lemon haired linda

Linda & Paul McCartney at their farm in Peamarsh, Sussex. 1992. Photographed by Harry Benson.

“ People who didn't know her [Linda] well, because she was a very private person, only ever saw the tip of the iceberg. She was the kindest woman I have ever met; the most innocent. “

Linda in Scotland, 1969.

“ This [Maybe, I’m amazed] is supposedly Liza Minelli’s favourite of my songs. I expected her to go for something a bit more ballady. But she really likes this one. It dates from the time, the end of the 1960s, when Linda and I were first living together. […] Through the song was written immediately after The Beatles’ breakup, it was somehow included under the Lennon-McCartney rubric, where it doesn’t belong. It was one of my first solo songs, but because of the deal, it got caught in the publishing net. That was very annoying.

Actually, Linda and I were probably already married, because I can now visualise sitting at the lovely black Steinway piano that we got after our wedding. I was playing on it one day, and this song came to me – the central idea being that there’s so often a split between the inner and outer. […]

In any event, this song isn’t the conventional way of presenting a relationship, or of some of the contradictions that can arise from being in love. That’s maybe why Lizza Minnelli likes it so much. It shows the fragility of love. “

— Paul McCartney, from “The Lyrics”, 2021.

Linda McCartney outtakes for Red Rose Speedway

“ Red Rose Speedway was the live act. I mean, the album’s okay. It has its moments, but nothing approaching the impact of the band in person. After I had heard Wild Life, I thought, ‘Hell, we have really blown it here.’ And the next one after that, Red Rose Speedway, I couldn’t stand. “ — Paul McCartney.

— Linda (then Eastman) & Paul McCartney during the Get Back sessions, 1969.

“ I was aware that I wasn’t liked outside our home. At least the other Beatles had Yoko to compare me to, so I didn’t come off all that badly with them. But some of those girls on the sidewalk! They told the housekeeper that I was acting as if I were jealous of them, that I clung to Paul to keep him to myself. I was scared of them. They really wished me harm. Some of them stole whole carousels of my color slides. Some of them tried to physically hurt me - on the day we were married one girl pushed a flaming newspaper through the front door. Did they want us all to be burned alive? There was nothing I could do about the way the fans felt, but they made me feel awful.

[…] I thought of Paul telling me how the Beatles used to be prisoners in their hotels when they toured, because there were thousands of people out there who loved them so much that it was dangerous to be among them. Believe me, a dozen people who hate you and wait for you has to be just as bad. I was a prisoner in Paul’s house. I lived in fear of going outside. [My daughter] Heather was five, how could I explain this to her? “Oh, it’s OK, they’d hate anyone who lived here with Paul.” Please, you can’t expect a child to know what that’s about. Hate? It’s a new life for her, and I have to tell her about hate, about why these people hate Mummy. It was very, very difficult. “

“Paul McCartney had a special look for his wife, Linda. It’s a look that is kinda wide-eyed, kinda relaxed, kinda goofy. It’s a look that shows a guy who’s really in love. Millions of photographs have been taken of the former Beatle, the most popular living songwriter of the rock ‘n’ roll era. But only one photographer captured that look on film – Linda McCartney. Paul McCartney laughs as he remembers how she did it. “I would start posing, doing those things the photographers tell you to do like `look over your shoulder’ or `look over there’ and she would say, `Oh, stop doing that. Just be natural,’” he said, calling from his recording studio in southern England, where he is wrapping up production on a new album. “I would say, `What? You don’t want my gorgeous look into the camera?’” McCartney continued. “And she would say, `No. No, thanks.’”

— Linda & Paul McCartney at Abbey Road Studio 2, where Wings holds a 12:30pm press launch for their new album 'Back To The Egg'. June 11th, 1979.

“ she [linda] would search out areas of countryside near her house and admire the flowers, plants, birds and animals that lived there “

— Linda & Paul McCartney on the Bakerloo Line, 1969.

“ She was always very beautiful. That picture of Linda on the Tube shows her perfectly: beautiful hands, absolutely no make-up, just the structure of the face. The argyle socks that everyone used to make fun of. She had two pairs and used to wear a red one with a green one. She was a very natural girl, naturally blonde. It was a very casual look. That's how the two of us went around in those days-down into the Tube, and I shot a couple of pictures of her and she shot a couple of me. Soon after the Tube picture was taken I broke up with the Beatles, which was a horrendous thing for me. “

— Linda McCartney, 1970s.

" I spend a lot of time in our kitchen. I find it the cosiest, friendliest place in the house. It's not something my American upbringing prepared me for, but now that I live in England, it's become very important to me. "

— Linda McCartney and Jeff Buckley backstage after Jeff’s performance at the Roseland Ballroom on June 2nd, 1995.

Linda and Paul McCartney on their wedding day. March 12th, 1969.

“ Linda means beautiful in Spanish, and my Linda was certainly that - inside and out. — Anyone who met her, however briefly, was touched by her genuine interest and gentle kindness. —I never stop thinking of her as my girlfriend, even though she became my wife, my children's mother, and my Lady. — The beauty of her spirit never failed to communicate itself to those she encountered, whether they were young or old, male or female, or whatever, they were worthy of respect and so she treated them exactly the same and they invariably felt very comfortable being with her. — Our love of animals was something we discovered, we shared as time went by, and they too enjoyed the same deep respect given to them by her. Her vision of the world was, and is, a simple one. — Love, kindness, respect and thoughtfulness for one another and for our fellow species and a deep distrust of people who neglect these values. I am blessed to have shared thirty loving years with this uniquely special woman, a fact which I will remain eternally grateful for. “