Maccarchive

"A week in the life..."

Monday

Why am I doing this? Don’t really want to do this. Don’t really want people to know what I do in my week. Do I? Sod it, said I’d do it. Can’t see anyone will be much interested anyway. Try and make it so no-one’s interested.

So. Monday. Got up. Took some drugs. No. Monday. Interviews for The Tour. Europeans today. French, Germans, MTVs. Usual stuff: what about this Beatles "reunion"? Usual answer, there is no reunion, guys. It’s just a little project (not so little really) for the telly. Ten-part series about us, by us. Next?

EMI bussed in the interviewers in a stretch limo. So that’s where the profits go… The French radio bloke asks why I work so hard? What’s this thing with hard work? No-one asked why we worked so hard when we were in The Beatles. All the same stuff—John, touring at my age, Linda in the band, veggie stuff, TV series (again). The bloke from Bravo says there’s another Beatles memorabilia auction at Sotheby’s this week. Don’t I know it! Told him Ringo once sent me a postcard commenting on that, signed himself Ringo "Sotheby’s" Starr. Strange, sending someone a postcard and it ending up for sale years later. Strange.

Bravo bloke asked me what was the worst thing about myself. As if I’d tell him. Not gonna go round telling people your faults just 'cos they ask you. Hi, hey—let me tell you a couple of reasons not to like me. It’s stupid.

What’s the price of fame? asks MTV. Writing bloody diaries mate. And the Press getting it wrong. Told him about ringing up Willy Russell about that play (John, Paul, George, Ringo and Bert) about me breaking up The Beatles. Wasn’t me, Willy. I didn’t say that. He got it from press cuttings.

Lunch: munching sarnie during interviews. End interviews. More mixing the live album, with Geoff Emerick. Mixing from AUS to USA. Good bloke, Geoff. Good mixer, he did Sgt. Pepper, Band On The Run, Unplugged. A genius of the knobs. Walk about a bit. Can’t do mixing for too long, gotta pace it, otherwise you get bored—listening to all your worst moments exposed; no band, no FX, no audience. Shot a bit of 16mm of Geoff mixing, not enough light. It’s a bit like waiting in an airport lounge, mixing—you’ve got to do it, but you’ve got to try and keep yourself amused. Drove home and crashed.

Tuesday

Got up. Relatives from America over. No sunshine again. Saw some of my sheep. Lucky sheep, you’ll die of old age. Nothing to fear from me.

More interviews at the studios. Print stuff today. France, a couple of guys in nice jackets from Austria. And Maureen Cleave. Not seen her in a while.

French guy was good, bit of a student of the catalogue. Said some nice things. He also said he’d recently done The Bee Gees and said they said my collaborators since John didn’t confront me enough. Apparently The Bee Gees think no one can tell me what to do. Tough shit, Bee Gees. Who gives a fuck what The Bee Gees think? Told the French guy if people don’t like me then ignore my records and don’t come to my shows and don’t do interviews with me—go and write about The Bee Gees, who are great and talented people (but they can still fuck off!). Funny that Barry Gibb’s sitting in his Miami penthouse discussing whether I’m vertically challenged or not. Funny old world.

The French guy says some people think that I should be more complex in the songs. I like simple. Maybe I shouldn’t have told 'em I dreamt Yesterday, woke up with it in my head. Maybe I should have said I’d been working on it for four months, in Tibet.

The nice jacket from Austria wants to know if this is my last tour. Might be. Guess. More mixing. Drove home. Supper with relatives. Crashed.

Wednesday

Woke up. More mixing at the studios. We’ve got to listen to songs from 10 shows. That’s 320 songs. Got to have it ready by the end of the week. EMI wants it out for Christmas. Not really fussing over it much. Trying to get a couple of songs done each day. Barrie Marshall (our promoter) rang up from South America, talking excitedly about doing shows over there now. He reckons he’s got good interest from Sao Paulo and Mexico City. We’ve done 62,000 miles since March. Another 7,600 coming up in Europe. And now South America. The phone line sounded too clear—giving me reason to suspect that Barrie was actually just phoning from a call box round the corner, making up these wild offers.

