for. 

    "We've all of us grown up in a way that hasn't turned into a manly way -- it's a childish way," he explained, "that's why we made mistakes."

     The financial chaos reigning in the Apple organization has come to light, as had the contractual straitjacket the Fab Four had innocently signed themselves into after Epstein's death in 1967. "The Beatle way of life was like a young kid entering the big world, entering with friends and conquering it totally. And that was fantastic. An incredible experience. So when the idea came that we should break up, I don't think any of us wanted to accept it. It was the end of the legend, even in our own minds. Marilyn Monroe gets to believe, eventually that she's Marilyn Monroe. And you can't be as tied together as we were for so long a period of time, unless you all live in the same house. From then onward, it was to be a question of living your own life, which was the first real turn on for me in a long time and this coincided with my meeting Linda. So early in 1970, I phoned John, and I told him I was leaving the Beatles, too. He said, 'Good!  That makes two of us who have accepted it mentally.'" 

    Soon after this, the management of the Beatles became the prize in a straight fight between Allen Klein and John Eastman, Linda's lawyer brother. John Eastman offended the other three, notably John Lennon, by being patronizing, and that was that.  Because the Beatles were still bonded together in law, the only way Paul could break himself off from the others legally was by suing them. So he did. And when it was all over, Paul and Linda took themselves away to their farm in Scotland to grow vegetables and ride horses and make babies and live for the first time in years as far as Paul was concerned, like human beings.

     They are absolutely a couple, though Paul is definitely a good, old-fashioned, dominant male. No old lady of his would be announcing that women was the nigger word of the world. The "we" he used to use to start a sentence when he was the "ambassador of the Beatles", he still uses, but now meaning him and his family. Paul and Linda, seem to have completely absorbed each other's backgrounds and interests, quite a feat considering the cultural gap between Linda's wealthy New York relations and Paul's rambling, rowdy Liverpool clan.

    Linda wasn't wearing a wedding ring where wedding rings usually get worn. Instead, she was wearing the present Paul had given her for her last, 30th, birthday (she's one year older than he is) -- a huge heart-shaped emerald and an antique ribbon and bow setting, studded with sizable diamonds. With little tokens of affection like that around simple gold bands are understandably rather unnecessary. Linda is getting to like jewelry, especially diamonds.

     "I love emeralds, I must say, but I never used to have a favorite stone before. I thought it's ridiculous, all the fuss about diamonds. But they're beautiful, lovely --I can see now why diamonds are a girl's best friend. We're not into the big ones, though. We're not Dick and Liz.

     Paul: "Just give me 20 years, love. I think they're great, Dick and Liz..."

     Linda: "We'd like them to invite us to Switzerland."

     Paul:  "Yeah, put that in. We'd like an invite."

     Linda doesn't look the diamond type at all. She was wearing a pastel sweater pulled down over a shapeless flowered skirt and sagging suede boots over bare, unshaven legs. The part of America she talked most fondly of was Arizona, and she looks like a real child of the desert -- spare, bony face, sandy blonde hair, thick blonde eyebrows, which she doesn't pluck, and long blonde eyelashes without mascara, eyes the color of faded Levi's. She has a cowboy's laconic line in small talk too-- I asked her about her first marriage, and she thought for a moment, narrowing eyes fixed on an invisible horizon, then replied simply, "It was boring."

     Poetic vows of undying devotion aren't their style either. "I've got a great wife," said Paul, "I love her today more than the day I married her." They admitted they rowed occasionally, but generally "we get on quite well."  Liverpool humor consists mainly of really deadpan understatement, which is no help to fluid self-expression.

     You can feel the good vibrations, but asking them why they love or how or for how long is like questioning the sunrise or the tides. They're silly questions as far as they're concerned. When I asked them what it was that bound them together, Linda just snapped, "I'm French and he's Norwegian", and that was the end of it. The rest of the story is on the McCartney LP, the first one they made together.

     For some former Beatles fans, however, the McCartneys are carrying togetherness too far. Last year, Paul went as far back to his personal square one as it was possible for him to go. He got together a new group, Wings, from scratch, and went out on a concert tour in Europe. It's not difficult to see why he took this step. As a musician and composer, he has always been drawn to simple, melodic songs ("Yesterday,"" Michelle") and to the raw rockers of his musical roots. He responds to simple music, human interchanges, gut reactions. He's anti-intellectual and for him, music is fun, not orgasmic, mental mathematics. He dies the human side, which you don't see much of if you're eternally cloistered in recording studios in the small hours of the morning.

