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Paul McCartney knew he'd never top The Beatles — and that's just fine with him

NPR Fresh Air

Transcript
AI Content
Terry Gross 00:00:00 - 00:01:04
This is fresh air. I am Tyria Gross. It is my great pleasure to say that my guest is Paul McCartney, and we're going to talk about his life and music through two new projects. He has a new two volume set of books called The Lyrics, collecting his lyrics and the stories behind them, starting with songs he wrote before The Beatles and ending with songs from his latest album, McCartney Three, which was released late last year. There's also the new documentary Get Back, which is about the three weeks The Beatles spent in 1969 writing, rehearsing and recording the songs on their album Let It Be and giving their final performance together on a rooftop in London's Saville Row. The band broke up before the album Let It Be was released in 1970. This documentary draws on footage that was not used in the 1969 film Let It Be that documented the same sessions. Get Back will premiere in three two hour installments over Thanksgiving weekend on Disney Plus. Let's start with a song that kicked off the Beatles first album.
Paul McCartney 00:01:04 - 00:01:27
One, two, three bombs. Well, she was just 17 but you know what I mean and the way she looked was way beyond compare so how could I land with another?
Terry Gross 00:01:35 - 00:01:54
Well, she Paul McCartney. Welcome back to Fresh Air. It is such an honor to have you back on our show. So did you know the Count Off would be left in that song when you recorded it? I love hearing the count off. It's kind of the equivalent of like an overture in a musical. It gets you really excited for what you're going to hear.
Paul McCartney 00:01:56 - 00:02:23
Yeah, that's one of the things about that song, really, and we use it just for practical purpose. Oh, by the way, hi, Terry listeners. Yeah, we use it for practical purposes, just to count ourselves in. But I think that was a particularly exuberant one that our producer thought it'd be a good idea to leave in. So I listen to smart people.
Terry Gross 00:02:23 - 00:02:29
So how did that become the B side of I want to hold your hand? Like, why wasn't it the A side?
Paul McCartney 00:02:29 - 00:02:39
I don't know. These are just decisions that are taken at the time. And I think I want to hold your hand was just stronger.
Terry Gross 00:02:39 - 00:03:08
You're right. Eroticism was a driving force behind everything I did. That's what lay behind a lot of these love songs. Meanwhile, your fans were having a lot of erotic thoughts about you. Can you talk a little bit about what the experience was like of being like an object of desire at a time when men are going through a time in your life that's typical of a highly sexualized period in a young man's life?
Paul McCartney 00:03:08 - 00:04:29
Yeah. The truth was, here's you got four young men in Liverpool and pretty much you were looking for a girlfriend and you were looking for sex. I mean, you know, that that's in your private life. And the truth was you weren't very successful. And you've got to remember also the period this was sort of post World War II in Liverpool, so it wasn't swinging London yet. So we were just yeah, just like most young guys, we just wanted to have a girlfriend because as kids we were apparently not very attractive. It was kind of the opposite for us. So I suppose that kind of as we got more and more popular and the girls started screaming and stuff, tell you the truth, we just enjoyed it. It was the fulfillment of all our dreams and this idea that eroticism lay at the back of a lot that we would write. It sounds more important when you actually quote it. It really was just young guys trying to get laid, as Americans would say.
Terry Gross 00:04:29 - 00:04:38
So how did it change your life and your self image when millions of teenage girls wanted you to make love to them?
Paul McCartney 00:04:38 - 00:05:08
It was very comforting, terry extreme. It was very wonderful. And it was like, wow, look at this. Finally we're attracting attention and all these girls seem to really like us. We never experienced that. If you're lucky, there'd be a girl down the street who might vaguely like you or something. But suddenly it went wild. And I must say, we loved it.
Terry Gross 00:05:08 - 00:05:39
You know something? I kept thinking about reading some of your early lyrics and thinking about when I first heard The Beatles and when I first heard the songs and when I first saw A Hard Day's Night. I never had the chance to see The Beatles in concert. But I did see a Hard Day's Night when it opened. That was my first time outside of Ed Sullivan when I was sitting in the living room with my parents and I wasn't going to scream, but in the movie theater, everyone was screaming and I was screaming, too. And I can't tell you how out of character that is for me. And so I've always wondered, like, why was I doing that?
