"I declare that the Beatles are mutants. Prototypes of evolutionary agents sent by God, endowed with a mysterious power to create a new human species, a young race of laughing freemen." Timothy Leary

Recently a new book about Paul "Paul McCartney: A life" was released. Today I found an interesting interview with the author, Peter Carlin, where he talks a lot about Paul and John.

( The guy is like a duck: when he bonds, he bonds for life. Or what he thinks will be life. )

 

( ...then we take the world! )

McCartney stays humble as post-Beatles career continues

At 67, Sir Paul McCartney is just letting it be

Jul. 31, 2009 10:57 AM
The Washington Post

NEW YORK - Paul McCartney likes to get out of the Beatle bubble he's lived in since he was 21 and just be a regular bloke. So he does. No disguises, no bodyguards. Just Paul.

Sometimes he goes bowling. Or grocery shopping. Or to the movies with his girlfriend and gets shushed by strangers for talking too much. A couple of years ago, he recalls, he found himself on a New York City bus. Or rather, New Yorkers found (ital) him (end ital) on the bus.

Everyone stared as the famous passenger took his seat, but no one said a word. Finally, someone - "it was the African-American lady" - spoke up. " Hey!' " McCartney imitates, his delight at the memory evident. " Is you Paul McCartney?' "

" Yeah, I am!' " Sir Paul answered. "I'm in their face. I don't shrink away. No point. I'm from Liverpool, you've just got to get with it.

"So I said, Look, honey. Don't shout across the bus. Come and sit here!' "

The woman accepted and the unlikely couple had a merry chat for several blocks. And then the world's most celebrated songwriter reached his stop and melted into midtown Manhattan.

McCartney will play before 60,000-plus people at FedEx Field in Washington on Saturday, the third stop on his summer mini-tour and a milestone of sorts (the concert comes 45 years after the Beatles made their American concert debut in Washington, at the long-gone Coliseum). He'll be surrounded by the usual rock-god trappings and airtight security. But he says he savors encounters like the one on the bus because they remind him of who he was before he and a few of his friends got together and revolutionized popular music.

"It grounds you, you know," McCartney says. "It's a balance thing. I'm just one of the people on the bus. I'm the famous one, but I'm behaving normally. ... Really, it's important."

McCartney is telling this story a few hours before a sold-out show at Citi Field, the gleaming new home of the New York Mets, ensconced in the ballpark's visitor's clubhouse. For an official senior citizen - impossibly, he's now 67 - McCartney looks remarkably youthful. He's slim, almost slight, and truth be told, could even stand a few more pounds. The famously cherubic face is fleshier and lined just enough to remind you that McCartney isn't 21 anymore. The tousled hair is a flat brown. This is reassuring; who wants a Beatle, particularly the doe-eyed, ever-boyish Paul, to seem old or even to age at all?

The even better news is that McCartney's voice remains strong and supple in his 50th year of performing. Critics generally applauded the vocals and writing on his last album, "Electric Arguments," released last year under his Fireman alter ego. But McCartney is a revelation in concert. He plays straight through for about 2  1/2hours each night, offering more than 30 tunes from his vast catalog. The set list ranges from such sweetly sung classics as "Blackbird" and the inevitable "Yesterday" to the frantic, voice-shredding chestnut "I'm Down."

There are several nods to souls departed; "My Love" is dedicated to his late wife Linda, "Give Peace a Chance" goes out to John Lennon, and "Something" is sung in honor of its creator, George Harrison. McCartney plays the latter song on a ukulele that Harrison gave him.

McCartney says the emphasis on vintage is calculated to please. "It's always difficult to do new songs," he says. "You know, I look at myself and think, OK, I'm coming to see this show, I'm just an ordinary audience member, what do I want to hear him do?' And you know, a lot of it is hits. If I went to see Prince, I know the songs I want. I want Purple Rain,' please. You know if he doesn't do it, someone says how was it and you have to answer, Well, he didn't do Purple Rain.' ... I don't want (fans) to go home thinking Oh, I would have liked to have heard Hey Jude.' "

McCartney sees it as something akin to giving back to people the things that made them love him in the first place. "Oh, I (ital) want (end ital) to do" the old songs, he says. "We made hits so people would like them. And so it's gratifying that people do."