Barrie says Off The Ground is doing well in South America, which gives me even more reason to suspect he’s round the corner, just sucking up to me. So I’ll do an autograph for his nephews.

Thursday

Got up. More mixing at the studios. Food-tasting lunch with Linda there today with the men from Ross Young’s. Launching her new food range in October. Beefless burgers with orgasmic onions now.

Paula Yates arrives for an interview. With Linda. Two hours late. Lots of sorrys and hugs. She forgot the interview. Thought Thursday was tomorrow. Bob at home looking after the kids. Aspiring vegetarians, apparently, now that one of their kids is into it. But Bob’s problem is missing bacon sarnies. More mixing.

Friday

Got up. More mixing. Channel 4 come to the studios to do me and Linda for some animation series featuring Geoff Dunbar, who did Rupert Bear and Daumier’s Law with us. Straight piece to camera job: What do I think of Geoff? What do I think of animation? Told 'em I thought it was high art. Told 'em I always wanted to do Rupert: The Feature but the time it’d take means you’ve got to set aside three years of your life for it. And the money—the investment is huge, like £40 million. That’s a lot to have riding on a feature film. Who wants to take a bet out like that? Go risk £40 million on a horse?

Who did the voices on Rupert? Me, mate. I’m Rupert in The Frog Song, on account of us auditioning every kid at every stage school in London and them all having one problem—couldn’t say "frogs". Said "fwogs", Which was a bit of a disadvantage when the film's about frogs.

Paul first explained the inspiration behind Jet in 1976, but his account of writing the song has changed drastically since then. It could be just his memory playing tricks on him, or a bit of lying to the public/journalists for fun like we know him and the other Beatles liked to do. Tell me what you think!

“We’ve got a Labrador puppy who is a runt, the runt of a litter. We bought her along a roadside in a little pet shop, out in the country one day. She was a bit of a wild dog, a wild girl who wouldn’t stay in. We have a big wall around our house in London, and she wouldn’t stay in, she always used to jump the wall. She’d go out on the town for the evening, like Lady And The Tramp. She must have met up with some big black Labrador or something. She came back one day pregnant. She proceeded to walk into the garage and have this litter… Seven little black puppies, perfect little black Labradors, and she’s not black, she’s tan. So we worked out it must have been a black Labrador. What we do is if either of the dogs we have has a litter, we try to keep them for the puppy stage, so we get the best bit of them, and then when they get a bit unmanageable we ask people if they want to have a puppy. So Jet was one of the puppies. We give them all names. We’ve had some great names, there was one puppy called Golden Molasses. I rather like that. Then there was one called Brown Megs, named after a Capitol executive. They’ve all gone now. The people change the names if they don’t like them.”

Paul McCartney, In His Own Words, 1976

I tried looking for a picture of Paul and Linda’s labrador retriever but couldn’t find it anywhere, only pictures of Martha and Lucky. But maybe they just didn’t take pictures. If someone has a picture of them please send so I can add to the post!

“I was up in Scotland and it was a nice day, and I was on this little farm up there. So one day I just took my guitar out into the countryside and up this big mountain. And I find this beautiful little spot and I’m just making up a song. And what came to mind was we had a little pony for the kids, it was called Jet. A little black pony. So I thought, “OK, [sings] Jet!” and just shouted that and struck an A chord. “Jet!” So I got a little rhythm going.”

Paul McCartney, interview by Niles Rodgers, January 2021

His daughter Mary McCartney, on the other side, says Jet (the pony) was named after the song:

“Jet was our pony for a very long time. He was named after the [1973] song. He was a feisty little pony who we rode and loved. But it all comes back. I mean, that's a very unusual photo. And I loved the idea that by doing this documentary, I have been able to show the world one of my favorite photographs, which is my mother taking our pony across the zebra crossing to the studio. I just think it shows her character to a T and what a rule-breaker she was.”

