Paul McCartney : son interview pour « Q »

So, ground level: cream marble floor, dark wood furniture; walls hung with huge
canvasses by Brian Clarke, the artist who painted the sleave for 1982’s Tug of
War; a McCartney collage of himself and Linda tucked away in a corner. First
floor: bookshelf laden with dictionaries and Beatles volumes; a large, dauby
protrait of Buddy Holly by McCartney (who owns Holly’s publishing rights).
Second floor: framed Beatles photos, including a Sgt. Pepper-era classic of John
and Paul pointing at each other and laughing their socks off.

There’s a murmur of voices from the inner sanctum. One of them umistakably
belongs to McCartney. He’s been famous since his early 20’s, of course. Now, as
a sextegenarian knight of the realm, he is almost equally loved and maligned.
Following marriage to ex-model Heather Mills in 2002, his relationship with the
tabloids has been stormy. And yet there are moves to reach out to new audiences.
A lively new album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, out in September, is the
result of an alliance with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich.

The door opens. Two sharply suited men are ushered out. McCartney’s attire is
casual, his office neatly ordered. I join him on a sofa beneath a large abstract
painting. His manner is releaxed, confident, look-you-in-the-eye solid. A man of
affairs. But the dazzling lad of his youth still lingers within the seasoned
face, the light, hoarse voice.

You’re a 62 year old ex-Beatle. What do you
think when you look in the mirror these days?

But you did decide to dye your hair…

Yeah. I saw [Pet Shop Boy] Neil Tennant and he was goofing about, [impersonates
Tennant’s archness] « Oooo, Paul, surprise, surprise, you dye your hair. » I said,
« Come on, man, everyone knows that – it was grey and then suddenly it wasn’t! »
And I got grief from people blaming Heather for it. God in heaven, 10 years
before I met her I was thinking about dyeing my hair. I tried it in Australia
once. Looked cool until I went onstage. Then this blue liquid came pouring down
my forehead. Highly embarrassing.

There are stories about you ringing up
journalists who give your wife a hard time – is that true?

It is. Linda got terrible flak when we got married [she was blamed, along with
Yoko Ono, for The Beatles’ split, and criticised for her musical contribution to
Wings]. It’s happened with Heather all over again. I tried to let it go over my
head, but these columnists got too vindictive. I could see it was hurting
Heather. I got a few cuttings together. I couldn’t believe it. There was one
where this woman was saying, ‘What is she doing opening a cosmetics company?’
And then it went, ‘She’s not even pretty.’ I thought [intense Scouse], ‘Excuse
me, I’m ringing her up.’ I was like, ‘How dare you write all this crap? I’m her
husband. I’ve seen the picture at the top of your column and you’re really not
pretty. And then you’ve got it wrong about the cosmetics company. She’s actually
doing a cosmetics cover for an artificial leg. She’s helping people. Do your
bloody research.' »

Did it do any good?

I had a right go and I felt better. I rang a few of them that week. They got
pissed off with me. One of them wrote, [whimpers] « He harangued me for an hour! »
I thought, « You deserve hanging, not haranguing. »

Is it Yoko syndrome?

The same thing. Yoko’s a great artist, good woman, loved John, but she got a lot
of flak.

How is it for you, being a father in middle
age? [Daughter Beatrice was born in 2003]

I don’t talk about it because Heather and I have agreed to protect our baby’s
privacy – but it’s great!

OK. You’ve recorded your new album with
Radiohead’s producer, you played Glastonbury, you’ve been remixing with
[producer/DJ] Freelance Hellraiser. Are you looking for a new audience?

Not really. Because of the Beatles 1 and the Back in the World Live albums, all
ages come to our shows anyway. Babies get held up to us like, « Here, have a
baby! » Glastonbury I’d always wanted to do and I was very chuffed when the
moment arrived. Rocking in wellies. The flags reminded me of Henry V. Agincourt.
A medieval battlefield. Magic. I went back to Liverpool shortly after and it was
all, « Hey, Macca! Great! Saw you on the telly. »

Did you go after Nigel Godrich?