    "I think you can get into music very critically, very analytically and stuff," he said, "but it really all just comes down to if it feels right. You can have the worst piece of music ever, but it gets you on your feet, it sounds nice. I like that. Music to get drunk to. I'd rather have that side of it, where everyone just sings some really dumb, simple song but enjoys themselves doing it, rather than working for five weeks on a brilliant masterpiece and then never enjoying it.

     "I think that's in the recent past, I thought it was uncool to write something a bit slushy, a bit straightforward, but I don't really bother with that now --  I like writing just kind of songy songs that the milkman can whistle. I just like to hear my music around, like, if you're going down the road to hear it come out of a boutique or something.

     "And anyway, I'm just a bass player/ singer/ songwriter, and apart from a band, the only other way I could do what I do successfully that I could see, would be a kind of Andy Williams type of thing, which wouldn't really be it, would it?"

     So Wings was fairly predictable, if for some people, retrograde step. What was not so predictable was that Linda, who had never played a musical instrument before she met Paul for the unfortunately very obvious reason that she just isn't very gifted that way, sings and plays piano in the band, a fact which immediately put their audience's hackles up and led a few unkind souls to suggest the whole thing was some bizarre kind of tax evasion. I asked Paul how he came to include Linda in the lineup.

     "I don't know," he kidded, "I must have been crazy." "It was a crazy idea," put in Linda seriously, "especially when I never played music before. I'm learning now, it's not hard. I get better every day. I can really play piano now. No, I don't practice. I just fool around. I could do a whole thing where I took lessons every day..." but she doesn't. Paul explained further:

     "We're not really too serious about the actual playing, because music, I think, only has to have feel. I think it came through the records, really. After I did the Beatles, I did a couple of records on my own, and just needed a couple of harmonies, and Linda knew the harmonies, so she sang them with me. She's also not as dumb as we're making her out to be, you know, she can sing. But actually, one day, I just said to her, 'I'm going to teach you how to write if I have to strap you to the piano bench', because I like to collaborate on songs. If I have to go into another room and write, it's like doing homework. If I can have Linda working with me, then it becomes a game. It's fun. "

    Wings is, in many ways, a rather strangely put-together group. Most bands tend to come into being by a process of spontaneous combustion -a group of musicians get on together, like each other's stuff, have nothing else on at the time, and that's that. But the Beatles were in a class of their own, cut off by their success from the mainstream of musical life. Paul, like The Rolling Stones when they had to find Mick Taylor after Brian Jones's death, was in the incongruous position of not quite knowing who to ask to play with him. So Paul drew his musicians from all over, even auditioning (not a very cool procedure) for the drummer. He had ended up with a crew of strangers. And so he needs Linda there, a familiar face, a source of unquestioning loyalty, a friend. 

    "I'm just not one of those people that goes on stage on his own. I always drag someone with me. I find it easier to do things with people. The first stage performance I ever made was at a holiday camp where I was called out of the audience by my uncle, who was running the talent show. I was 11. I just happened to have my guitar with me, but when I was called out of the audience, I immediately collared my brother and took him with me. He didn't do anything. He just stood there and I sang "Long
Tall Sally."  And ever since that time, I've never gone on stage alone. Now I get that support from Linda."

     The testing time for Wings is undoubtedly a strain for Paul, as if he didn't have enough strains already, but they don't see it breaking their marriage up. Far from it.

     "Linda and I, as a married couple, have really become closer because of all these problems. Let's not talk about pressures. We always say we've got pressures, and I feel like some old gaffer from 1930 or something. We've had all the pressure of the Beatles breakup, and the fact that everyone feels that everything we've done on our own isn't as good as the four together. But what we're doing now is putting all that behind us, although the contracts and the business thing still rumbles on. It's all in some kind of incredible mess with Allen Klein actually in control of the Beatles' wealth, such as it is, because most of it's been whittled down to absolutely nothing by various people in the past. But we're just pushing it to one side now and getting on with our work."