Paul McCartney 00:05:40 - 00:05:50
I know. Well, I say it was an excitement. And your question, what did we feel? We loved it. We felt excited back until you didn't, though, right?
Terry Gross 00:05:50 - 00:05:52
Until you didn't feel that way.
Paul McCartney 00:05:53 - 00:06:21
Well, no, later. Then it got a bit wearing because now the first sort of flush of the excitement had been going for quite a few years and we were maturing and we were sort of out of that phase. So it was like, okay, it'd be quite nice to be able to hear the song we're playing. And we couldn't because it was just a million seagulls screaming.
Terry Gross 00:06:22 - 00:06:41
So let's get to another song. And this is the song that you describe in your book by saying, if pushed, I would say it's my favorite of all my songs. And the song is here, there and Everywhere, which is on The Beatles 1966 album Revolver. What makes this your favorite song? Or one of them?
Paul McCartney 00:06:42 - 00:07:57
Yeah, I think the structure of it. I like it. It always reminds me in structure of a great Cole Porter song, Cheek to Cheek, which Fred Aster sang. And it starts off heaven, I'm in heaven it goes through it and then in the middle it goes alert to God, but it takes me back to heaven. And it's so neat the way it just wraps itself up that I always thought, wow, that's a great trick. So here, There and Everywhere does that here first verse, second verse there, third verse, everywhere and leading me back to here. That was what attracted me. And then I think that wouldn't have been enough to make it my favorite song. But I think also, I think it's got a nice melody. So the combination of those always made it one of my big favorites. And that's a question you get asked a lot. What's your favorite song? But that one, when I'm pushed, I will pull that one out of the bag. And it is definitely amongst my favorites.
Terry Gross 00:07:58 - 00:08:00
Okay, so here's, here, There and everywhere.
Paul McCartney 00:08:05 - 00:08:59
I need my love to be here making each day of the year changing my life with the wave of nobody can I let something how good it can be someone is speaking but she doesn't know I wonder everywhere that's Paul.
Terry Gross 00:08:59 - 00:09:18
McCartney's song Here, There and Everywhere, which was on the Beatles 1966 album Revolver. Did John have any input on that song? It's officially a Lennon McCartney song, though. It's really your song and you now put your name first on the songs that you're primarily responsible for.
Paul McCartney 00:09:18 - 00:09:47
John had always a little bit of an influence, but often I might have written the whole thing myself. And then when we came to record, there would be some influence. I can't remember whether he wanted to change a word or something. But when the songs were songs that I mainly presented to him and the band as a finished piece, then that's what I've done in the book, is to put my name first.
Terry Gross 00:09:48 - 00:09:54
What was the process of writing songs with John compared to writing them by yourself?
Paul McCartney 00:09:54 - 00:11:13
Writing with John was a lot easier because you've actually got a sounding board. You're sitting across from someone. And we normally wrote on two acoustic guitars. So he'd be sitting there, I'd be sitting here, and one of us would suggest an opening line and then the other one would go, okay. And would make a suggestion for the second line. So you would kind of ping pong. And if a line was terrible, the other person would say, that's terrible, and we'd scratch it. So just with that process of the two of us making this piece, it was quite easy. Don't want to make it sound too easy, but, you know, it made the process very enjoyable and easier because you didn't have to if you had a line that you were questioning in your own mind. If you're writing on your own, you could spend a good half hour going, oh, this is terrible, what can I do? Think of something quick. Whereas with John you just go, this is terrible. You go, yeah, I know, and we'd fix it between the two of us, we would just improve it so it was easier.
Terry Gross 00:11:14 - 00:11:19
If it was so good writing songs together, why did you end up writing songs separately?