As genial as McCartney is, interviewing him can be slightly disconcerting. His career has been so varied and rich that the potential questions are endless. What's more, each time you look up, you're conscious of a little out-of-body voice reminding you of just whom you're sitting next to.

McCartney himself doesn't seem all that impressed by his own legend. "The whole point about it, the Beatles, Wings and me now, is that I'm too busy living it to think about it or reminisce."

Well, perhaps he can clear up at least one tiny mystery of several decades: What exactly is McCartney's maddening lyric in "Live and Let Die"? Is it, "In this ever-changing world (ital) in which we live in"?(end ital) Or (ital) "in which we're living"?(end ital)

McCartney seems genuinely puzzled. "Yeah, good question," he says. "It's kind of ambivalent, isn't it? ... Um ... I think it's in which we're living.' "

He starts to sing: "In this ever changing world. ... It's funny. There's too many ins.' I'm not sure. I'd have to have actually look. I don't think about the lyric when I sing it. I think it's in which we're living.' In which we're living.' Or it could be in which we live in.' And that's kind of, sort of, wronger but cuter. That's kind of interesting. In which we live in.' (ital) In which we live in! (end ital) I think it's In which we're living.' "

Ah, thanks, mate. Clears things right up.

The larger mystery may be this: Why, after all these years, is he still showing up at all? After so much - the frenzied adulation of the Beatles years, the money and fame and personal tragedies, the tabloid divorce - what could he possibly want?

McCartney brightens at this. "I like what I do," he answers instantly. "Also, I'm very darn lucky to get this job. I've had others that weren't as good as this. Second man on a lorry - it was not the greatest job.

"And then you get the relationship with your audience, which sort of grows as you do shows. There's great warmth there (and) it's sort of healing . ... It's what I wanted to do since I was a kid. Only now the amps are bigger."

Including a well-received April performance at the Coachella Music Festival in April and a memorable appearance this month atop the Ed Sullivan Theater's marquee on the David Letterman show, McCartney will play in only eight cities; the current tour winds up in three weeks.

The limited touring is a lifestyle choice. "My personal situation at the moment with my little 5-year-old daughter (Beatrice, with ex-wife Heather Mills) gives me certain periods of time when I can do what I want. Which is the strange thing about divorce. On the one hand, you become a single parent suddenly. But the upside of that is that it's changed the way I tour now. So this, we call it Summer Live, is a little series of dates that are fitted in the gaps when I'm not being a dad. I love the balance. It's really nice. The other few days, I go home and I'm dad, and when that period is over, I come back."

He has thought about retirement, but not seriously and certainly not soon. "It's what everyone else does, and that thought has to occur to you," he says. "But strange things happen in music. You look at people like Tony Bennett, B.B. King - people who are as good if not better than they were. And you sort of think, oh! And you look at that as your beacon kind of thing. ... I certainly couldn't just give it up like that. I like it too much."

Which suggests that the once unimaginable is now not just possible but highly likely: a Beatle, rocking out at 70, even 75. Paul McCartney is almost there, and it doesn't seem odd at all. In this ever-changing world in which we live in, it even seems kind of normal, like riding the bus.

Source: http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/music/articles/2009/07/31/20090731mccartney.html

Astrid

(I edited the old entry....someone told me about this more detailed article and I think it is even more amazing.)

Interview with John Lennon 1968

 

By Jonathan Cott/November 23, 1968

 

 

Do you feel free to put anything in a song?

