An Interview With Paul (1974)

This interview was originally from the May 1974 issue of Disc.


Paul:  At the present, there's no real question of the Beatles reforming as such.  We're far from being enemies, but we're all in to our own thing nowadays.    My daughter, Heather, hasn't even heard of the Beatles.  In fact, I'm sure a lot of Wings fans think Wings is the only band I've ever been in. 

I know we're not as famous as The Beatles, but so what?  It took The Beatles four years to become famous.  Wings have only been together for two, and we've done a lot already.

On the other hand, I' wouldn't rule anything out for the future.  I've got to hedge.  I'm always ready to write with John.  I'm always ready to write with anybody who's good.  Look at Ringo's album.  We all had to part in that.  That's what can happen if somebody asks.  And that's all he did.  I've got my visa for the States now, so anything can happen.

Q:  What's happening to your plans to make a cartoon feature film about Rupert Bear?

Paul:  It's in the pipeline.  These things take a long time to get together.  Making a film is a long, long process.  But I've bought the film right for Rupert, and I'm working on it as often as I can.  I certainly don't intend to let it sit on the shelf gathering dust.

Q:  Where did the title song, Maunia come from?

Paul:  It's a name I came across a couple of times in my travels.  Firstly it was the name of a hotel in Marakesh, where the whole band went for a holiday, but it was spelt slightly differently in that case   Then when we were in Lagos, Nigeria, recording Band on the Run, we saw it on a plaque on a wall .

The funny thing is, there was a plaque next to it which advertised a local carpenter.  It read:  Son of Always --- but in the end, we plumped for the title of the track.

Q:  Did you ever recover the Hofner violin bass you played in The Beatles?  (I heard you'd had it pinched).

Paul:  No.  Ever since the early days -- even before The Beatles -- I've had three violin basses.  One was stolen, and I was very upset indeed.  I had a sentimental attachment to it.  but I've still got the other two.  I've also got a Fender Jazz bass and a Rickenbaker.

Q:  Do you plan to work again with your brother, Mike McGear?

Paul:  Yes, I'd love to.  I produced an album for him up in Stockport, and we really enjoyed ourselves.  It's the first time we'd worked together.   It's released in the Autumn, and I expect they'll take a single off it, too.  I can see us doing more things together in the future. 

Q:  Why did Henry and  Denny leave Wings?

Paul:  Henry was asked to play a certain guitar lick on one of Denny's songs, and he refused.  The next morning, he phoned up and said he wanted to quit.   As for Denny, I think he was just uptight about recording in Africa. It was as simple as that.

Q:  Who's your favourite artist?

Paul:  I love Stevie Wonder.  I think he's a brilliant musician.  If you remember, there was a Braille dedication to him on the back of the Red Rose Speedway album.  But I'm into all Tamla Motown music.  Especially the drumming.

Q:  Do you feel happier in the studio or doing live performances?

Paul:  I enjoy recording a lot, and always have done.  But I want Wings to be a working band most fo all.  The reason I got bored during the last part of The Beatles era, we didn't perform to audiences.  There's nothing like the feedback you get off a crowd.  It's the best feeling in the world.

Q:  When are we likely to see the Wings film?

Paul:  It's taking a long time to get together.  Actually, it's called the Bruce McMouse Show.  It's about three mice who live underneath the stage we play on.  But while it includes film of our European tour, the mice themselves are cartoon characters.  That means a lot of work cutting the fill in with the animated parts.   Still, we're getting it together slowly.

Q:  How did you get to write the theme music for Live and Let Die?

Paul:  They just rang me up and said they wanted a song that lasted two minutes and fifty seconds.  I sat down at a piano and eventually came up with the tune.  I knew it had to be dramatic because James Bond is a dramatic, larger than life person.

when I had the basic song together, I took it round to George Martin, who used to produce The Beatles, and we worked out the final details.   by the way, the record is two minutes and fifty-two seconds long!

Q:  If you had your time all over again, would you change anything?

Paul:  No, not at all.  I've had a great time.  Even the bad times have turned out for the best in the end.  I've got my family, my farm and my music.  What else can a man ask for?

Disc magazine winners

I know the English love me--and I love them.

I found this interview from Disc magazine in the Aug/Sept 1975 issue of The Write Thing.  Unfortunately they had to edit the interview down to fit into the fanzine.  

The following interview is from Disc-  May 31, and June 14, 1975.  These are the highlights.

Disc:  “Walls and Bridges” was considered by  many to be the best album you ever made.  Is it as personal an album as it sounds?