Paul McCartney 00:11:19 - 00:12:23
It was just a question of location, really. I mean, if I was on holiday and I wanted to write a song, john wouldn't be there, so I would just write the song and I wouldn't think, oh, I've got to wait till I see him. And the same happened with him. I would just be somewhere feeling the song. And it was often just that proximity if we weren't able to just meet up that day. But you still had an idea for a song. So, for instance, Yesterday, the song Yesterday, the melody came to me in a dream. So I played that intact to John, and he said, oh, I like that. I was basically asking him if this was somebody else's melody. I couldn't believe it was mine because it arrived in a dream. And then when I was on holiday in Portugal, there was a long drive from Lisbon down to the south coast, and I put the lyrics together there. So it was just a different process.
Terry Gross 00:12:24 - 00:12:39
Let's skip ahead to Sergeant Pepper from 1967. You describe this in your book as a way of recording in persona to get out of the persona of The Beatles, why did you feel it was time to change the mental scenery?
Paul McCartney 00:12:40 - 00:14:23
That's a good way of putting it, I think, because it was time. We'd been the Beatles for quite a while and when you made a record, you knew you were making a Beatles record and so you imposed certain parameters on it. You thought, we can't get too far out because people will just go, what the hell's going on? They've gone mad. So you had certain standards for Beatle records that you pretty much you were always trying to advance those standards but there were limits that you felt and also when you stepped up to a microphone, you were conscious of all that background of I'm Beetle Paul and I'm going to do a Beetle Paul song. I don't think it really was terrifying or even boring, but I had this idea to just change our identity and make ourselves think that we were kind of another band. So it meant that, well, now anything goes. We don't have to think like Beatles, we can think like whoever this other band is. And the name came out of Sergeant Pepper only HARS Club Band. So the idea was so that when you stepped up to a microphone, it was not now John Lennon Beetle doing his song. It was a guy out of this strange band and in some way it was just liberating.
Terry Gross 00:14:23 - 00:14:27
How did it liberate you? What do you think you did differently?
Paul McCartney 00:14:27 - 00:16:40
Well, I think you just realized that you could stretch your ideas. So the idea of the album became like a sort of radio play. So it had a kind of concept. And then in things like Day in the Life because I'd been listening to a lot of avant garde music at that time just for my own pleasure and just to I don't know, just to examine the scene and just see if I liked it. I thought that this orchestral, whatever you call it, cascade, this sort of mountain of orchestra and kind of quite chaotic, would be a good idea at this point in the song Day in the Life. So I came into the studio and said, okay, this is what we'd like you to do. Because we had a big symphony orchestra which George Martin had sort of said, oh no, we don't need that. And we said no. Come on, George, with the Beatles. It's time. We're allowed a symphony orchestra because EMI and they're very careful on their budgets, so we would occasionally push them anyway. So I got in the studio and I said to each musician, start on your lowest note of your instrument and go up till you reach your highest note, but go in your own time. The idea being, this is Sergeant Pepper's band, this is a completely new idea. So that was what they did. George Martin was very helpful because he realized that threw them into a state of panic that nobody knew what the hell we were talking about. So George went around and said, okay, it's 23 bars, I think it was. George said, well, now, at par ten, maybe you should have reached about quarter of the way. And then at par 20 so he laid it out a little bit on their musical charts. So that gave them a little bit of a roadmap. But it ended up, if you listen to it, it's very chaotic and it's really quite crazy. I heard it the other day, actually, and it is, it's madness. But it was what was needed in.
Terry Gross 00:16:40 - 00:17:18
The song, you know, in terms of trying new things. The Beatles went through like a psychedelic period where you even all spent time with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, both in the US. And in India. And for people who don't know, he was basically a guru type figure. And I think, like, John and George were really doing some spiritual seeking at the time. But what about you? Did you feel that need at the time, or was it more like going along with the band?
Paul McCartney 00:17:19 - 00:19:09
No, I think you say psychedelic. The meditation was post psychedelic, I think, because at that time everyone, including us, was doing a lot of drugs. And that can burn you out, as anyone who's done it knows. So we were in the London scene and it was getting a little bit wearing, really. So I remember feeling very tired with just all this activity. You never stopped. So when BARISHI arrived on the scene, as he did in London, after he was doing a kind of world tour, trying to sell the idea of meditation, we went to see him and it was like a breath of fresh air, because instead of just getting crazy, this was the opposite, this was getting uncrazy. I think all of us liked it. I certainly did. John and George did too, and I think Ringo did, too, and we ended up going out to India to Rishikesh for a retreat kind of thing. And it was a very nice experience. It was calming, which I think all of us needed, and it was spiritual, although it wasn't like you were worshipping a god, you were finding the truth, or the calmness, I would say, inside yourself. So that was very good for us, particularly post psychedelic.
