Paul McCartney about the breakup of Wings, Costello, the Beatles pt 2

By editorial board on May 11, 2018

Canadian music magazine Music Express featured an exclusive interview with Paul McCartney. Ray Bonici chatted with Paul about Denny Laine and the breakup of Wings, Elvis Costello, the Beatles, John Lennon’s death.

Q: "Has your image affected your songwriting at all, your ego?"

PAUL: "No, I don't think so. I think the songwriting is just my songwriting. It just comes out. I think everything about your life affects your songwriting. You are just a vehicle and it all comes through you. So you know, if your vehicle is in a certain state you'll write that kind of a song, some of the time. It does actually affect me, but I really don't feel it affects me mightily. But it must do. Some people still say, 'I never thought you were like that.' I tell you who suffers from this too, and that's Linda. She's totally the opposite to her image. I don't know what people think of her. You meet lots of people. Tell me."

Q: "People tend to say, 'Is she really that snobbish?' That's how she's often projected."

PAUL: "You know, it it's in your character to fake it, then you must fake it. There's no way you can give in. You can't change the spots-- whatever the expression is. But when you really get to meet somebody who's not reacting to a microphone or an interview, when you see them in their off-duty hours, that's when you find out what they're really about."

Q: "You played with George recently, didn't you?"

PAUL: "Not really, no. I just sang some stuff on 'All Those Years Ago.'"

Q: "Do you regret that your life has become so public?"

PAUL: "I realized that a good fifteen years ago. I remember actually thinking when I went on holiday somewhere, 'God I'd really better start thinking now about keeping a few countries aside where we don't sell records. I won't be able to go anywhere without being recognized.' But now I think, 'Really, I've reached the point of no return. There's no going back.' Even if I didn't want to sing anymore, I'd just be like Greta Garbo or Brigitte Bardot. They both retired but you'd never know it.

John said this to me a year before he died. He said, 'Be careful what you wish for, it might just come true.' That's the way I look at it. I wished for all this and I got it. To regret it would mean I'd have to sit here and live with negative thoughts about it. I know that would only sink me. Even if I had feelings of regret my personality would not really let them out. 'Look mate, you don't regret it. Look on the other side,' that's me. Not to sink. I always used to do that instinctively, and not allow too many negative thoughts to surface."

"I think anyone who gets famous regrets it a bit because you don't realize you're really gonna get there. You always want to get there. I saw someone on telly saying, 'I didn't sell my soul to the devil,' which I thought was great. She said, 'I didn't say 'If you give me fame, Lord, I'll give away my private life.' You don't. It just goes that way, and when people see you in the street and say, 'Oooh it's him off the telly,' all you can respond with is, 'Hello,' or you can put your collar up and refuse to deal with it. So, coming back to your question, I don't regret it. No."

Q: "But the fact that I can go to that coffee shop there across the road and you can't, surely that must be..."

PAUL: "Yeah, I hate that. I really do. I used to be big on that. That's what I used to do all the time. I used to go on a bus. I remember when we got famous I said, 'I miss going on buses,' and George Harrison thought I was mad. George is really into cars and his dad was only a bus driver. George didn't really understand what I meant about going on buses. He just didn't like buses. He had a Ferrari, so what does he need a bus for? (laughs)

 

  Q: "Do you think you make life hell for people who are close to you, work for you?"

PAUL: "I don't know. You'd have to ask them. I hope not. If I do, I wouldn't know what to do about it. I mean I would assume that they would have to tell me that. It doesn't appear that I'm difficult. As far as I'm concerned, I can say, 'No. I'm terrific.' I'm saying that as a joke, you see. Just so everyone gets the inflection. This is how I get misquoted alot. It's like Elvis Costello's thing in America where he was shouting all that black stuff about Ray Charles. I was working on with Michael Jackson and Elvis Costello was in the same building. Michael said, 'that stuff was big trouble. They still won't forgive him for that.'