George Martin recommended him. I rang Nigel, we met, and he said, « All I want to
do is make an album that’s true to you. »
That simple statement meant a lot to me. I told him, « I’m
going to make a good record. Not, I
want to make a good record. »

Implying you’ve let yourself down in the past?

[Laughs] Sounds like my cousin Ted Robbins’ drunk routine. He’s a comedian, been
on Phoenix Nights [as rival nightclub owner Den Perry], [Maudlin moan] « I’ve let
meself down, I’ve let you down, I’ve let everyone down. » Then he sings My Way.
Yeah, some of my albums, I can’t believe
what I was…on. [1986’s] Press to Play, I read the tracklist and I think,
« Wonder how that song goes? »

You dropped your band from the album. What was
that about?

That was really Nigel’s call. He started saying, « You’re in a safety zone with
these guys, complacent. » He said I should play most of the instruments. He said,
« You can blame me if you want. »

So you did.

So I did? No, I explained it and the guys were all cool about it. [They’re back
for the world tour.]

But you are tough, that’s the truth, isn’t it?

Yeah, you’ve gotten me. There were some tense moments making the album. Nigel
wasn’t syncophantic, he said from the off, « I know what I like. » There were some
heated discussions. There’s a song called Riding to Vanity Fair where we got
down to it, [angrily] « I like it! », « I don’t like it! », « Well, I like it! » But
then I realized there’s not point in charging him down like that, I should
listen. We actually moved on to why he didn’t like it – « The first line’s good,
after that… » « Oh, how about this then? »

It was emotional making that track. We kept at it. Slaved on it. Forced it to
work.

Riding to Vanity Fair is about the difficulties
of friendship and I’m wondering whether those lines, « We sang along/When all the
songs were sung/Believing every line » were about John and George.

Welll…All my mates, really. Everyone I sang along with. Listening to Carl
Perkins with John and George. And a school friend called Ian James. I hung out a
lot with him, trying to pull the same girls. Unsuccessfully. Your life revolved
around listening to records and the thrill was sharing it with people who knew
what you meant when you said, « Gene Vincent! » or « Eddie Cochran! »

Some songs on the new album sound very
personal. How Kind of You seems to be about Linda’s death – lyrics such as « I
won’t forget how unafraid you were that long, dark night. »

It wasn’t in my mind. After Linda died, a lot of people related everything I
said to that, but most of my songs are not that specific.

Is that a strange sensation, people
interpreting your songs as « confessional » and thinking they know about you?

It’s always happened. The first time I realized how people take their own
meanings from what you write was in 1963 when I went back to Liverpool. I was
round at Rory Storm’s mum Vi’s house [Rory Storm and the Hurricanes was Ringo’s
band before the Beatles]. I played From Me to You to her, [sings] « If there’s
anything that you want… » She was like [acts out deeply moved, open-mouthed,
amazed]. She said, « Aah, I didn’t know you could think like that. » I was like,
« It’s just a song. » But it hit an emotional nerve, I don’t know what, she didn’t
say, but it made me realize something about the power of songs.

Does all that mean you hold back on your
deepest emotions when you write?

I don’t think so. The feelings are all in there. But, for instance, I wrote a
song called Here Today for John [on 1982’s Tug of War] and that could have been
very, « When I met John it was at Woolton village fete. » A specific story. But I
thought, « What would you say if you were here today? » It’s not that I’m trying
to hide anything.

I was talking about lyrics with [Bee Gee] Robin Gibb and he said, « Sometimes you
say any old words, you talk gobbledegook, just to make something happen in the
world that wasn’t there two minutes ago. » Often you think, « That’s nonsense. »
Sometimes it’s, « Oh, I see. » The day
after I’d written Hey Jude I was sitting at the piano at my house in London
showing it to John and Yoko. When I got to « the movement you need is on your
shoulder, » I spun around and said, [disgusted] « I’m changing that! » John said,
« You’re not! It’s the best ling in the bloody song. »

To go back to Here Today, that actually is
quite specific. It’s about you and John and it’s pretty emotional. Those lines,
« What about the night we cried?/Because there wasn’t any reason left to keep it
all inside. » What were you remembering?