    Paul probably doesn't realize it, or won't admit it to himself that Linda is a great source of strength to him, but he will admit that one of the first things that attracted him to her was something he had always honed in on-- class. 'Class,' whispered their friends, was what Paul had always gone for in Jane Asher, the beautiful red-haired actress who was his constant companion in London through all the years of the Beatles' zenith. Jane came from a fairly well off and distinguished family, but rumor had it that Paul's lack of class sometimes got on her nerves --little new rich boobs, like taking her to Paris for dinner on her birthday, when it was said she would rather have had a real present. She was also too independent, too protective of her own identity, to link herself permanently with such a Hollywood sign of a personality. And she could have been smart there; she's had noticeably better parts since her romance with Paul fizzled out.

    But Paul, as he freely admits, was still hung up a bit on the savior faire of the haute monde, more so after Epstein's death when he discovered how hard it was to run a business and how financially naive many of the Beatle contracts were. But if Paul dug Linda's social aura, she certainly didn't. She found the atmosphere of her family's mansion in Scarsdale (the posh New York suburb) oppressive, and was happiest chatting with the black servants in the kitchen. "Nothing was ever mentioned," she said, "sex was never talked about. You knew it went on, but no one ever told you about it." "She made up for that", put in. Paul dryly, "she does all right now." "Pop music," she went on, "was just so low. So I was always a bit of a loner. If I'd listened to my parents through my whole life, I wouldn't have done half the things I've done. I was just never into that way of life."

     "I was sort of aspiring up to that sort of thing," says Paul.

     "And I was trying to get away from it," said Linda.

     "And you met in the middle?" I suggested.

     "Well, yes," said Paul, "I suppose you could say that we met in the middle."

     Linda, after her divorce, lived with her daughter Heather in New York, and made a name for herself as a photographer, working for Life, Mademoiselle, and other magazines, doing album covers and publicity shots for groups. But Scarsdale had left its mark -- you could take Amy Vanderbilt's Complete Book of Etiquette in hand and never fault her if she has been telling the Beatle wives how to manage their servants, it's because she knows. A friend of hers once said, "Paul was very infatuated with this image of a girl on a horse, a father with a huge art collection and a Park Avenue apartment."

     One thing Linda certainly did have was some amazingly bitchy girl friends, and she is generally famed as having pursued Paul with single-minded groupie determination. But it seems only a little likely, even though she used to turn up at Paul's elbow at an amazing variety of places. One must remember that girls in various states of adoration and ecstasy had flung themselves at Paul every day of his life for 10 years and remember, too,  that he's an old fashioned boy who likes to make the first move. If he was chased, he certainly isn't aware of it to this day.

     So now they're just a little old married couple, but still with their newlywed passion. They have three daughters: Heather, who is 10, Linda's daughter from her first marriage, Mary, age three, and Stella, the baby. When they're working, they live in London behind the high, blank walls of Paul's big house in St John's Wood. Heather goes to the school nearby and the two little ones go around with their parents. The baby lying on a blanket on recording studio floors, if necessary. They go out round the discotheques, Linda wears her jewelry, they see their friends, John and Yoko, if they're in town, old mates from the Apple days. They visit Paul's family in Liverpool, or Linda's relatives stop by to see her in London.

     In the school holidays, though, they put the children and the baby gear in the back of the Land Rover and head north to their farm in Scotland, "the only place we can be natural in an unnatural world." The farm is a two-room, tin-roofed crofter's cottage in Inverness-shire, right up in the highlands near Campbelltown and although it's tiny, it's also impregnable. Their 60 acres are sandwiched between mountains and marshland, with the only approaches on rough cart tracks past two farms with watchdogs. The local people protect them fiercely. The only reporter who ever got through was an intrepid young lady from Life who scrambled through the bogs one Sunday morning to ask for a quote on the rumor current in America that Paul was dead and being impersonated by a double. He threw a bucket at her in a fury, apologized, assured her that he was alive, and drove her back to her car. 

