FEATURE:
Paul McCartney at Eighty
IN THIS PHOTO: Paul McCartney in 1964/PHOTO CREDIT: RA/Lebrecht Music & Arts
Paul McCartney and Me: The Interviews: Pete Paphides
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IT has been really enjoyable, revealing and enlightening…
PHOTO CREDIT: Pete Paphides
interviewing people about their love of Paul McCartney and their experiences with his music. In a run of forty features ahead of McCartney’s birthday in June, I wanted to hear from artists, fans, broadcasters and journalists about when they discovered Paul McCartney’s music - whether that was his work with The Beatles, Wings or solo. Now, I have been speaking with the magnificent Pete Paphides. A journalist, writer, author and broadcaster, I am a big fan of his. I also really love his prize-winning and hugely acclaimed 2020 coming-of-age story/memoir, Broken Greek. Pete is also the founder of the excellent record label, Needle Mythology (their next two releases are You Had a Kind Face, an anthology by Scottish indiepop group, Butcher Boy (April 15), and Altitude by ALT, a reissue of a 1995 album by an ad hoc group made up of Andy White, Tim Finn and Liam O’Maonlaí (May 6). Pete discusses why the video for Wings’ Mull of Kintyre was so affecting to him as a child, why Band on the Run (by Wings) is an album he holds a lot of love for, what it was like interviewing Paul McCartney, and what present he would get the legend for his eightieth birthday. Sit back and read Pete Paphides’ illuminating and fascinating words about the music, magic and importance of…
IN THIS PHOTO: Paul McCartney hitches a ride (or is just giving a thumbs up?) in Toronto, Canada in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Timothy White
THE iconic Paul McCartney.
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Hi Pete. In the lead-up to Paul McCartney’s eightieth birthday on 18th June, I am interviewing different people about their love of his music and when they first discovered the work of a genius. Can you remember when you first heard the work of Paul McCartney? How did if affect you?
The first Paul McCartney song I knowingly heard was Mull of Kintyre. I wanted him to be my dad. I wanted to climb into the video and be part of what was happening in that song, in that video. Paul and Linda just looked like the grooviest mum and dad in the world. I figured I could fit right in there and be no trouble at all. I loved everything about Mull of Kintyre. Even the bagpipes. In fact, especially the bagpipes.
You couldn’t watch Blue Peter for more than a few weeks without some fully-kilted fusilier walking into the studio and doing a turn on the pipes. So it didn’t seem that weird to me that there were bagpipes on Mull of Kintyre. They turned a very pretty song into a somewhat emotional one. But then, that’s the point of bagpipes isn’t it? That’s why they’re so loud. They’re designed to remind Scottish people all over the world to come back home once in a while.
In your 2020 memoir, Broken Greek, you wrote how songs like Leo Sayer’s When I Need You, and the work of ABBA can be projected onto your life and has deeper meaning. Did the music of Paul McCartney have a similarly impactful role on you as a child – or has it become more meaningful as you grew into adulthood?
Well, Mull of Kintyre definitely had an element of that going on in it. Later on, I would also get it with Penny Lane, a song whose meaning and emotional effect seemed to change with every time you played it. Penny Lane captures the elusive nature of time and consciousness as well as pretty much any song I’ve ever heard.
As millions have been, you must have been engrossed by The Beatles: Get Back on Disney+. How did it change your impression of The Beatles at that time, and specifically Paul McCartney’s role and influence on the rest of the band?
Like everyone who watched it, I was just floored by the emotional intelligence displayed by Paul. He realised more acutely than anyone else what an enormous and probably impossible job it would be to keep the band together. Because the very thing it would take would be for him to assume leadership of the band – which was also the thing that George and John found annoying and sometimes threatening. And he knew that. He knew what it was about him that irritated the others.
But what were the alternatives? His relentless creativity is an attempt to singlehandedly inject some urgency and momentum into a project that will die without it. It’s a superhuman effort. And it’s sometimes heartbreaking to watch because we know how this story ends.
“He realised more acutely than anyone else what an enormous and probably impossible job it would be to keep the band together”.
In 2021, we also received McCartney 3,2,1. It was interesting hearing just Paul McCartney and (super-producer) Rick Rubin exploring some of his best-known songs. He made scant mention to McCartney III (2020) or his more recent work. Why do you think this is?
I don’t know. It seems to run contrary to what Paul spends so much of his time trying to do – which is to draw attention to the fact that he’s still creating new music. Having said that, he was clearly responsive to Rick. And I thought that Rick was wonderful in the programmes. He established a lot of eye contact, which if you watch how Paul operates, seems to be central to establishing a bond with him. And he allowed him to develop his answers without interrupting too much. Often, there didn’t even need to be a question. He just pushed up the faders on a song and waited for Paul’s response.
