Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney
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NEWSREEL: The city has never witnessed the excitement stirred
by these youngsters from Liverpool. There's been nothing like it in the world of entertainment before and I don't think there ever will be again.
Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged.#
Paul McCartney: You know what happens when you write songs? Some of them pop out really easily, some of them are easy births.
Oh, I believe in yesterday...#
ROSS COULTHART: Yesterday, Paul McCartney was in the world's biggest and most popular band.
NEWSREEL: Ladies and gentlemen, The Beatles!
She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah! #
NEWSREEL: Another girl's fainted!
Sergeant Pepper's
We hope you have enjoyed the show. #
ROSS COULTHART: So, Paul, thanks very much for talking to Sunday Night. You've got nothing to prove, you've done it all. You've got a lovely family, a beautiful wife - why don't you just retire, put your slippers on and leave it all to Justin Bieber?
Paul McCartney: Because if I retired, I'd be writing songs the very next day and I'd be ringing a promoter up, saying, "Can you get me a gig?" I love it too much.
Paul McCartney: It's in your blood.
In truth, I'm actually doing as well or better than ever now.
I'm enjoying it as much or more.
I'll pretend I am kissing the lips I am missing
And hope that my dreams will come true... #
ROSS COULTHART: Is it correct that it was your mum's tragic death that prompted, that urged you more into music? That you used music as a retreat?
Paul McCartney: You know, I think now that probably had a lot to do with it. Um, at the time, I didn't think of it like that. It was just a tragedy. She died when I was about 14. Um, but I think, when you start to put the pieces together, music became a very important escape, somewhere where I could find hope.
Anytime you feel the pain, hey, Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulders... #
Paul McCartney: And then when I met John, um, he'd lost his mum, so we had that as a bond and so I think it helped to get us both out of these tragic circumstances.
NEWSREEL: We've thought about it and probably the thing John and I will do will be write songs, as we have been doing, sort of as a sideline now. We'll probably develop that a bit more. Who knows? At 40, we may not know how to write songs anymore.
NEWSREEL: This has been brought to you exclusively by Channel 7's cameras and we have never seen anything like this in the history of this country. This is absolutely fantastic! They're 80, 90, 100, 200 thick in places. Another girl's fainted!
ROSS COULTHART: Do you remember The Beatles' tour, the first Beatles' tour of Australia?
Paul McCartney: Oh, yeah!
NEWSREEL: The crowd's broken the barriers. There's hysteria!
The fans are going clearly mad. Here they go!
ROSS COULTHART: A third of the state of South Australia turned up to welcome you blokes. It's amazing!
I look at the pictures of it now and I think, "Was that me?"
NEWSREEL: Girls are crying, everyone's screaming, "We want The Beatles."
Paul McCartney: Was I really there? You know, you look at us on the balcony and all these people!
NEWSREEL: Here come The Beatles!
Paul McCartney: It's great memories for me. I mean, I love Australia. In Liverpool, half the relatives either went to Australia or Canada. Well, you know that - lousy Poms. But, you know, I think outside of all the joking, I think Australians and British have got, often, quite an affection of each other.
NEWSREEL: It was a very nice place, you know, Australia. What do you like most of all here? Um, I dunno, really. The people were marvellous, the girls were fantastic - love those girls. Safe trip home. Thanks very much and get your hand off my knee.
You say yes, I say no # You say stop and I say go, go, go! #
ROSS COULTHART: The biggest band the world had ever seen
relentlessly reinvented itself.
Waiting for the van to come # Corporation t-shirt, stupid bloody Tuesday # Man, you've been a naughty boy, you let your face grow long # I am the egg man # They are the egg man # I am the walrus - goo goo goo joob! #
ROSS COULTHART: They had 23 number one hits in Australia. By the end of the '60s, The Beatles, while still growing musically,
were growing apart. For Paul, the breaking point came when John's wife, Yoko, introduced an American business manager. A lot of very cruel things were said on both sides when The Beatles split up but you did reconcile with John, didn't you?
Paul McCartney: Yeah, yeah.
ROSS COULTHART: How important was that for you?