    They enjoy caring for their small flock of sheep, herding them like cowboys on their horses (Linda taught Paul to ride). "Up in Scotland, it's kind of very real life," said Paul, "very much like reality, obviously not civilized reality, but to me, it's life and death. If you have 100 sheep, one of them is bound to die sometime, but that's the way it is. You learn it's up to each individual to look after himself. You keep getting surprises. We had a little lamb that had broken a leg, so I brought him in, put a splint on his leg, taped it up. The vet had given me some stuff, penicillin or something, and showed me how to give an injection. But the little thing just threw a terrible wobbler and got a terrible look in his eyes. And I thought, 'Jesus Christ, what's in this bloody syringe?' Because there were all the signs that it was going to die, we left it with its mother, thinking all we could do was cross fingers and hope. And when we came back in the evening, there it was jumping about, and you should see it now, a great big ram, a raver." He heaved and snorted and imitated a great big ram, then raved fondly on about the horses and how Linda's was faster than his, and he didn't like that too much.

     Someone once asked him why he had taken the legal initiative, thrown the first writ, and driven the first nail in the Beatles' professional coffin. He cited personal and musical differences, and then said, "most of all, because I have a better time with my family."

Paul at EMI (1972)

 

This photo obviously does not go with the story, but was taken during the same time period.  Anyone have any photos that match this story?

Written by Pat Dees

McCartney Ltd.

January/February 1973

At about 20 to 3, on our last full day in England, Sunday, October 1, 1972, I had one of my urges, and that was to go to EMI, so we managed to hop an underground for St. John's Wood.  We finally found ourselves waking over to EMI.  There were some girls we knew there, so we learned Paul had been due that morning but never showed.  I began looking down the street, remembering what I had heard about his car, and how you just couldn't miss it. When I suddenly saw it coming about a block away.  I knew it was it.  We had been there just about five minutes, and now so was he. They drove in, and I went inside the gate a bit. Some guy went up to Paul as he got out of the car and began talking.  Linda got out, came around to the back of the car, smiled, said hello, and went over to Paul.  She was wearing a long skirt and a long seeved sweater and what later turned out to be the top of Paul's suit.  Paul wore grey pants and a light colored print shirt.  I kept snapping pics.  Linda would look over at us and smile and wave.  Then they went in.  Boy, was I shaking! He looked so good -- just like the Flip Wilson Show, only better.

Around dinner time, a lot of people came out. I guess they were recording in one of the other studios.  They were all staring at Paul's car and touching it. One lady stopped and asked who was recording. So Wendy said "BCLT" and she asked if they were American or English and any good -- Fantastic -- she had never heard of them. 

Somehow, night and 10:30 came.  By then, there were three groups of girls.  We were still inside the gate by our tree and on the left as they came out.  Paul was just bouncing away, and as they passed, Linda said, "Goodnight, girls," and Paul bounced on.   Then he turned and said, "Goodnight, girls." Hmmm...  When they got to the car, Paul looked back at us as if to see if we were still looking (we were!), and Linda stopped behind the car and bent to pick up some leaves and said something like "smell these leaves."  I am glad British cars are on the side they are, or else we would not be able to see him.  As they were driving off, Paul tooted the horn and waved.  Lovely way to end a trip to England.  Oh, by the way, on the way out, he was wearing the suit coat. 

Wings Concerts 1972

 

Wings

McCartney Ltd. 

July/August 1972

    As mentioned before, Wings are currently touring Europe. The tour began on July 9 in southern France at Chateau Vallon. Almost all British music papers had articles about it. So here are some of the things that were said.

     John did it in Toronto, and on the streets of New York. George and Ringo chose Madison Square, but Paul picked a sleepy French village to get back to the people with his first publicized live debut since 1966.

     "Chantez a bit, if you know le mots", said Paul, but very few of the lucky French kids seem to know the words to "Maybe, I'm Amazed". Maybe the 2000 French fans who witnessed McCartney's return to the public platform were too amazed to sing. For it was quite amazing to see the man who did so much for British pop music once more on stage.

     Wings are Paul's substitute for Rikki and the Red Streaks, the fictitious group Paul wanted the Beatles to perform as when Beatlemania reached proportions and touring had to stop.

     It seems he never really wanted the fame that came with being a Beatle, but all he really wanted to do was to come on stage and play something to somebody, no matter what or where. The intricate recording techniques and musical innovations that The Beatles used in their latter-day phase are a million light-years away from Wings.

