Paul McCartney - brilliant 15-min interview (1982)

the truth was that the Beatles had just split up and it's really the equivalent for you of losing this job which might happen you never again but you know you think about that you know you've got a good job you've got a good position suddenly next day it's like what are we going to do today is not there anymore and it's a big number you know the rug pulled underneath your feet is that why Wings went through such a yeah metamorphosis I mean such a searching for identity really yeah I mean it's a question is follow that well I don't know the thing is you know do you expect us just to go on forever they're making more and more money got making more and more and figures bigger and bigger you can't no matter how good people are no matter how well they do they don't just stay up on the top all the time there's got to be ups and downs and I think you know the difficulty was to do anything after the Beatles that would look even remotely uh valid are you at all concerned about what the critics say I no he said lying through his teeth not at all no he said no no no yeah I'm too concerned probably but uh you can't help it you're human you know you see papers and if since you're a kid you read papers and sort of take them for what they are if they're talking about you well you know it you can't help it you know and it's it's probably worse when they hit on something that you're a little insecure about anyway but my God I mean Paul McCartney certainly has no reason to be insecure uh now I'm insecure just like everyone you know a lot of people said oh you're crazy I mean and I think we were too we just met and it was in all that kind of euphoria of just having met the first couple of years and I think I just kind of said to her look you know I mean I'm going to be doing music and stuff do you fancy being up there with me you know can you can you imagine that when a kind of curtain comes up and there's all people who could you handle that and do you fancy it yeah that sounds all right to me the truth I just wanted Linda up there that's all uh it wasn't so much in truth from a music point of view as just uh feeling going to be ready [Music] obviously a better musicians than Linda but uh that wasn't what it was about have you surprised yourself a little bit I mean in terms of of of your Devotion to family I mean you know when I was younger definite could have never imagined it you know would have really thought I was just I don't know just be a bachelor and a musician or something uh it creeps up on you though doesn't it you know get to an age though you suddenly realize you like all that stuff you can't talk about having babies you've got to have babies it's a big difference you know talking about them imagining it and theorizing is one thing but actually having them crawling all over you and they're yours you know is a makes a big difference they know they're always with me I've just been in L.A they were there with me they're here with me now not here with me but here with me has it been at all difficult to be to find a balance between being a good family man and a good music man uh I don't really think it has actually um I think you know you things have got to work out right you know you've got to you've got to be lucky uh find the right woman and stuff you know in 1980 the murder of John Lennon affected him deeply we'll hear him talk about that in just a few moments but we start today's session with something that happened earlier that same year with Paul McCartney that made headlines while he was making a consort tour of Japan he was arrested for the possession of marijuana it was just a silly mistake actually I came from America in the liberal climate in America towards said substance and I went to Japan where the law is seven years old labor yeah nine days in the clink and I ended nine days in the clean case quite Rich experience of life embarrassing experience angry experience no worrying really frightening I mean if it had just been me in a group or something I thought it would have been so bad I took a wife and kids like I always do so Daddy got busted where's Daddy way for the evening so I was imagining uh Linda and the kids a little house on the outskirts of Tokyo the kids being brought him in Japanese schools you yeah that was going to be it I saw you know it just was suddenly warp warp five you know Tokyo and stuff you know I just was trying to imagine that you know it's a serious now am I really going to be in jail for seven years making mail bags you know for a lot of critics that went hand in hand rocking drugs I don't really know about everyone else you know I mean I for me it used to be a lot more widespread you know it's kind of eased off is it a burden to be the person that that someone's that everybody's looking to anxious to see what he does and I try and not think about all that stuff uh it's one of the reasons I really try and Lead like a normal John Lennon's relationship with McCartney barely resembled times when they were the best of friends I would have liked to have seen him the day before and just straighten everything out you know that's one of the things about sort of sudden death like that you know is that you do do many things left unsaid you know but uh on on that angle really I didn't feel uh quite so bad because like the last time I had spoken to him we had actually cleared a lot of our differences up and we'd sort of we see one of our big problems over the the last 10 12 years had been the business thing and we found that we could talk to each other once we as long as we were talking about kids talking about stuff like that it's really easy and we could get on fine and it was wow you know how your kids well and we'd be gonna be terrific you know and suddenly either one of us would kind of say oh what about the Apple thing then and he said get real mean wow you know because I mean that was like a serious game of Monopoly that did John's death in any way change the way Paul McCartney views his celebrity status not my Celebrity Status no it changed a lot of things changed how well something like that obviously that's very final it's to me it was sort of end of an era sort of really wrapped up the beetle thing kind of thing for me um because it was always although the four was never really thought we were going to get back together the Press would always ask us if we were and people on the street but we pretty much knew we wouldn't get back together because uh we I think we really felt we'd done it before Lenin's death he and Yoko lived in New York where she managed their business Affairs and rumors of a strained relationship with McCartney persisted recently McCartney and his wife Linda met with Yoko for a reunion should not everyone have been surprised I mean are you that's what everyone seems to think Yoko and I are sort of at War you know um