Terry Gross 00:19:10 - 00:19:11
Do you still meditate?
Paul McCartney 00:19:11 - 00:19:12
Yeah.
Terry Gross 00:19:12 - 00:19:13
Same practice that he taught you?
Paul McCartney 00:19:14 - 00:19:23
Yeah, actually, I sometimes think I should have developed I should be somewhere else by now, but I haven't.
Terry Gross 00:19:23 - 00:19:30
So let's hear another song that Paul McCartney writes about in his new book. This is. Let it be.
Paul McCartney 00:19:43 - 00:21:04
When I find myself in times of trouble mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom let it be and in my daughters she's standing right in front of me speaking words of wisdom let it be let it be let it be, let it be, let it be whisper words of wisdom let it be and when the broken hearted people living in the world agree there will be an answer let it be for though they may be parted? There is still a chance that they will see? There will be an answer? Let it be, let it be. Let it be, let it be, let it be, yeah, there will be answer? Let it be. Let it be. Let it be.
Terry Gross 00:21:04 - 00:21:28
So the the new documentary, which uses different footage from the film Let It Be, it kind of rewrites the narrative in ways that I haven't seen for myself, because I've only seen an excerpt of the film. The film hasn't been released yet, and I'm wondering if it rewrites like how you see it as rewriting the story of the end of The Beatles, of the final days of The Beatles.
Paul McCartney 00:21:29 - 00:23:47
Yeah. I think that was something that I said to Peter Jackson originally, the director he directed. Yeah. When I knew Peter was going to look at all the footage, I said to him, I'm not sure I'm going to like this, Peter. I said, because it was from a very difficult period in my life and it's always looked like I broke up The Beatles, and that isn't the case. But the film came out and gave that impression and the associated journalism around it. So I said, I'm not sure I'm going to like it. So he went off to new Zealand, where he works and lives, and a few weeks later he sent me back a text saying no, it's not like that at all. He said this is just four guys working out songs, having a lot of fun. Said, you know, there's one or two little tense moments maybe, but we put that down to that's. Any family, it's not all just roses, but generally speaking, this was a bit of a rose garden. It was us enjoying being back together, showing each other our songs, learning them and having fun with them. And so I think that's a great thing, because as I say at the time, for some crazy reason, I got blamed. I know why it was. It was because when I put my first album out after The Beatles, I was sent a questionnaire that said, ask various questions about The Beatles and there was something like will The Beatles get back together again? Or something. When are you getting back together again? And I said, no, I don't think so, or something, I can't remember exact reaction, but it was something like that. And then that became, as it does, blown up into the big headline paul says The Beatles are finished, or whatever. And so that became Paul must have finished them, so I didn't really have a chance to say, no, wait a minute, there was a meeting, and John walked into it, and the other Beatles and me were in this room, and John walked in and said, I'm leaving The Beatles. That never came out.
Terry Gross 00:23:47 - 00:23:52
What was your reaction when he said that? Were you prepared for that and how did you feel about it?
Paul McCartney 00:23:52 - 00:25:02
No way. We were gobsmacked, we were very shocked. And I think the first question well, was in our minds, well, is this going to last, or is this just something very Johnish, where he would just say, hey, big dramatic statement, and then he'd go off, and then a couple of weeks later he'd go oh, maybe we should get together again. So, yeah, it was quite shocking. You can imagine, someone just walks in and tells you the factory is closing. It was big and it was shocking, and I think we wondered whether it would get together again, and when it didn't, it left us all well in one way without a job, because this had been our job. It was bad news, it was shocking, but later I realized that it was. John had this new relationship with Yoko, and he had to clear the decks in order to give her full time attention.