I could have watched those moments all day.
Like me, you have a love for Wings’ Band on the Run. I think this is my favourite non-Beatles McCartney album. Why is this album special to you?
It’s Paul playing a blinder when the odds are stacked against him. It’s not dissimilar in that regard to Get Back. Two members of the band have left at almost no notice. They’re off to Lagos, to work in a studio that isn’t really fit for purpose. But again, as with Get Back, Paul’s sheer force of will wins the day. And he does it with a bunch of songs which set out his existential stall. Paul is defaulting to what he knows, especially on songs like Mamunia…
“So the next time you see rain it ain't bad/Don’t complain, it rains for you/The next time you see L.A. rainclouds/Don’t complain, it rains for you and me”
…and Mrs Vanderbilt…
“What’s the use in worrying?”
…and Bluebird…
“Touch your lips with a magic kiss/And you'll be a bluebird too/And you'll know what love can do”.
Even on Band on the Run and Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five, there’s an irresistible life-force at the heart of these songs that you can’t ignore. It’s like he’s saying, “You trusted me enough to fly halfway across the world to make an album in the most insalubrious of conditions and I’m going to lead us through this”.
It’s funny that Fela Kuti came to see him in order to make sure he wasn’t engaging in any sort of cultural appropriation, because what Paul has at moments like this isn’t dissimilar to what Fela Kuti displays.
“You can’t hate someone as much as John sometimes hated Paul without loving him”.
This overwhelming charisma in which you want to be a participant. You want some of what he’s on. The Wingspan documentary shows that in abundance. Compare the vibe around Paul in the early-‘70s to the vibe around John in the Gimme Some Truth documentary. Poor John is lost. I think he always knew it was going to be difficult without Paul – and his resentment for him is inextricably intertwined with that. You can’t hate someone as much as John sometimes hated Paul without loving him.
I know you have interviewed Paul McCartney. In 2018, you wrote on Twitter how, when you spoke, you noted how the best songs stay alive and assume new relevance though time. What was it like interviewing McCartney and talking about his songs’ importance?
If you see footage of Paul out and about being stopped by fans who want to tell him how much they love him, you’ll notice that he never stops. He’ll engage, sure, but he wants to keep moving. And interviewing him is a bit like that. If you stop to dwell on the importance of his songs or his contribution to music in general, you risk having him go into ‘auto-Paul’ mode. Reeling off stories or memories or observations that you’ve heard several times in other interviews. So the challenge is to keep him stimulated.
I was happy that he engaged with this idea about Penny Lane and When I’m Sixty Four having this slow-release of melancholy built into them. He talked about I Do Like to Be Beside The Seaside also having that quality. Which, of course, is true. It’s impossible to sing that song in your head without a procession of Victorian ghosts emerging out of your unconscious mind.
“Songs like ‘That Day Is Done’ and ‘So Like Candy’ in the raw are so hair-raisingly good”.
I feel Paul McCartney, in spite of his genius, is still underrated. Are there any albums of his (or with Wings) that you feel are worthy of greater appreciation that have, perhaps, been overlooked or dismissed?
I’ve been hugely enjoying the McCartney Archive Collection series of expanded reissues for the way they reactivate and bring extra context to existing records – in particular the Flaming Pie demos and the Flowers in the Dirt demos. Like a lot of people, I wish he’d finished what he started with Elvis Costello. Songs like That Day Is Done and So Like Candy in the raw are so hair-raisingly good.
Maybe an impossible question, but what does Paul McCartney, as a human and songwriting icon, personally mean to you?
He created a new brand new archetype for male rock stars. Every male musician who chose “that life” over the responsibilities of being a good husband and parent must feel a bit uncomfortable when they ponder the fact that Paul invented a way to be great at both. For me, that’s an achievement comparable to what he did in The Beatles. And at the time, he got ridiculed for it.
If you had the chance to interview Paul McCartney now and ask him any one question, what would that be?
Here’s £2 to spend in a corner shop. What are you going to buy?
If you could get a single gift for McCartney for his eightieth birthday, what would you get him?
A tray of my mum’s spanakopita or a tin of Attiki Greek honey. Something simple he might enjoy. Deep, meaningful or symbolic presents aren’t going to cut it with him. We have to keep it light!
I’d also give him an original copy of The Vipers’ No Other Baby – because I seem to recall that his version of the song on Run Devil Run was recorded from memory, and that he hadn’t heard the actual song since its release in 1958. Perhaps he hasn’t got around to getting himself an original copy.
To end, I will round off the interview with a Macca song. It can be anything he has written or contributed to. Which song should I end with?
On the Wings of a Nightingale, the song he wrote for The Everly Brothers.