Yes. In the early days I'd - well, we all did - we'd take things out for being banal, clichés, even chords we wouldn't use because we thought they were clichés. And eve just this year there's been a great release for all of us, going right back to the basics. On "Revolution" I'm playing the guitar and I haven't improved since I was last playing, but I dug it. It sounds the way I wanted it to sound.
It's a pity I can't do it better - the fingering, you know - but I couldn't have done that last year. I'd have been too paranoiac. I couldn't play dddddddddddd. George must play, or somebody better. My playing has probably improved a little bit on this session because I've been playing a little. I was always the rhythm guitar anyway, but I always just fiddled about in the background. I didn't actually want to play rhythm. We all sort of wanted to be lead - as in most groups - but it's a groove now, and so are the clichés. We've gone past those days when we wouldn't have used words because they didn't make sense, or what we thought was sense.
But of course Dylan taught us a lot in this respect.
Another thing is, I used to write a book or stories on one hand and write songs on the other. And I'd be writing completely free form in a book or just on a bit of paper, but when I'd start to write a song I'd be thinking dee duh dee duh do doo do de do de doo. And it took Dylan and all that was going on then to say, oh, come on now, that's the same bit, I'm just singing the words.
With "I Am the Walrus," I had "I am he as you are he as we are all together." I had just these two lines on the typewriter, and then about two weeks later I ran through and wrote another two lines and then, when I saw something, after about four lines, I just knocked the rest of it off. Then I had the whole verse or verse and a half and then sang it. I had this idea of doing a song that was a police siren, but it didn't work in the end [sings like a siren]: "I-am-he-as-you-are-he-as . . ." You couldn't really sing the police siren.

Do you write your music with instruments or in your head?

On piano or guitar. Most of this session has been written on guitar 'cause we were in India and only had our guitars there. They have a different feel about them. I missed the piano a bit because you just write differently. My piano playing is even worse than me guitar. I hardly know what the chords are, so it's good to have a slightly limited palette, heh heh.

What did you think of Dylan's "version" of "Norwegian Wood"? ("Fourth Time Around.")

I was very paranoid about that. I remember he played it to me when he was in London. He said, "What do you think?" I said, "I don't like it." I didn't like it. I was very paranoid. I just didn't like what I felt I was feeling - I thought it was an out-and-out skit, you know, but it wasn't. It was great. I mean, he wasn't playing any tricks on me. I was just going through the bit.

Is there anybody besides Dylan you've gotten something from musically?

Oh, millions. All those I mentioned before - Little Richard, Presley.

Anyone contemporary?

Are they dead? Well, nobody sustains it. I've been buzzed by the Stones and other groups, but none of them can sustain the buzz for me continually through a whole album or through three singles even.

You and Dylan are often thought of together in the same way.

Yeah? Yeah, well we were for a bit, but I couldn't make it. Too paranoiac. I always saw him when he was in London. He first turned us on in New York actually. He thought "I Want to Hold Your Hand" - when it goes "I can't hide" - he thought we were singing "I get high." So he turns up with Al Aronowitz and turns us on, and we had the biggest laugh all night - forever. Fantastic. We've got a lot to thank him for.

Do you ever see him anymore?

No, 'cause he's living his cozy little life, doing that bit. If I was in New York, he'd be the person I'd most like to see. I've grown up enough to communicate with him. Both of us were always uptight, you know, and of course I wouldn't know whether he was uptight, because I was so uptight. And then, when he wasn't uptight, I was - all that bit. But we just sat it out because we just liked being together.

What about the new desire to return to a more natural environment? Dylan's return to country music?

Dylan broke his neck and we went to India. Everybody did their bit. And now we're all just coming out, coming out of a shell, in a new way, kind of saying, remember what it was like to play.

Do you feel better now?

Yes . . . and worse.

What do you feel about India now?

I've got no regrets at all, 'cause it was a groove and I had some great experiences meditating eight hours a day - some amazing things, some amazing trips - it was great. And I still meditate off and on. George is doing it regularly. And I believe implicitly in the whole bit. It's just that it's difficult to continue it. I lost the rosy glasses. And I'm like that. I'm very idealistic. So I can't really manage my exercises when I've lost that. I mean, I don't want to be a boxer so much. It's just that a few things happened, or didn't happen. I don't know, but something happened. It was sort of like a [click] and we just left and I don't know what went on. It's too near - I don't really know what happened.

( How old do you feel emotionally?  )

damietta  posted parts of this interview two days ago and I thought it is worth to be posted completely...because without being asked Paul starts talking about

( John.... )

A bitter interview with Julian, 1999

Klaus Voormann will celebrate his 70th birthday next week. I found an interview with him in a german newspaper and translated it for all of you...

Found an interesting interview with Julia Beard, the halfsister of John.



Astrid

I found an interesting interview with Astrid Kirchherr...never heard her voice before.

( Enjoy )


By the way, I have that book Yesterday:The Beatles once upon a time! It is great!!