When Paul McCartney Crossed Abbey Road With a Pony, Vanity Fair, 2022

“Since then I’ve noticed how attitudes like the ones I held discourage people from getting involved with things. It’s safer to keep your head down and just get on with your career . A lot of people quite reasonably wouldn’t want to put up with the relentless sneering that Sting has undergone for his attempts to help someone, so they decide against doing anything, or decide to do it anonymously . A few months ago Linda McCartney sent 22 tons of her vegetarian burger mix to Sarajevo – then under seige – via War Child. She was adamant that the gift should be anonymous, probably because she knew the English press would crucify her for it – which they promptly did, when they found out several days later (after thousands of Bosnians had dined on her food). The implications of the criticisms were as follows:

she only did it for the publicity;

she just wants to make herself feel better for being so rich;

she wants to convert the world to Linda-Burgers – it’s just marketing;

she couldn’t get rid of the stuff in Britain.

A few years ago I could have imagined myself thinking all those things. But there are two things to consider . First, even supposing all those things were true, what difference would it actually make? Does the possibility that someone’s motives may be mixed invalidate what they do? Imagine you’re drowning in a river . Fortunately someone has seen you and is about to throw a lifebelt out to you. But no! – someone else is holding her back, shouting,

‘I don’t think your motives are pure!’”

The Girl Can't Help It (1956)

Dir: Frank Tashlin

“A down-and-out gangster hires a down-on-his-luck agent to make his girlfriend a recording star within six weeks.”

Paul’s comment: “It’s still the great music film. They had only treated music films as B-pictures up till then, or used the music just as a theme tune, as in Blackboard Jungle. Or those little black and white productions with Alan Freed as the personality, and lots of what they thought were ‘Black acts’… We idolised these people and always thought they were given crummy treatment – until The Girl Can’t Help It.”

Vintage Rock Magazine

Alien (1979)

Dir: Ridley Scott

“During its return to the earth, commercial spaceship Nostromo intercepts a distress signal from a distant planet. When a three-member team of the crew discovers a chamber containing thousands of eggs on the planet, a creature inside one of the eggs attacks an explorer. The entire crew is unaware of the impending nightmare set to descend upon them when the alien parasite planted inside its unfortunate host is birthed.”

Paul’s comment: “Alien would be my favourite (horror film) for the bit of chest-popping!”

Far Out Magazine

It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)

Dir: Frank Capra

“A holiday favourite for generations... George Bailey has spent his entire life giving to the people of Bedford Falls. All that prevents rich skinflint Mr. Potter from taking over the entire town is George's modest building and loan company. But on Christmas Eve the business's $8,000 is lost and George's troubles begin.”

Paul’s comment: "I think it’s got to be ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (on his favorite christmas movie), which is the one you see the most and it still works after all these years."

You Gave Me The Answer

Dune (2021)

Dir: Denis Villeneuve

“Paul Atreides, a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people. As malevolent forces explode into conflict over the planet's exclusive supply of the most precious resource in existence-a commodity capable of unlocking humanity's greatest potential-only those who can conquer their fear will survive.”

Paul’s comment: “There’s a lot of really rubbish films out these days. Some good ones. Dune’s great. I like Dune!”

Express UK

This Is Spinal Tap (1984)

Dir: Rob Reiner

“"This Is Spinal Tap" shines a light on the self-contained universe of a metal band struggling to get back on the charts, including everything from its complicated history of ups and downs, gold albums, name changes and undersold concert dates, along with the full host of requisite groupies, promoters, hangers-on and historians, sessions, release events and those special behind-the-scenes moments that keep it all real.”