Terry Gross 00:25:03 - 00:25:33
She's often accused, and maybe accused is too strong a word, but maybe it's not, but she's often accused of having broken up the band by distracting John away from the band and by totally changing his course of direction in a way that not everybody approved of, as if they had a vote. And then in the film, you see her sitting in on the session. How did you feel about her presence at the recording session and the rehearsals?
Paul McCartney 00:25:34 - 00:27:10
Yeah, at the time it was very difficult because we knew John was infatuated with Yoko, and having known John so long personally, I knew what he liked in a woman, and he liked strong women. His Aunt Mimi, who raised him mainly, was quite a strong woman, and I think he liked that. In his family, there were quite a few strong women. Some of his aunts were strong and very opinionated, so when he met Yoko, I think he was very attracted to her, and I think it was a great thing for him. I think he needed it. It was time for him to break loose and do some new things, and I knew it was exciting for him, but at first, yeah, we were not too keen on it at all, because it was like, who is this, and why is she sitting on my amp? For me, this having been my employment and my artistic world for quite a number of years, and having known John since we were teenagers together to this point, to it finally coming to an end was very challenging. First question okay, what do I do now?
Terry Gross 00:27:10 - 00:27:19
How hard was it to figure that out? What was your emotional state like in that period between the dissolution of The Beatles and figuring out what to do next?
Paul McCartney 00:27:20 - 00:29:04
It was quite difficult. Well, I didn't know what to do at all, and I didn't really have any brainy ideas, except if I want to continue in music, maybe I'll form another band. But then how do you do that after The Beatles? How could anything I do be as good as The Beatles? The Beatles were a very special combination of talents. You had me doing what I do, you had John doing what he and then you had George, who by then had come on as a very strong songwriter and then gluing it all together. You had Ringo, so that was something very special, as has been proved by its longevity, and just the stuff we did together still sounds good and still lives today. So it was a question of how can you get better than that? And I think I just had to say, well, you can't, but if you want to keep going, you should maybe think about starting something else. So I did. I talked to my wife Linda, and said, do you want to be in a band? Do we want to start a band? And the idea then was, okay, the only way I can do this is to start like The Beatles did at the bottom, and just play some little clubs or whatever it was, and we played little gigs and then gradually walk up that staircase again till you were now at the top. And so that's what I did with Wings. But there was a very difficult period before we decided to do that when I was just kind of lost.
Terry Gross 00:29:05 - 00:29:22
I had asked you about how the new documentary changes the narrative of the last days of The Beatles. Seeing the film yourself, seeing this footage that hasn't been seen in like, what, 50 years. Did it change the narrative in your mind? Were there things you had forgotten?
Paul McCartney 00:29:23 - 00:30:55
No, it did do because at the time, as I said, when it was me being blamed for the breakup of The Beatles, I kind of bought into that a little bit. It was everywhere. And although I knew it wasn't true, I don't know, somehow it affected me enough for me to just be unsure of myself. So with the film, it really is great for me because I see me and John messing around, pretending to be ventriloquists instead of being sensible and singing the song, and we're just doing goofy things and everyone's behaving very normally and in a very friendly manner. And so it's great for me. It's like someone once told you all your old snapshots, all the photographs of your youth and everything represent one thing, and you kind of go, oh, yeah. And then you look at them again, you go, oh, this is great. Now look at that. Look at me having fun with anti gin or whatever it is. So that's what it's done for me. It's just reminded me, and more than reminded me, proved to me, that it was a great time and it was a very refreshing time and enjoyable time to us. And I think some people just sort of said, well, Peter Jackson is going to do a whitewash, but the great thing is he can't do a whitewash because it's there on film.
Terry Gross 00:30:55 - 00:31:04
Of course, George does walk out during part of it. He comes back, but he does walk out. Where's your reaction to that?