John:  All my stuff’s personal, it always has been to a great extent even since early Beatle days, I mean I think “Help” was personal.  “In my Life” was personal, and “Strawberry Fields” was personal, even though it became the psychedelic anthem, it really was a personal song.  Maybe the lyrics got more refined as I became older and got to the point quicker, but they are all personal.  We’re all sheep, you know, the artists and the critics alike really.  Ever since I went to Janov’s therapy “personal” took a new meaning.  You know, on the so called Janov album I’d written a couple of tracks before I even went to Janov.  They were personal, but they just somehow fitted in to that category.  So I’ve always  been a personal writer, like a reporter.

Disc:  Do you think “Walls and Bridges” is a bitter album?

John:  If it is, it is.  I don’t know.  To me ’74 was hell and I am glad to be alive and out of it.  A lot of my friends thought it was hell too actually, but just personally speaking it was a rough year and there’s no way I can’t let it show in my work – even if I was trying to write a third person “Tommy” or write about somebody else or pretend I’m writing about somebody else, there’s no way it doesn’t show through.  So maybe it was bitter.  Some of it was just vaguely sad.  But there’s not many emotions around.  There is up and down, right?  In between is a bit boring.

Disc:  Are you tempted to do the music of any of your contemporaries?

John:  I’ve often thought of it, like I’d often thought of doing the “Rock n Roll” album.  I’d often thought of doing old Beatle numbers again myself – I’ve thought about it many times in the last five years.  It all depends on how much time there is to do it.  I’d like to do a couple of Dylan’s and I’d like to do “Your Song” of Elton’s.  I love that song, whether I could do it or not is another point.  I’m not going to make a habit of doing other people’s songs!  Somebody reviewed “Rock n Roll” over here I think and said, “He’s doing it just for the money.”  I hope he reads Disc, because I get **** all from the album, I have to slip the producer some money, so I get least of all cash for that album.

Disc:  I know the Beatles’ legal problems have at last been settled.  Would you mind telling what difference that’s made?

John:  No, I don’t mind telling about it.  All that did in actuality was to make us get paid directly.  Because even with the individual albums we were doing the money was still going into a collective pot.  So that meant all the Beatles stuff—which still sells!—and all the new stuff was all going into one pot and then it had to be worked out to come out again.  The main thing of the settlement was to release the monies to ourselves.  It did not break all ties with each other, because it’s a bit more complicated than that.  We’re still pretty well tied up in many ways.

Disc:  Do you miss England?

John:  Yes, I do, but I’m not going to walk away from it (immigration struggle) now!  I’ve spent so much effort on it.  When I get the green card… I keep telling myself, Britain will still be there when it’s over but from time to time I get the idea that maybe it’ll float away!

Disc:  What will you do when and if you get that green card?

John:  I haven’t thought that far ahead.  I’m just getting the card.  If I ever did tour, I’d probably tour the world.  Touring at the moment isn’t my idea of fun but I’m always changing my mind so I can’t tell.   If I did I think I’d do it all over.  I just want to go back to Britain and see it and have a cup of tea, not to perform or anything, just to be there.  When people ask me about it, I tend to remember my childhood in Liverpool rather than the time I spent in London in the ‘60’s.  And because of that I may emotionally miss Liverpool, although it is 99 to 1 if I came to Britain I’d come to London.  I probably wouldn’t have the time to go to Liverpool. 

My idea of fun is to travel from London to New York, to Paris.  I may even go to Germany, I don’t know why but I just fancy going there.  I wanna go and see the places I didn’t see, like Munich and Berlin.  Even when we toured Europe, I didn’t see them.

Disc:  I’ve been told you have a beautiful apartment here.

John:  I guess it’s pretty good, yeah.  It’s in a building called the Dakota, and it’s really very European, in other words it’s very very old building.  It’s on the park and most of the rooms face the park.  So it’s good and it’s large enough to get a little lost in i.  If the “garden” which is Central Park, belongs to New York and there’s a doorman at the door to keep Jesus from Toronto coming in and asking me for the message and the answer, that suits me fine.  I get a lot of weirdos here.  I don’t know why, because most of my lyrics and sons are pretty straightforward.  They were more sort of mystic in the ‘60’s. But still somehow that word Beatle manifests some sort of mysticism in people’s head and I’m thinking ‘why are they calling?  What are they bothering me for?”  I just say I feel crap or I feel great in my songs, there’s no mysticism in it.

Disc:  Not so much was heard in England about the Janov thing.  Could you tell us a little about it?

John:  The Janov thing was just a new form of therapy.  I’m very English in that respect – think psychiatrists need to see psychiatrists.  They’re a lot of baloney psychiatrists, and I was never interested unil I read his original book ‘the Primal Scream” and my instincts told me there was something about it, that there is some kind of primal scream in all of us.  That’s how I got interested.