Paul hasn’t publicly commented on the film but we know he was a fan, since he even visited the fictional band’s room and participated in the sequel.

Paul also really likes Disney’s animations and even wanted Yellow Submarine to be more similar to classic Disney cartoons. Here are some animations he’s mentioned before:

Bambi (1942)

Dir: David Hand

“Bambi's tale unfolds from season to season as the young prince of the forest learns about life, love, and friends.”

Paul’s comment: “If you think of Bambi, it's mum gets killed by a hunter, and I think that made me grow-up thinking hunting isn't cool. It always gave me that idea.”

Dumbo (1941)

Dir: Ben Sharpsteen, Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, Wilfred Jackson, Samuel Armstrong & Norman Fergunsom

“Dumbo is a baby elephant born with over-sized ears and a supreme lack of confidence. But thanks to his even more diminutive buddy Timothy the Mouse, the pint-sized pachyderm learns to surmount all obstacles.”

Paul’s comment: "You look through a lot of these great stories, Dumbo, his mum is quite badly treated. A lot of these classic stories, through their efforts, kids, as I once was, have grown up feeling it's a bad idea to be cruel to animals."

Macca: Bambi inspired me

Now let’s move on to Paul’s favorite directors: he didn’t specify which of their films were his favorites, so I’ll include the most famous work of each.

Paul has said in a twitter Q&A that his favorite movie directors are: Martin Scorsese, Federico Fellini and Dave Grohl.

GoodFellas (1990)

Dir: Martin Scorsese

“The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.”

La Dolce Vita (1960)

Dir: Federico Fellini

“Episodic journey of journalist Marcello who struggles to find his place in the world, torn between the allure of Rome's elite social scene and the stifling domesticity offered by his girlfriend, all the while searching for a way to become a serious writer.”

Sound City (2013)

Dir: Dave Grohl

“Denny wrote this song, 'Below The Waterline', about his relationship with Paul McCartney. It's never been released, but Denny would sing it to me at home frequently. When he explained the lyrics, and the way he sang it, I told him he should add it to his 'Songs and Stories' show. Denny hesitated and tried talking himself out of not doing it because the fans never heard it before and they may not like it. I told him the fans would love it because it's a good song. After he added it to his setlist, it became a fan favorite at his shows.

Also, I want to send this out to Paul. Once again, he recently helped me since my Denny died. Without hesitation and above and beyond what l ask, he has such a heart of gold. I know it's not just for me, it's out of his love and long history with Denny.

He doesn't have to help me or owe me anything, nor do I expect or feel l'm entitled to anything. I made it a point to tell him that when he first helped Denny when we were in the hospital in Oct 2023. At that time, so many "fans" were saying such nasty things about Paul-and Denny and me-because I setup a GoFundMe to help with Dennys expenses.

Through a text, I told Paul about this, and I wanted him to know that Denny and I do not share that sentiment at all. His response to me was gracious, caring and thoughtful. At that time, Denny seemed to be improving too, so there was hope, so we thought.

His kindness towards me has given me so much peace, that I can actually relax a bit as I continue on this very sad widow path, while conducting business at the same time. His office, MPL, have always been so great to us over the years that I've been with Denny, and now that continues with me.

I'm sending Paul and his wonderful staff all my love and gratitude, as I wish them a very happy Christmas.”

“At one point, while I had some of the tunes going, we were up in Scotland at my sheep farm – which all seems very lovely on the postcards until you get to lambing.  Of course, a few of them die; it’s life and death, and a lot of farmers just don’t want to get involved.  They say “Right,” and just chuck them over the wall.

But you can’t help it if you’re a bit sensitive, particularly in a household full of children, and there was one lamb we were trying to save.  The young ones get out into the weather and collapse from exposure; you find them and bring them in.  We stayed up all night and had him in front of the stove, but it was too late, and he just died.  I wrote a song about it, “Little Lamb Dragonfly,” and the line was, “I can help you out, but I can’t help you in.”  It was very sad, so I wrote my little tribute to him.”