     On stage, Paul has changed little from the Beatles days. His hair is cropped short, but he still stands slightly kneed, his backside shaking and his face against the mic as if he were licking an ice cream cone. He shakes his hips, but the kids don't scream anymore. His voice is everything it always has been, whether screaming or singing, and his very presence commands respect, even in France; few others could hope to receive it, and at the same time, there's no doubt he is thoroughly enjoying himself on stage. 

    The second half they wore identical, black suits with glitter on the lapels, a hark back to the old Beatle days when Paul and Lennon disagreed over Beatles stage attire. 

    Paul seemed happy about the night. After the concert, he wasn't nervous, but Linda was. A small press Conference was held after the concert, and below are some of the questions with Paul's answers. 

Q: Would you ever do any old Beatles numbers? 

A: The Beatles thing at the moment is a bit close for me to do one, but we were on holiday recently, and we suddenly rediscovered "Yesterday", and I hadn't played that for years.

 Q: What Beatles project gives you the fondest memories? 

 A: It's difficult. I don't think you can really go into all that stuff. I enjoyed it all, and it was great while it lasted. But for me, I don't like the idea of once having won the World Cup to just sit around living on your laurels. I prefer the idea of being in a band, working, we've all got to move on. You know?

 Q: It was rumored, Paul, that you were asked to take part in the Bangladesh concert.

 A: Yeah, but I knew for certain that if I'd taken part, it would have been played up as the Beatles back together again. It may have been only for one night, but the whole thing would have been perpetuated when the truth is it's definitely finished. Like the man at the record company said, "Would you all play together again just once a year? Like a kind of memorial, like tribute." Now, I'm  not going to get into anything like that. I'm not dead. You know? You can get into that kind of thing when I'm dead, if you like, but it's not much good to me now.

Q: What do you feel is Wing's best number so far?

S: I don't know, maybe, "Maybe I'm Amazed" since it went down well. Also, we've got a new one. "Hi, Hi, Hi," which is a nice one we wrote on holiday in about five minutes. We're thinking about it for a single. 

    The following Sunday, Paul and Wings played two concerts in Paris. The following is from Record Mirror from July 29.

     A week after the opening in southern France, Wings played two concerts at the Olympia in Paris. Concerts, McCartney said, he was dreading. They went extremely well. They were sell outs. Paul said afterwards, "I thought we went down better than the Beatles did their last time."

     Three hours later, after the concert, Paul and Linda sat on the stage surrounded by the rest of the group while microphones were thrust at them. Paul, at 30, still looks boyish, Coy, and jaunty with an aggressive surface confidence that conceals a certain uneasiness. He talks nervously and probably can't escape the feeling of being on trial. The first tour by a Beatle since August 29, 1966. Paul also said, "I think as we play as a band, the Beatles thing will disappear anyway. I mean, people either like us or they won't like us. That's how it is with all bands, and that's how we're going to take it. That's fair enough for me, if they don't like us, it's too bad.

     Would you like to talk to the rest of the band?" asked McCartney. "I mean, it's not just me." Then he introduced them jauntily. "This is Denny and Danny and Henry and Yoko." Laughs all around, and Linda smiles. The subject is switched to Linda's importance in the group, and McCartney defends her with almost violent intensity.

     How many years do you plan on playing? "As long as I live", says Paul, "till I'm 100, I mean, it is my job." Despite the disadvantage of a Beatles background and the cat and mouse game with the darlings of the British press, despite the inner conflicts of Paul McCartney, I think Wings will make it. I think the next album will be far, far better than anything post Beatles he's done so far. And I think "My Love" shows distinct signs that McCartney is recapturing his compositional genius.

An Interview with John (1972)

 An Interview with John (and  Yoko?)

From the National Observer, reprinted in the I.F.A. 

June 3, 1972 -- April 1973

Q:  Did the collective Beatles image hide your real personalities?

John:   The guy who wrote A Hard Day's Night, tried to write what he thought we were like after being with us for three days, and that rather set our image, you know, like boom, boom, boom: Ringo,sharp John, sweet Paul, serious George. These were caricatures of what we were.  Although Epstein had cleaned us up a little, he took the cigarettes out of our mouths on stage, wouldn't let us eat on stage, and told us to stop swearing. We were still doing all right, just being ourselves. We were very popular, not being goody-goody on stage. If you're not yourself, you're paid, you'll pay for it, and we paid. That was the suffering I felt being a Beatle.