In a nutshell the only thing I can tell you that I learned was to cry.  That’s something you lose the art of because of the way one is brought up.  A lot of women already do that but men don’t have it:  they’re told not to.  It was good for me.  It didn’t help me not to.  It didn’t help me behave myself in ’74, but  I think if I hadn’t been there I might have even been in worse condition.  It took me a  little time to recover from the Janov experience which left me bitterer than when I went in, and that did shake me up for a couple of years.  In fact, I probably only just recovered from it this year.  It was a bit of a mind blower and it left me—well, I suppose faithless is the best way to put it.  I do have faith now, and have still gained something from the experience of going there.

John was then asked about Julian

John:  Well ,he was here—because I can’t leave the country, he has to come here and see me—and I was working, and I was worried that he might be a bit bored.  But he loved the studio, and he was always playing and banging round.  So I recorded him, or the engineer did, when he was banging on the drums and I was playing piano.  I thought he’d be thrilled by it, I kept saying “there’s a surprise on ‘Walls and Bridges’ when it comes out.”  And he called me:  he said, ‘Was that it?’ and I said, ‘Yeah, didn’t you like it?’  He said, “Is that on every record?”  Also I said “Yeah” thinking he’s love it and he said, “that’s terrible, we should have done it again!”  He takes it so seriously and it was only an ad-lib

He’s into guitar and piano and playing in this group.  He knew all the chords and all that.  I spent hours with him trying to work out the lick from “My Sweet Lord” and I couldn’t play the damn thing because I didn’t have anything to do with it.  It was George.  We had a terrible three hours with Julian furious at me because I didn’t know how to play it.

Disc:  About the other Beatles, have you seen or heard from the others recently?

John:  I spoke to Ringo on the phone before he left for England (in May), and then I spoke to him there.  The last one I saw was Paul on his way down to New Orleans.  Like I said before, I was supposed to go down to New Orleans to mess around with him, but I got back to Yoko instead and I was too busy going home to go to New Orleans.

The others are alright by me.  There’s nothing in the wind about working together but I’m game for anything, it’s just that I can’t get it together.  Yoko and I are together and we’re happier than ever before.  We were so wrapped up in each other that I just never made it to New Orleans.  Sorry Paul.

The Beatles in Germany

So this is a strangely written but interesting article written by the Lennon biographer, Ray Coleman about the Beatles in Germany.    I think what Ray says about the police and the male fans is interesting.   But the part that I really like it Ray talking about the "Revolver" album, which hadn't been named yet.    When you read that, keep in mind that the fans reading this for the first time hadn't hear the album yet.   This was the very first glimpse into the new album.   I bet they were especially curious about Dr. Robert after what John said about it.  

"Yes they do read those fan letters.  Even when traveling!  And either working, filming or holidaying, they  must be real world Tour Experts by now.  This pic was taken on the Beatles recent German tour."

The Beatles in Germany

By Ray Coleman

Disc and Music Echo – July 2, 1966

“PLEASE DO NOT FLY TO TOKYO.  YOUR CAREER IS IN DANGER…”  This anonymous telegram arrived in the Beatles’ Hamburg dressing room last Sunday before their final German concert after a staggering three day triumphant return to the city which nursed them from obscurity into the history books.

Being used to cranks and scares, John, Paul and Ringo took little notice.  But George, who worries more, kept thinking about it and showing it round.  “It makes you think.” He said soberly.  “We’ve got a lot of enemies as well as friends.”

The Beatles’ return to Germany with two, with two concerts each in Munich, Essen and finally Hamburg, was a predictable sensation.  About 30,000 fans screamed with all their Deutsch might during the four-day jaunt.  And Beatlemania, with all its attendant hysteria and larger-than-life fever, gripped the country for the first time.

For Germany, this was the sentimental, romantic and often emotional return to the land where the Beatles polished themselves into the world’s top pop group and international power.  For the Beatles, it was just another tour – but also a sharp reminder of their power.

The most sensational aspect of the tour was fan reaction.  This time, it was the boys who went berserk more than girls.  Boys got much more worked up, mentally and physically, and the German police, whose motto is simply to meet force with more force, had the time of their lives.  There were unbelievable sights as boy fans who went berserk were front marched backwards, punched, hurled over six foot high railings to cool off, or were smitten by fantastically ferocious police.   Some fans were brutally wounded.  But it was the law o the jungle in those concert halls, and in a military country like Germany it’s more than just tough if you don’t obey the police.  It is wicked.