They (Americans) totally misread it. From what I understand, Elvis was doing this typically British kind of humor-- if someone says, 'Do you love me?' you answer, 'You? I wouldn't love you!' which means 'Yes, of course I do!' They do this bluff-double bluff thing. When someone in a bar said, 'Do you English guys like Ray Charles,' he (Elvis) shouted, 'No, he's just some silly nigger.' But what he really meant, 'Yes, I love Ray Charles. Why even ask me?' So he got misinterpreted, and apparently, if Quincy Jones ever catches up with Elvis, he's gonna bop him. But that's what happens in the media, and I think that relates to what we were saying before. That's Elvis Costello's cross to bear. Now he's branded a racist, which isn't true. My image is like a carboard cutout, which I'm not really. I don't think I am anyway. My kids don't think I am. I don't think I am. Am I being cardboard now? I mean, I can't ever tell."

Q: "Lets go back to Wings now. Are you splitting from Linda... musically?"

PAUL: (Laughs) "I like that. No. In fact, she did the harmonies on this album. The thing was just getting musically limiting so I did say to Linda, 'Look, if I wanted to use some other people on harmonies, how do you feel about that?' She said okay. As it happened, we did it ourselves-- together with Eric Stewart."

 

Q: "Was Linda the person who 'came in through the bathroom window?' John said she was."

PAUL: "No she wasn't. Well, John-- what does he know? (laughs) This is the joke. He doesn't know any more than I do or anyone else does. He's gold, John. He was great, a fabulous guy and a beautiful person but he didn't have a monopoly on sense. He was as daft as the next man. He could make his mistakes too. I don't know. She may have been. I wrote it round about that time, but I didn't consciously think, 'She came in through the bathroom window.' Alot of the time when I do songs like that, it's just because the words sound good. You can get stuff which makes great sense but which is not good to sing. It doesn't flow well. The words aren't right."

Q: "What about live shows? Are you going to perform live? You said after John was killed, 'For security reasons we reckon we shouldn't play live.'"

PAUL: "Yeah. That was right after the John thing. That was my response at that time. I'm obviously thinking about all that wondering if I want to. And really, I'll be the same as I've always ever been: if the idea grabs me I'll do it until I don't want to. I'm definitely not thinking I won't ever do it again. Sometimes I really miss performing. I don't at the moment because I'm doing so much work on the album. I am performing, only in a studio."

"Then after this album, I'm trying to put a film together. Isn't everyone? But mine's different. Mine is better. I'm trying to get a film based on this album, so that will take care a bit of time. I suppose after that I might perform. I'd just go and do it. You can't worry about your security all the time."

Q: "You're not terrified now?"

PAUL: "No. I was very terrified right after John's death because it's such a horror for such a thing to happen. I was talking to Yoko about this-- I had a few conversations with her quite recently and she told me people don't like me because of certain things I've said. For instance, when John was killed I was asked for a quote. I said, 'It's a drag.' To me, looking back on it, I was just stunned. I couldn't think of anything else to say. I could have tried for a sentence and put it all into words. I couldn't. It was just like 'blob, blob, blob.' All I said was, 'Ah! It's a drag.' (pauses) That, put in cold print, sounds terrible: 'Paul's reaction today was, It's a drag thank you very much, and then he got into his car and zoomed off.' That's the terrible thing about all that stuff. That's the PR thing again. I hate all that because I don't ever mean it like it comes out in print."

 

Q: "Were you actually still close to him?"

PAUL: "Yes, yes. I suppose the story was that we were pretty close in the beginning when we were writing stuff together. We felt alot of sympathy for each other, although on a personal level, based on a lot of stuff that went down later, I obviously wasn't that close to him. To me, he was a fella, and you don't get that close to fellas. I felt very close to him, but from alot of what he said later, obviously, I was missing in the picture. But anyway, I felt very close to him then and when the Beatles started to feel the strain towards the last couple of years, it was getting to be a bit of a strain and we were drifting more apart.

I think the kind of anchor that had held us together was still there. I think that we all, in a way, started to get really angry with each other, annoyed and frustrated, but we were still very keen on each other, loved each other, I suppose, because we had been mates together for so long. Like Ringo says, 'We were as three brothers.' It's that kind of a feeling. I mean, I didn't realize that, but Ringo would tell me later, 'You are like my brothers, you lot.' We all knew that there was some kind of deep regard for each other."

Q: "When the rift started, it was more like a divorce, like a love/hate relationship, coming apart. Is that true?"

 "I talked to Yoko the day after John was killed and the first thing she said was, 'John was really fond of you, you know.' It was almost as if she sensed that I was wondering whether he had... whether the relationship had snapped. I believe it was always there. I believe he really was fond of me, as she said. We were really the best of mates. It was really ace."

 

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