 Yoko:  The Beatles had a neutral or bisexual image. It was not really a masculine image. It was an image that wouldn't go over in an age when people are aware of women's identities and Blacks and other races.

 Q: In their heyday, did the Beatles use drugs? 

John: They never used hard drugs. But when we were kids in Liverpool, pep pills were already rampant. It was a pill age. Then marijuana didn't come until we got to America. The only way to keep going on the road was to take something to keep you awake, whether you got it from a doctor or a PG man, and we drank quite a lot. The Beatles were famous for whiskey and Coke.

 Q: What caused the breakup of the Beatles?

 John: It started when Epstein died. When we came back from India, we made a double album, sort of looking back to the R&R, very simple and basic. George was writing a lot. Then that's when the tension really started showing we were less and less interested in each other's songs. Paul was going more and more into "Mary Had a Little Lamb", and I was going more and more into "Uncle Punkly Jingle, Gaggle" with sounds and things and that. So it was a musical division, more than an emotional division. Everybody was uncomfortable, but nobody could put his finger on the reason. Even making an album became such a production. It was like we had all outgrown the Beatles. 

Q:  Did Yoko have anything to do with the breakup?

 John: She may have been the last straw for some of them. Meeting Yoko was in a way, like meeting Paul in the early days, meeting somebody with the same interest, with a brilliant mind, who had the same kind of vision I had. But after 10 years, it became nothing. When Yoko came into my life. Nothing else seemed important, but she didn't say, 'Why don't you leave those lunatics?'

     She would have been content to join in. She'd have come to a session and, as she had with other musicians, performed with us, but nobody performed with the Beatles. Nobody. Paul always wanted to keep the Beatles pure, whereas George and I wanted to expand the Beatles. McCartney wanted to be the Beatles forever. George and I had been trying to break that down for quite a bit. So it finally became evident that the only way to break it, was to break it. Paul rang up a year later and said, 'I understand what the rest of us put you two through now. I'm going through it with Linda myself. I understand that what you two were trying to do was just be yourselves, individuals. I'm trying to do the same thing now.' That was the only clue I had to the announcement he was going to make that night that he had left the Beatles.

Q:   Did all that climax by the McCartney suit end your long friendship with Paul?

 John:  He and Linda were at our New York apartment just a few weeks ago. We all want to get this thing settled, the Apple thing. We were disagreeing, then the lawyers came in and turned it into a pitched battle. But as soon as it died down, we started getting in contact again. We both basically want the same thing: everything that we own, coming directly to each of us as individuals, and not into one big pot. And one quarter of everything that we did together coming directly to us instead of into a pot. Now my album, Imagine, goes into the pot. It's divided amongst the four people.

 Q: Why was George always the most inconspicuous? 

John: When we met George, he was musically good on the guitar, and he had sung a little, but he had never written a song in his life, and it was years before any of his songs made any sense. It wasn't that we were holding him back. It was just that they were such trash, they were rubbish, and we weren't about to put his bit of rubbish on when we could turn out better rubbish. He was the lead singer in his own group. He left that to become our guitarist, because we had presence on stage, which is something he never really got. You can see it in the Bangladesh concert. You've seen comedians on stage together. It's a fight for the camera, right? Well, it's the same with musicians on stage. It's every man for himself. So he had all the chances, stage and film, therefore, extroverted people, or introverts who show themselves to be extroverted. George is still introverted.

 Q: How do you explain Beatlemania of the 60s? 

John: We were just reflecting the culture. Our style was instinctive, intuitive. We pulled things up from the streets. The Paris kids were wearing bell-bottom trousers and Beatle haircuts before we popularized them in London. We went to a shop that had a Pierre Cardin corduroy coat with no collar. We picked it up, wore it, made it famous. The decision to put our hair forward was a big one, because the kids in Liverpool are tough kids. It took us a long time to convince them we hadn't gone fag just because we had changed our hair. Before that, it was just like everyone else, you know, with Vaseline and Burl Cream. We were descendants of rock and roll with the original pop musical revolution. As far as I'm concerned, the Beatles just carried it a step farther. Rock and roll was basically black music, except for a few people like Elvis and Bill Haley. We sort of intellectualized it for white people. We made white kids in America aware of their own black music. 