The Beatles remained unchanged if bemused by it all.  Right now they are in Tokyo for more shows.

Memories of Germany?  Hundreds.  Crazy questions at press conferences.  “What’s your opinion of the anti-baby pill?”--  “It’s good, of course.”  (Paul)    “Do you speak German well?”  -- “Like the natives.” (Paul).  “Who’s the greatest, you or Cassius Clay?”  -- “It’s a tossup.” (Ringo).    “Do you wear long pants in the wintertime?”—“No, hipsters!” (George).  “What do you dream about when you’re sleeping?”—“Same as anyone else,” said John.  “We’re the same as you, y’know, only we’re rich.” 

“Why are you such horrid snobs?”   George answered, “It’s only in your mind.”  John:  “Because we’re not flattering you?”  Paul:  “We’re just natural and we don’t pose like some people.”

Memories of Germany:  John and Paul in daft, myopic yellow sunglasses.  Ringo and George in Byrd-imitated square-lensed dark glasses.  George in a crazy hat given to him by the Mamas and the Papas.  The Beatles’ luxurious special train which took us form Munich to Essen and then through the night to Hamburg.  John, Paul , George and Ringo in the compartment used by the Queen and Duke during their recent German trip  john in the bed the Queen slept in and George in the Duke’s.

Memories of Germany:  Lennon’s voice cracking up in Hamburg and a friend frantically searching for honey and lemon within minutes of the boys leaping on stage.  “It was the comeback after a ten-month lay-off,” said John.  “That cracked it.  We should never have come out of retirement!”

Memories of Germany:  Bad and good Beatles music.  A nice programme throughout.  “Rock and Roll Music,”  “If I needed someone”, “Day Tripper,”  ‘She’s a woman,”  “Baby’s in Black,”  “Yesterday,”  “I wanna be your man,” “Nowhere Man,” “I feel fine,” “Paperback Writer,” and “I’m Down” as a great finale.  George impressing the crowds to a frenzy with his German:  “this is from der long-spieler ‘Beatles for Sale.’”

Their new green velvet uniforms with yellow shirts, bought at Chelsea’s hunt on You boutique.  Ringo’s suit which looks like pyjamas in grey with red stripes.  It floored pressmen in Munich.

Questions and more questions.  “Do you polish your MBE medal?”—“Every week without fail we don’t.” (Ringo)  “How rich are you?” – “Not as rich as Harold Wilson.” (George)  “What the best beat band in the world?”  -- “Freddie.”  (Paul)  “Would you be a Beatle fan if you weren’t a Beatle?”  -- “No.” (John) And beauty when a sarcastic, “clever” reporter asked:  “Ringo, what’s the time?”  The Beatles answered dryly, “Time you were in bed.”  Laughter.

They played their new LP tape in their bedroom – on a machine with terrible reproduction.  “It brings me down, listening to things that sound so bad on rotten machines,” said Lennon.  Never mind.  It’s a fascinating new LP and the boys spent hours trying to dream up a title for it.  No luck.  “Magic Circles,”  “Bubble and Squeak,”  “Beatles on Safari,” and “Freewheelin’ Beatles” are the nearest they reached.

The album features “Good Day Sunshine” starring Paul’s voice with George Martin on honky-tonk piano; Ringo singing a sea-shanty styled “Well all Live in a Yellow Submarine,” written by John.  A tremendous sitar showcase for George on a track he also wrote, “love you to,”  “I want to tell you,” and a sensational, moody Paul song called “For No One.”  He sings beautifully and the French horn effects are terrific.

“Tomorrow Never knows,” the Beatles favourite from the new LP, is what they might call pop-free-form, with incredible electronic sounds.  Even the Beatles are amazed by how revolutionary this has turned out.  “Doctor Robert,” featuring John, is a good-sounding song about wich Lennon told me, “It’s all about a queer.”    “Tax Man” written and sung by George, is nice, and Paul’s special “Eleanor Rigby,” with violins as the surprise, is another “Yesterday.”  Glorious.  A superb album.

Peter and Gordon and Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers plus Germany’s Rattles completed the tour bill, and the Britons played well.  “But it’s no use competing with THEM for applause,” said Peter Asher. 

Memories of Germany:  of frauleins in exquisitely embroidered skirts.  They’d actually sewn on the words and music to “All my Loving” and “I want to hold your hand.”  Memories of millions of words and much music.  Of fights and the seedy Reeperbahn, the Beatles old haunt.  Of Germans going raving mad over the British Beatles.

If anyone could have made Hitler get off the war wagon, it would have been John, Paul, George and Ringo.  Achtung!