I think it is to based on events of the last kind of 10 years um now during the last year or so we've we've had a better relationship than we've ever had probably uh which is fine we're suddenly able to talk to each other it's a weird thing really but uh she's a nice lady did John's death did it frankly yeah did it find you in terms of your personal concern for your own welfare for Linda's a bit you know because I suppose you just you know there's nuts out there you know the crazy people everywhere but um you don't really think it's going to happen I suppose something like that actually sort of focuses it I mean it's tough but uh yeah obviously I was worried for a few weeks but I don't think you can live like that I I wouldn't like to live uh with that around my mind so really my attitude is just trying to just push it out my mind I don't really know what else to do can you be objective about your work at all uh after a long time I can after a while I can do it you know when I like I'm just going along I hear it on the radio this is a great conversation with Quincy Jones was working with uh out in LA and something he wants uh read somewhere is this thing about uh there's two two approaches to a thing of the creative and the judicial and your big problem is when you do them both at once you try and be creative and at the same time check whether your spellings right because you kill it the minute it goes out you kill it and the minute you say you never get any creative flow so uh for me the judicial thing uh has to come later I just got to kind of push it out and get and I've got a great producer I work with so he's he actually is the objective one I had a song called Ebony and Ivory which I'd written and I wanted to sing it with a black guy so I'll do the ivory [Music] and I'd like to get somebody to I'd like to be a duet and first thought was Stevie really I just thought whatever could get hold of anyone to be ebony for that song I'd like to do it with Stevie just because I'm a fan of it was his reaction sorry he said yeah what's the message about being an ivory Ebony and Ivory is supposed to say that uh people of all types could live together eat every song have a deep message and have some deep lasting oh no I don't need that in a song you know something it doesn't no it's a funny thing isn't it records I mean you know it can just be a sound can really attract you to a thing it's the noise or a word Huckleberry friend yeah it was always just a little gem of something you'll be 40 in June I hope I'm not giving you any Trade Secrets I think you're handling it well what is it what does that mean to you being 40. it doesn't mean a lot you know being 39 being 40 being 3823. I mean I remember seeing Bridget Bardo as 40. Marilyn is 40. you know and there's all there's all certain people in and they get to be 40 kind of it's a headline I'm not really liking myself to Bridget and Marilyn but uh I'm obviously coming in for a little bit of that stuff you know like what's it feel like to be 40. actually surprisingly it doesn't phase me at all no how long would you like to keep on doing this this uh forever really I think so yeah I'm finally even better yet sort of for me I really feel as though I'm a writer really um and I feel you know you'd be 98 be a hundred and just doesn't she yes indeed tomorrow whatever it is you know uh maybe the image slow down a bit maybe get to be a few more ballads but you know it's just we've become very very close as people uh just little things that would happen to us over the years just one just working together so long is a biggie it's a great thing you know you work with people a long time you get to really read each other how much you have to wear those big oh we're all balls yeah what do you think your music does for these people uh as well [Music] why does it excite them so much we don't know really if we knew we'd form another group and be managers it have things happen that would really bring you together you know so you'd be a very tight group I mean you'd be driving up the motorway at the freeway in England and there's a rocket put the windscreen out and it'd be like depths of winter you know into like North America and uh you've got no windscreen and you've got 200 miles to drive and kind of so the driver just kind of turns his hat around and goes for it and we're in the back freezing to death the heater doesn't work anymore so we actually it's a lie on top of each other The Beatles in the van you know so that brings you together you can lie on top of each other and so after that trying to follow that kind of closeness and that kind of reading each other it's like you're patched in you know you it's kind of sad really in retrospect isn't it that that as you were going as all of you were going through that maturation process that the women in the Life took the brunt of it for a great deal and I'm not just talking about Yoko I'm talking about Linda also yeah oh it is true yeah it was difficult I suppose for kind of any women to enter into that picture because as the Beatles we really had the four of us and then and Truth is it without trying to be chauvinist just because we were a group um there really wasn't any room for women there was then social life yeah within the room again um so we generally tried to keep him out of the picture you know most of the time and succeeded but in the end word was for a time that that say Beetle that's that's a bad word yeah well it was for me it was it was very difficult because I was liking it to like a divorce you know and you uh you want somebody wants to talk about your ex-wife and stuff and you don't want to talk about it you want to take your head somewhere else because it's been it's painful it's pretty painful that you know I could say just the rug being pulled from underneath you and it wasn't just that either it would have just been that that might have been it was all the business growing stuff and suing them suing you for a million and them suing you for five million you've got to try and keep it all together you know it was probably the most difficult period I've ever had in my life do you ever see Georgian Ringo anymore oh yeah quite a lot just on a little film with thringer that's in the Cannes Film Festival plug plug this year so I see I've seen quite a bit of Ringo and and George is there ever a day that goes by when someone or something doesn't remind you of The Beatles probably not yeah I mean actually when I'm out in the street when I'm doing this or when I'm doing stuff in with uh kind of what I'd call work that I pretty much I can get reminded

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Keywords: Paul McCartney, unseen Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney interview, Paul McCartney 1982, The Beatles

Id: 1xCHmwHEFHI

Length: 15min 19sec (919 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 08 2023