“I do sometimes think, ‘Wait a minute! I was one of The Beatles! Can you believe that?’” Sir Paul McCartney tells Stellar with a laugh.“I was one half of the Lennon/McCartney songwriting team!
by Cameron Adams - Herald Sun
“Occasionally these things occur to me. Normally it’s just something I take for granted, but sometimes I look at it and think, ‘Bloody hell, it’s amazing.’ Then I get right off it before my head explodes.
”The figures are enough to warrant cranial expansion: 800 million albums sold by The Beatles alone; 30 American No. 1 singles; 2200 cover versions of ‘Yesterday’; 21 Grammy awards; and a fortune estimated to be more than $1 billion.“You start off trying to achieve something,” McCartney tells Stellar in his only interview with an Australian publication.
“When John and I met I said, ‘One of my hobbies is writing songs, I’ve written a couple of songs.’ He was the only person I’d ever met who said, ‘Yeah? So have I.’ So when you think of those real humble beginnings, of the two of us showing each other the little songs we’d written, then starting to write together, it is amazing that we carried on and went from strength to strength.
“We wrote songs that people actually know and love and are really famous around the world. I do sometimes think, ‘Blimey.’ Obviously I’m really very proud of it. I can’t believe my luck. Not only did I get to do it for a living, I ended up being pretty good at it.”
“I sit down before a tour and think, ‘If I was going to this show, what would I definitely want to hear?’” McCartney explains.
So I write down the songs where the show wouldn’t be the same if ‘he’ didn’t play them. Then I start thinking, ‘Well, a lot of people might not know this one, but a lot of Wings fans will know this one.’ I try to put stuff in for people who want a little more depth. You’re trying to give people value for money.
“I remember very well when I paid my hard-earned money to go to a show and ended up feeling a bit cheated. Even when the economy is doing well, and now when it’s not doing well, people spend a lot of money on the tickets. I want them to go away and think, ‘You know what? That was worth it.’”
“Those people then grew up as we did; they had kids like we did. You’d see their kids coming to shows. Now we’re at the age where their kids’ kids are coming. You get the parents, their kids and the grandkids.
“I love that. I love that they can all come to the same show and enjoy it for different reasons. The kids are coming, presumably, because they like the songs, the parents are coming because of the nostalgia and what it reminds them of ... it’s really nice.