Paul McCartney for Musician, February 1988

“It was very early in the morning, and no one was up, and I had my guitar there and I couldn’t really say much to this lamb. But I started, ‘I have no answer for you, little lamb/But I cannot help you in.’ And it came from there. Just not being able to do anything about it was the idea of that song.”

“In 1948 the hospital was taken over by the government and became part of the NHS. Between 1979 and 1985 there was a great deal of fundraising to finance the building of a new ward but the first threat of closure loomed in 1985. For five years until 1990, the local community fought very hard to save the hospital with Sir Paul McCartney offering to pay the nurses’ salaries. Sadly, the battle was lost and the hospital was closed in August 1990 and mothballed for a further year. Its permanent closure was announced in June 1991 and a month later a march of protest took place through Rye and up to the Hospital site. At the head of this march were Sir Paul and Linda, Lady McCartney and ‘SAVE OUR HOSPITAL’ stickers covered Rye.

“DID YOU KNOW PAUL SENT A TELEGRAM TO MARGARET THATCHER IN 1982?

He did. It wasn’t friendly. He lost his temper over her treatment of health workers and fired off a long outraged message, comparing her to Ted Heath, the prime minister (tweaked in “Taxman”) felled by the 1974 coal strike. McCartney warned, “What the miners did to Ted Heath, the nurses will do to you.”

This controversy is a curiously obscure footnote to his life—it seldom gets mentioned in even the fattest biographies. He doesn’t discuss it in Many Years from Now. I only know about it because I read it as a Random Note in Rolling Stone, not exactly a hotbed of pro-Paul propaganda at the time. (The item began, “Reports that Paul McCartney is intellectually brain-dead appear to have been premature.”) But the telegram was a major U.K. scandal, with Tory politicians denouncing him. In October 1982, Thatcher was at the height of her power, in the wake of her Falkland Islands blitz. Many rock stars talked shit about Maggie—Elvis Costello, Morrissey, Paul Weller—but Paul was the one more famous than she was. He had something to lose by hitting send on this, and nothing to gain. What, you think he was trying for coolness points? This is Paul McCartney, remember? He was in the middle of making Give My Regards to Broad Street. He could have clawed Thatcher’s still-beating heart out of her rib cage, impaled it on his Hofner on live TV, and everybody would have said, “Yeah, but ‘Silly Love Songs’ though.”

Why did he feel so intensely about the nurses? He didn’t mention his mother in the telegram, but he must have been thinking of Mary McCartney’s life and death. So he snapped, even though it was off-message. (He was busy that week doing interviews for the twentieth anniversary of “Love Me Do”—the moment called for Cozy Lovable Paul, not Angry Paul.) He didn’t boast about it later, though fans today would be impressed that any English rock star of that generation—let alone Paul—had the gumption to send this. You can make a case that it was a braver, riskier, and more politically relevant move than John sending his MBE medal back to the Queen in 1970. Still, John’s gesture went down in history and Paul’s didn’t, though his fans would probably admire the move if they knew about it.”

Dreaming The Beatles, Rob Sheffield

Then in April 1988, six years later, Denis Tatcher banned Paul McCartney from a guest list.

“Whilst I accept of course that not everyone who comes to our receptions are necessarily on ‘our’ side I find it both unpleasant and embarrassing to entertain those who publicly insult the PM,” he said.

BBC News

December 1989:

Paul released “All My Trials”, a protest song, and gave an interview to the Daily Mirror sharing some of his views.

“It is only a record but it seems to have touched a few raw nerves. Perhaps it is guilt they are feeling, not anger.”

“Of course the argument against me is: ‘Well, he’s got a lot of dough, why doesn’t he do something?’ And the answer to that is ‘Well, I do.’ We’ve indicated already that I shall not be making any money out of this record. Any money that is made will be going to solve the problems we are addressing. But that is not the answer, the real answer is to get to the root of these problems. Of course it shouldn’t be like that. But you can’t stay quiet in the face of such wrongs.”