Paul McCartney and Wings in Berlin 1972

 

Paul McCartney and Wings

By Margit Oettinghaus

McCartney Lovers and Friends

March 1973

     Hello, everyone!  I finally got myself together to try and point out some of the most fantastic moments of my life. That means meeting Paul!

     I had finally made it. I was in Berlin after a 30-minute flight, and couldn't wait to find the hotel Paul was staying in. My friend Silvia, who lives in Berlin, was concerned as well as to where to find him! Finally, there we stood, sure that he was inside, unsure of what to do to get a glimpse of him, and nervous as hell! Then this super idea hit us. 

    We thought that he might be having lunch or something inside. So both of us went in and asked if we could have dinner up in the restaurant. We acted all snobbish and kind of rich, and having had such a great teacher for pulling those bored-to-death faces, we seemed to succeed quite well. The porter told us that the restaurant was still closed and suggested we go to the bar instead, but we went out again because money wasn't one of our stronger sides. 

    There, we noticed two boys sitting at the entrance of the hotel. Apparently, they were waiting for someone. Well, I swung open the door (the store swung both ways), and that's indeed what it did. And according to the boys, we went out on the right side and on the left side, the whole McCartney family came in. Trust us! Whenever will I learn to really see the things I'm looking for? They had taken the kids to the zoo and asked the boys not to follow them. (Congratulations, monkeys! At least Paul is allowed to give you a nice long look from those eyes!) We had missed him. So what!  Didn't we all learn to wait at London's Abbey Road? 

    After some hours, they all came out and headed for the white Mercedes standing outside the hotel. With all, I mean, the McCartneys and the rest of the group. Paul had some clothes packed over his arm. They filled two cars. Paul did us a great favor and posed for some pictures. His charms were still the same as in 1968, if not more charming than ever. Linda was showing us the peace sign. Our photos later assured us that she did indeed give us a peace sign, and it wasn't the other way around (you know the FU sign that she usually charms us with). We were surprised.

     God, I felt so sick standing there right in front of Paul. I didn't know what to do. Anyway, as I woke up again, the Mercedes had gone in the direction of the Deutschlandhall where the concert took place. Is is hard to guess where we went? Yes to the Deutschlandhall!

     Silvia and I had three cards instead of two to make sure we had a seat where we could put our cameras and other things. My poor nerves were playing hell, and I moved up and down on my chair. And of course, I had forgotten that it was one of those chairs that go up and down when you don't sit on them. So I stood up and then sat down again. That was it. As the seat was up, I fell right down on the floor and bumped my head against the chair legs. Everyone hearing that noise stared at me. They didn't seem to understand the state I was in, which was making me do stupid things like that.

     The concert began half an hour later than planned. The audience began to get more and more impatient, all that time, the top 20 stuff was being played through the loudspeakers. I felt so hot and sticky that I thought I couldn't take it anymore. When I looked around, I saw Paul's secretary walking in with Heather and Mary, who were both dressed like poor gypsy kids. They jumped behind the stage and came back shortly, and Heather's face was full of glitter. They disappeared somewhere among the audience, which was not too numerous. 

    Then after a few minutes of nerves, hot cheeks, and excitement, the curtains went up. I was shocked! There was Paul just in front of us, singing away with a mask on his face --a mask of an old man! (see photo)  I didn't know if I should laugh or cry. Was this what I had waited for? "Please take that thing off!" I began to pray. I was really desperate, but then he grabbed it and threw it away. 

     Don't any of you ask what I felt then, because I don't know --that's the truth! I was going daft or something. My God, that face!  But do I have to tell you the details? It was all too much!

    He wore pink trousers and a white jacket with glittery embroidery, and under it, nothing but skin. The group sang quite a few songs, or better, he did, and then one song came from Linda. It's called "Seaside Woman", which caused some applause, though I didn't think much of it, but that's another story altogether. 

    Paul tried to get the audience going. He wasn't very satisfied with all the people standing there like lumps of ice, and in lovely German with a fantastic English accent, he asked us all to start clapping hands. There were some voices shouting out for "Yesterday", "Michelle", etc, but he completely ignored that. When someone asked for "Backseat of my car", he said, "Thank you very much!"