Paul McCartney: It was very important, yeah. The Beatles' break-up was basically a business thing. We'd earned all this money, all this fortune - imagine it in a big jar and someone was just going to come along and nick it! Sure. Basically, that was about to happen. So I had to fight, I had to fight to save this. Now all the guys involved and their wives, they all say, "thank you, you saved it," you know, but it was very painful and we had to go through all that stuff but, um, it worked out, you know.
NEWSREEL: The last bachelor Beatle was no longer a bachelor. Paul McCartney married New Yorker Linda Eastman. He'd gone and been and done it at Marylebone Register Office.
ROSS COULTHART: Paul's successes after The Beatles as a solo artist and with his wife Linda in the band Wings...
NEWSREEL: It's Mr McCartney and Mrs McCartney, how do you do?
It's Mr McCartney, I'm standing next to him!
ROSS COULTHART:..were often overshadowed by tragedy.
And in my hour of darkness # She is standing right in front of me... #
ROSS COULTHART: John Lennon was murdered in New York in 1980. In 1998, Linda died of breast cancer. Then three years later, fellow Beatle George Harrison also died of cancer. They often say to be a good artist, you have to suffer.
Paul McCartney: Yeah, I know people say that. Um, I'm not sure. I think, you know, if you could choose, you'd want a life without those tragedies 'cause nobody wants that. But seeing as you can't choose, I think what happens is it makes you stronger. You have to get over that or go under. That may then mean that when you translate that into your music, then that's stronger too.
And she was right, this love of mine # My Valentine. #
ROSS COULTHART: 'My Valentine' - talking about family and talking about people that you love - it's an ode to the new woman in your life. How did she react when you sang it to her for the first time?
Paul McCartney: She loved it, she likes her music um, and yeah, no, she loved it. You know, it was our first dance at our wedding and stuff and it's quite emotional. Obviously it's an emotional song for both of us but she's cool, you know, she just...she loves it quietly.
ROSS COULTHART: His marriage last year to 51-year-old American heiress Nancy Shevell seems to have made Sir Paul happy for the first time in a long time.
ROSS COULTHART: Is she a similar person to Linda?
ROSS COULTHART: Are they both...? Yeah, actually. They have quite a few little things in common, actually. They're both from New York, they're both strong women, um, both very independent and there are all sorts of other little links too. So she is a bit similar. She won't want me talking about her, though. No, that's fine. She wants me to keep private.
ROSS COULTHART: I hope you don't mind me mentioning this, and please tell me if this isn't correct, but Nancy's had breast cancer as well, hasn't she?
Paul McCartney: Mmm.
ROSS COULTHART: And your mum? And Linda? Mmm. You've had three women in your life who have suffered breast cancer. It's quite an extraordinary coincidence.
Paul McCartney: Tell me about it. Yeah, I know. Um, yeah, well, that's true. What can I say?
ROSS COULTHART: Could another song on his new album be a dig
at second wife Heather Mills? Their divorce was bitter -
famously bitter.
You use me for a tool # Go get yourself another fool. #
ROSS COULTHART: Another of the songs is 'Get Yourself Another Fool' and the conspiracy theorists, you know what they're going to say, don't you? They're going to analyse that and suggest that it is a reference to your break-up with Heather. Is it?
Paul McCartney: No, I actually just like the song. I was trying to do a couple of songs on the album that had a bluesy feel. Obviously, all bluesy things are going to be like that. "Get yourself another fool, you've done me wrong, woman" - that's the essence of the blues. But I must admit, since, I thought people are going to think that's why I did it. I didn't do it for that reason, I must say.
ROSS COULTHART: The new album includes songs with Stevie Wonder and Eric Clapton. There are McCartney originals as well as fresh takes on timeless classics.
don't mess with Mr In-Between... #
ROSS COULTHART: Sir Paul, getting as much joy making music now as he did yesterday. Well, Sir Paul, a lot of men will be watching you right now thinking they hope they look like you when they’re about to turn 70 because I think this is the big 7-0 for you this year, isn't it? Congratulations on the new album.
Paul McCartney: Thank you very much.
ROSS COULTHART: Thank you very much for talking to Sunday Night.
Paul McCartney: Cheers.