Paul McCartney 00:31:05 - 00:33:24
Yeah, well, it just reminded me that that happened. And I know why it happened, because in the beginning, we were just four lads in a band as we matured, and as the whole thing went on, we became four individuals with our own lives and our own group of friends. And now you realize you're an important person in your own right. So George, for instance, will be going out to see The Band, bob Dylan's guys, Robbie Robertson and The Band, and hanging with them and feeling respected by them. So if he came back to us and I'm going, oh, I don't think you should play that, George, he's going, Excuse me. So you got those kind of little tensions going, but that was mild. That was really just like coming home to a Thanksgiving dinner and one of the cousins says something that everyone disputes. It's just like family arguments. So there was a bit of that. But generally when you see the film, you'll see that it's really interesting. And the fact that Peter's remastered it means it's got a great quality to it. But I just love it anyway. To me, it just proves that we were having a great time, that we loved each other, and that we made great music together. And we ended up on the roof playing these songs that we'd barely learned, barely written. I mean, one of them, John, has to have the lyrics in front of him on a little piece of paper that you can barely see. But, yeah, overall, I think it proves that there was a great loving spirit in The Beatles that entered into the music and everything we did. And that, for me, was more than a relief to see it. It was great, it was very emotional, very lovely to be able to see John and George again and just remember how sweet it was to work with them and to make this music.
Terry Gross 00:33:25 - 00:33:35
You'll be 80 in June, and I'm wondering how that's changing what you want out of life, what gives your life pleasure and meaning.
Paul McCartney 00:33:37 - 00:34:36
Family? I have eight grandchildren, I have a fantastic wife, I have lovely kids, and I think that is definitely the focus. I'm very lucky to still enjoy creating music, and I have a great band, so the focus there is pretty much the same, which is just to enjoy making music. But I think spending more time with my grandkids, I think it's what any most grandparents would say, hey, I can't believe I'm a grandparent. I'm 25 years old, actually. I just look older and people I think my birth certificate was falsified.
Terry Gross 00:34:36 - 00:35:03
You mentioned, almost parenthetically, that when their Beatles were together, there was a time when you were driving in a van through a blizzard along with your roadie, you couldn't even see the road. The van slid off the road and turned on its side, and you thought, well, this is it. And of course, you all survived. You weren't injured. Did you feel after that, that you were granted this second life?
Paul McCartney 00:35:05 - 00:36:09
Yeah, I think so. That wasn't so much the thought at the time. It was like, well, how are we going to get to Liverpool? And out of that, though, came for me what I always thought was one of our greatest sort of mottos, which is like, we're standing around, the four of us standing around with the van kind of out of commission, and our roadie thinking, oh, my God, how am I going to get this? Because it was a slope that we'd gone down, so you couldn't just drive the van back up the slope we're sitting around and somebody said, well, what are we going to do now? And then one of us, I can't remember which, said, Something will happen. And it was like, wow, that is like the greatest quote ever. Because in life, when you're faced with these crazy things, something will happen. And it always seemed to console us, and I've told quite a few people since then that when you're in your darkest moments, just remember that. Incredibly intelligent Beetle quote, something will happen.
Terry Gross 00:36:09 - 00:36:11
What got you out of that situation?
Paul McCartney 00:36:12 - 00:36:44
A lift. We got a lift from a lorry and took us through the blizzard up to Liverpool. So something did happen. I know that's kind of very sort of stupid thing to say, really, but it worked. And sometimes that's all you need is just something to get you out of that particular worry. And it worked for us. That was it. Something will happen.
Terry Gross 00:36:44 - 00:37:04
Are there, like, vulnerabilities, insecurities from your youth that in spite of everything you've achieved, in spite of all your success, in spite of all your talent, in spite of all the experience that comes with age, that stayed with you, did any of those vulnerabilities and insecurities from way in the past stay with you?
Paul McCartney 00:37:04 - 00:37:11
I mean, I think there are two answers to that. It's like no or all of them.
Terry Gross 00:37:13 - 00:37:14
Explain, please.
Paul McCartney 00:37:14 - 00:37:17
Quite sure which way to go go.
Terry Gross 00:37:17 - 00:37:20
In both directions because life is full of contradictions.
Paul McCartney 00:37:20 - 00:37:41
Oh, yeah, baby, you better believe it. But it's great because of that. All the paradoxes and everything, it is great. What is Shakespeare? So it was like, there are more things in heaven than earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy. And that's true.