     After the break, he came out dressed all in black with tight-fitting trousers --a smashing sight, as you well might imagine. The concert was finished before I got used to the thought that he was standing just in front of me. During the concert, Linda kept staring at us, and then she said something to Paul and pointed at us. She couldn't have forgotten that we had the nerve to wait for him at Cavendish this past summer. Of course, he then looked as well, which wasn't the worst thing in my life, but a bit more than I could stand. 

    In the end, they gave two encores, "Hi, Hi, Hi". They did a good job. (If I could have understood the words at that time, I would have died) and" Long, Tall Sally." There he stood, singing, screaming, and bouncing away like in the old days. Even though he does not like to be called a Beatle, I'm sure he felt like it, as I've never seen him look happier during the concert than in those final minutes when everyone in the audience was getting with it.

     Hundreds of balloons and tons of confetti came down on the group and all of us standing so near the stage.  It's amazing how he still has the whole audience under control. Only one scene reminded me of long-ago Beatlemania. It was when a girl threw her camera onto the stage, and there it smashed into hundreds of pieces just in front of Paul's feet. He saw it and just kicked the pieces away with a raised eyebrow and a short grin.

     We walked out of the hall in a complete daze, but managed to catch a taxi back to the hotel, and we arrived just before he did. He came out of his car with a glass of Coke in his hand, and I nearly knocked it over. He smiled with such a great grin-it was killing me! Some boys asked for an autograph, and Linda watched eagerly to make sure that no one got more than one. I asked for his signature on my Wings poster. Any of you who stood in front of him, watching him write, know what I mean when I tell you about the feeling as if lots and lots of butterflies were swarming in your stomach? Incredible!

     Linda was staring at us, yes again, and pointed at me and said, "I've seen you in the audience". And this was said in a halfway normal voice too. This was a big change for us. For usually she was shouting. The only thing I could say was, "Oh, really?" She forced a slight smile and continued, "We are friends, aren't we?" Believe me. That was when I almost flipped over. I replied, "Certainly." And then asked her for her autograph as well. She was obviously very pleased about that, and she signed it. "Love Linda."

     "Paul, when are you going home tomorrow?" I managed to ask. "We're going back home tomorrow morning, back to England." And then he said in German, "Good night everyone. Sleep well."  But he didn't go in the morning. He went in the afternoon. They had stayed in bed until midday.

     As they were leaving, Linda thought that it would be wise to bring out some of her German as well, and shouted, "Arrivederci!" (which is Italian). I called Mary, who was walking inside the hotel on Heather's hand, and there she turned around and waved. She's so cute with her huge eyes and brown hair. Paul smiled when he saw that. And then they all disappeared.

     For Sylvia and I, one of our greatest days of 1972 had ended. I wouldn't mind living through it again and again. 

Having a ball waiting for Paul

 

Creem shirt

 

Apple under construction

 

Trying to blend in

 

Wings over Spain

 

Disguises

 

Elephant's Memory recording session

 

The Fan Who Almost Failed to Recognize Paul

Paul, Linda, and Wings at Lancaster University on February 14, 1972

 The Fan Who Almost Failed to Recognize Paul 

By Alfred Green

The Daily Echo (Liverpool)

February 18,  1972

It seems incredible that a pop enthusiast could chat with an ex-Beatle, Paul McCartney, without knowing it, but that is exactly what happened to Roy Spencer, 21 of Yardley Avenue, Warrington.

     They met on the lawn at Lancaster University, both looking for the offices of the Students' Union. "We discovered that we were both playing in pop groups at the university that night. But it was not until he smiled when I asked the name of his group that I realized I was talking to Paul McCartney," says Ray, a member of the Warrington based Brother Lover Traveling Rock Group. 

    "I felt a bit of a fool. But who would expect to bump into McCartney just like that?" Asked Ray. "He was very pleasant and concerned that this concert with Wings should not clash with ours."

    Later, Paul his wife and children and members of his group enjoyed an impromptu game of football on the lawn while waiting for refreshments.

One to One Rehearsal

 

Give Peace a Chance

 

The famous Couple

 

Calling John Lennon

 

This wasn't in the Daytime Revolution film, but while on the Mike Douglas Show, John looked up people named "John Lennon" in the phone book and gave them a call.