FEATURE:
Paul McCartney at Eighty
IN THIS PHOTO: Paul McCartney in 1964/PHOTO CREDIT: RA/Lebrecht Music & Arts
Paul McCartney and Me: The Interviews: Matt Everitt
____________
THIS interview is going to take a slightly…
IN THIS PHOTO: Matt Everitt with Paul McCartney/PHOTO CREDIT: Matt Everitt/BBC Radio 6 Music
different form to previous ones I have conducted. These interviews are part of a run of forty features I am publishing before the genius Paul McCartney turns eighty in June. Most of the interviews I have conducted take the form of email exchange. I send the questions off, then the guest answers and sends them back. The first couple of questions were answered by the brilliant Matt Everitt by email but, awesomely, he recorded the rest of the answers on microphone (in the form of him reading the questions and giving the answers). Take a listen to his fascinating and personal thoughts about the music of Pauli McCartney below - and read his great answers to the first couple of questions soon. I am going to end with a great Paul McCartney solo song (as I ask all guests, at the end of the interview, to select a song McCartney has written or recorded that means a lot to them). I will also come on to highlighting why Matt was perfect to speak with when it comes to Paul McCartney - though, as you will hear, the fact he has interviewed the great man a few times is reason enough! I am very jealous of Matt because, not only has he interviewed the one human I want to speak to more than ever, Kate Bush (in a superb interview from 2016); he has met Paul McCartney and has got to be within inches of one of my music heroes!
Before getting to the interview, I wanted to mention a couple of Matt-related things. As a broadcaster and journalist for BBC Radio 6 Music, check out his New Album Fix series - where he take a deeper look at great albums released that week and gets words from the artists themselves. His The First Time with… series is also a must-listen. I just featured I am the EggPod’s Chris Shaw. He provided a very personal and interesting interview. Matt has appeared on Chris’s podcast a number of times. Most recently, he talked about day 20 of The Beatles: Get Back - where Chris talked to a range of guests and explored each day featured on the recent three-part documentary - and provided his thoughts. Matt also chatted with Chris about Paul McCartney’s latest album, McCartney III, in December 2020. He also talked about The Beatles’ ‘blue album’. His 2019 conversation about The Beatles’ Rubber Soul is also well worth a listen! Before wrapping up, I shall turn to Matt and his really great answers. Read his thoughts about the first two questions…
_______________
Hi Matt. 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. When did you first discover Paul McCartney’s music? Was it a Beatles, Wings or solo album that lit that fuse?
It was hearing Yesterday – as I think I’ve spoken about before. I would’ve been about 4 or 5, round a neighbour’s house and it was on the radio. I was playing hide and seek with their kid and I was crouched behind the sofa, then that song came on and I was almost paralysed with melancholy. Why did she go away? Why wouldn’t she say? For all its familiarity, it can still impact on me that song. That loneliness. I’ve always preferred downbeat music to upbeat songs – maybe that’s where it started?
Like every Beatles fan, you must have been affected 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?
Ahhh. I think it reinforced what I knew. He’s a genius. I know Paul Gambaccini a bit – lovely man, amazing music historian, fan and broadcaster – and he’s interviewed all The Beatles face to face. He says, whenever he finished a chat with Paul, he thinks “There goes Mozart”. And I feel the same way. His innate ability to create melody – totally instinctively - is nothing short of genius. I also loved how he and John still looked up to/and at each other for approval when it came to their work and performances.
__________________
This SoundCloud link (I have also included the audio right at the bottom) sees him take up the remaining questions. Thanks so much to Matt Everitt for giving his time and chatting about Paul McCartney and what his music means to him. In the next interview, I am chatting with Matt’s friend and erstwhile BBC Radio 6 Music colleague, Shaun Keaveny. I would love to watch an interview with Matt and McCartney sat together, similar to the one that he (Macca) did with Idris Elba in December 2020. It would be wonderful bringing the two together for a long-form interview. Listening to and reading Matt’s answers has made me revisit The Beatles: Get Back for a third time (let’s hope there is an extended cut of it soon), and especially Paul’s role and best moments. I shall leave things there. As you heard in the interview, Matt wanted to, at first, end with Maybe I’m Amazed (included on McCartney’s finest eponymous album of 1970), but he plumped for a gorgeous song from a McCartney solo album that turns twenty-five on Thursday (5th May). It is a song that, maybe, McCartney might play during his Glastonbury headline set in June. To hear him play this gem, days after his eightieth birthday, to thousands of fans in Somerset would be…
A memorable and amazing moment!