Mmm. The Beatles were under a lot of pressure, touring all the time, and we
didn’t have any release. The night we were flying to Jacksonville, Florida [9
September 1964], but to avoid a hurrican we had to put down in Key West, which
at that time was the end of nowhere, like in the Humphrey Bogart move [Key
Largo]. We stayed up all night drinking, all of us together, chatting about
everything, and there came a moment
where we, um, cried. Which we’d never done. I’m not sure, but the likely
explanation is that John and I had both lost our mothers – mine died of breast
cancer, John’s in a road accident – and it always been a sort of unspoken bond
between us. Knowing that we had both been throught that grief and horror. That
night we finally got round to talking about it.

In terms of the heritage that you and John
created, you’ve done a couple of things that upset people in the last year or
so.

Yeah. The names thing and…what else are you thinking of?

Some people saw the Let it Be…Naked version
as anti-John.

Never. We talked about it at the time. We had a copy. We agreed that the
…Naked version was better. It’s so
John. You can’t tell me that he would have loved soaring string and ladies’
voices going [contralto wail] « Woooo! »
I’m putting words into his mouth, but I…certainly knew him better than a lot
of people. Anyway, the famous changing the order of the names…

…Looked like resentment?

Well, it wasn’t. When I try to explain it, it gets blown out of proportion again
so I can’t be bothered. [ponders, teeters] But I will
f**king try to explain it again. In the
Beatles Anthology CD booklet the lyrics to Yesterday had a picture of John above
them and the credit was, « Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. » When it’s
« Lennon-McCartney » I don’t have a problem, it’s a logo. I merely asked if, on
that one occasion when we were using the full names, it could say, « Written by
Paul McCartney and John Lennon. » And I was rebuffed.

By?

You guess. So that became a bit of a bone of contention with me – and a complete
misconception that I was trying to walk on a dead man’s grave, ruin his credit.
Now I think I’ll be trying to explain that forever. So, now
I could not care less about where my effing
name is! No worry to me at all. Just so everybody knows, I’m off that
one.

But don’t get it wrong. I was one of the most important people in John’s life
and he was one of the most important people in my life. I’m the only person who
wrote that body of work with him, who was in the room with him and I…For
something tiny like this to cloud that is ridiculous. I
love him and always will.

After everything you’ve been through, what
drives you now? What are you seacrhing for?

Mmm. I don’t think I ever have been a searcher. I take things as they come. I’ll
tell you what sums it up to me. The son of a friend of ours was asked how he
felt on his birthday and he said, « Like I’m walking along the same street, but
in new shoes. » That’s how I feel about it all. I hope to continue walking in new
shoes.

« Sorry, gotta go, need a pee, » he says standing, shaking hands, making for the
door. But then he pauses at his Wurlitzer jukebox, hits a button, and after a
couple of chinks a 45 slaps down. Elvis enquires, « A-well-a bless my soul,
a-what’s a-wrong with me? » and McCartney starts to jiggle with all of his might,
grinning like a boy. Just for ten seconds that is, then the working day resumes.

The following week, McCartney calls to tie up loose ends. He’s being driven
through the streets of Liverpool on the way from conducting a songwriting
masterclass at the Institute for the Performing Arts – his, and George
Harrison’s, old school which he rescued from dereliction – to John Lennon
Airport. And he’s just passed 20 Forthlin Road, the terraced house where he
lived in from 1955-63, now owned by the National Trust.

« It’s strange, » he says. « I was just saying, Oh, my old girlfriend lived there,
I used to trim that hedge…I’ve never been back to the house and I’m not sure I
could – a museum I used to live in? »

He’s arrived at John Lennon. The motto painted on the roof reads, « Above us only
sky. » He says he’s got to go, but doesn’t quite yet.