Terry Gross 00:37:41 - 00:37:45
But tell me about both of those directions, of all of those insecurities staying with you.
Paul McCartney 00:37:47 - 00:38:08
I don't know. Who knows, Terry? Who knows? I think the answer really is no. I think I've kind of worked most of them out and I don't think there are any. But you're just still this little person inside this body with all these thoughts that nobody else knows about.
Terry Gross 00:38:09 - 00:38:58
So I want to close with your track from the latest album, McCartney Three. I really like this track a lot and I'd like to know musically how you went in this direction. The track is called Deep deep feeling. Now, you never say lyrically what the feeling is. And it's one of the songs from the new album that you don't mention in your new book of lyrics, because the lyrics you're not literally saying very much in the song. Musically, what's going on is really interesting. This was recorded during the pandemic. You're playing all the instruments, you're singing all the parts, and there's just a lot of like the drum is really important in this and I don't really think of you as a drummer. And then also your falsetto is really interesting and most people in their late 70s don't have a falsetto left.
Paul McCartney 00:38:59 - 00:39:01
Well, I do.
Terry Gross 00:39:02 - 00:39:09
I'd like you to say something about writing writing this song and what's going on musically, because it's not the direction I think of.
Paul McCartney 00:39:10 - 00:40:28
Before you write a song, you often will have a thought about something. Not always, but in this case, I just thought of this thing. When that happens in your body, when something is really thrilling, it can be like love of a child or something like that. That is really sort of deep and it just tingles through your whole body. And I don't know what that is. I don't know whether it's all your cells reacting to this feeling, this emotion, but that was what started me and it was like playing around with that idea of what is this? What is this kind of deep, deep emotion and what is it to do with? And I say something like, when you feel love so deeply that your body actually reacts with this thing. And I've often wanted to ask doctors physically, what is that? What is it? Your brain sends a signal to your whole body, though this goes and it's like, wow. And just for a second, you've got this beautiful emotional feeling.
Terry Gross 00:40:28 - 00:40:34
I thank you so much for being on our show today. Just thank you immensely.
Paul McCartney 00:40:35 - 00:40:58
Well, listen, Terry, I mean, I listen to your show, I listen to NPR all the time. I'm not just blowing smoke here, so I do. So I want to thank actually, everyone connected with all these public radio stations because they're great. And you particularly, thanks for doing this and sending my love right back at you.
Terry Gross 00:40:58 - 00:41:00
Thank you so much and be well.
Paul McCartney 00:41:01 - 00:41:38
Every time it rains it sometimes gets too much you know I feel the pain when I feel your loving touch emotion burns in the ocean of love you got that hot emotion burns in the ocean of love the deep, deep pain of feeling the deep, deep pain of feeling the deep, deep pain the deep, deep pain of feeling the deep, deep pain so intense joy of giving how does it feel? Of living? How does it feel?
Terry Gross 00:41:41 - 00:42:48
Paul McCartney's new two volume collection of his lyrics is called The Lyrics. The new documentary about the making of the album, Let It Be, is called Get Back. It will premiere in three two hour installments on Disney plus Thanksgiving weekend. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, we'll discuss new revelations about what happened before, during and after the January 6 Capitol siege. Our guest will be investigative reporter Carol Lennog, who contributed to this new series of articles in the Washington Post. She also co wrote with Post reporter Philip Rucker, two books about Trump. A very stable genius. And I alone can fix it. I hope you'll join us. Fresh Air's Executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Salt, Phyllis Myers, Sam Brigger, Lauren Crensel, Heidi Simon, Teresa Madden, Henry Boldonado, thea Chaloner, Seth Kelly and Kayla Lattimore. Our Digital media producer is Molly CV. Nesper. Roberta Shorok directs the show. I'm Terry Gross.
Paul McCartney 00:42:59 - 00:43:31
Sometimes I wish it would stay sometimes I wish it would go away emotion sometimes I wish it would stay sometimes I wish it would go away emotion sometimes I wish it would stay sometimes I wish it would go away sometimes I wish it would say emotion sometimes I wish it would go away.