August 1990:

“In 1948 the hospital was taken over by the government and became part of the NHS. Between 1979 and 1985 there was a great deal of fundraising to finance the building of a new ward but the first threat of closure loomed in 1985. For five years until 1990, the local community fought very hard to save the hospital with Sir Paul McCartney offering to pay the nurses’ salaries. Sadly, the battle was lost and the hospital was closed in August 1990 and mothballed for a further year. Its permanent closure was announced in June 1991 and a month later a march of protest took place through Rye and up to the Hospital site. At the head of this march were Sir Paul and Linda, Lady McCartney and ‘SAVE OUR HOSPITAL’ stickers covered Rye.”

“In April 1994, the McCartneys dug the first turf in readiness for the rebuild and a year later they returned to top-out the new building and the old hospital bell was heard ringing once again. On 15 July 1995, a celebratory march was held through Rye and led again by the McCartneys to commemorate the reopening of the Rye Care Centre which included St Bartholomew’s Court’s self-contained apartments.”

Rye Hospital Centenary

“Linda McCartney had become a really good friend. And that year she suggested we join them in Liverpool for New Year’s Eve. They always went to Paul’s Uncle Joe’s house for New Year, she said.

‘All the McCartneys will be there and all the relatives. Do come. It’ll be really good fun.’

We arrived in good time and after supper Paul disappeared upstairs.

‘Come up and look what I’ve found,’ he called.

It was a box of old exercise books he’d had at school. The four of us sat on his bed laughing looking at all this old stuff. Nostalgia was in the air.

‘And this is my first guitar.’

Like a proud kid he got this guitar down from the top of the wardrobe where it had been shoved and showed us how the guitar man at the shop had had to re-string it for him because it was a right-handed guitar and Paul is left handed. So sweet. No sense of showing off. Of all the people who’ve stayed normal Paul gets the gold star.”

"That is one of the things that intrigues me about a life. I just have a general sort of feeling of: I'm here now talking to you and this is this bit of life, a little while ago I was getting divorced and that was that weird bit of life, and before that I was living 30 years and raising a family with Linda, that was that bit of life, I'm now married to an American, Nancy, lovely girl, that's this bit of life. And so if you keep rolling back, you go through Wings, you go through the Beatles, and then you get back to this wild territory which is youth, when you weren't famous and you could get stopped in the street, or you're in school and you were being abused — not in a sexual way but just in teachers being the mad nutcases they were and having that control over you and you had to go along with it. So there's so much stuff been going on, and then I roll back before that, and I'm a really little kid. And I can almost feel that I remember things from my birth. I don't know if this is true, this is probably just pure speculation, but I have a vision of a sort of white-tiled room, and chrome clinical instruments, and the clanking noise of those things on chrome trays…" (McCartney stops himself at this point and offers a commentary in the third person—"Come on! Is he crazy or not?"—before continuing.) "That couldn't be me being born, could it? What I'm saying is, to me it's a vast panoply of a wonderful legendary tapestry, life. There's just so much in this story, and it's still going on, it's still changing, it's still evolving. My feeling is that as long as I'm managing to proceed through it with some sort of pleasure, then that's always been enough. Sometimes it's been more than enough—it's been vast prizes, vast satisfaction. I couldn't really describe what it is, but it's just time stretched out and all these millions of little occurrences that have happened, and that's me. So yeah, I'm still that little kid. I really do still feel embarrassingly like that, because I know how old I am, and I look in the mirror, I see how old I am. It's this ever changing thing, and I sort of vaguely find myself quite satisfied with it. I wouldn't say totally, because that's Valhalla. That's asking for possibly too much. But, yeah, I have a lot of good things going on in my life and I generally have a pretty good time.”