The woman who saved Paul McCartney | 60 Minutes Australia

Paul McCartney has returned to where he belonged from the stage. How old is too old to be a pupster? Hmm. I thought 30 was too old and when he was about 25 I looked at 30 and thought, "Oh, you know, I have to be doing it." It was a bit different then, but things were still happening and records were still selling and people were still coming to our shows, so I thought 40 is too old and you just can't do it now, getting to 50, thank you very much. I can't believe it as I hear myself say that, but it's true, yeah, you think we know nothing about the sixties.

Yeah, you know, the last time he did this, a live concert tour, was 13 years ago, as far as songs go, a lot of them. He has never performed on stage since the Beatles' bitter breakup. I think enough time has passed. God, you know you have to forget those things at some point. You can't just be kind of gentle. I'll prune the bitter and twisted about the past, you know, I'm over all that. Did you literally learn again? We learned some words, some of them, yeah, you know, after 20 years you forget, do you know how much you remember from 20 years ago?

Well, now this is one of the problems. Because people in the audience know them better than I do, but it was pretty funny that our shows were in Europe and we were doing this hour standing there, I think it was ash and I was singing I'll never dance with another and there was someone who had written all the words and I knew them all exactly and I was looking at this person in the audience, damn, I'm going to get it wrong and then she was wrong, it was great, she said, I'll never dance. with a number they have you nowadays, they sing, but back then, a long time ago, when the song was a hit for the first time, they just shouted, we forgot to go to Australia, what do you remember?, it was going around in a trailer, moaning, hello, Australia, are when that rearguard would be. madness they are happy with us another plan to put him in the well it is incredible to me I think the only thing that scared us was being so far from home it was the furthest you could get from England you know when you are When you were a child, you always They taught that if you dig you get to Australia and the Americans are told you get to China, we get to Australia, so it was a bit Wow, yeah, a long way from home, but we loved it.

What I find amazing is that when you were performing as the Beatles you would only sit for 40

minutes

on a good night, really a man, if we were upset it was 20 oh she loves you tonight thank you and we left, no it was like that. It was about half an hour something normal and what about the technology? What about the birds? But it wasn't, it simply didn't exist. You know, it's easy to forget how simple basically all the wishes shook the world and you couldn't even hear the lyrics we have a good friend of ours, Neil Aspinall, who was our van driver and Neil used to be shouting, you know what I call the seagulls, that room full of seagulls, that noise, you know, he was panting, hey, Neil used to be next to the stage. in the old days yelling at the only guy who was the movie theater operator trying to shout over all those seagulls that left thank you but I never heard them now it's kind of headphones, computers, lasers in a completely different world now, but ya You know, make better music, no.

Although the hardware is more sophisticated today, it's still pretty simple, he plays, he sings and that's it. I'm talking about Michael Jackson and Jenna's masseuse. Can you dance? Can you do any of those moves? I can't, no, I'm surprised. I know I'm one of those people that I really think I can dance, oh you know, you get those things, let's go to the club or somewhere. I'm like a dancing fool, no, you know, yeah, I like all that and, but it's not like that. what do I do for a living if I want to try to be sexy but Donna will always outdo me for some audience members in some audience rooms but you know what I mean that's not what I do I'm not that guy as a guy and I'm not overtly sexy or I'm a little bit like that in private, you know, it's just a more private thing for me, sex, you know, I haven't been a big man or G in my life, like always, let's get into it.

This room, love, was never anything like this. You know, I'm a little more private about that kind of stuff, but this is a little rich for the man who said he got into the Beatles so you wouldn't have to get a job. you could pull the birds, follow the birds, which is true enough, but privately we just wish it was in public on stage, well the consummation was yeah, I know, no, I mean, obviously, that's different . I was a gay single. I didn't have four children. and a wife who would kill me if she had to consider something like the roller coming off.

She, as you may have deduced, is Linda McCartney. She earned the envy and enmity of millions of teenagers when she married Paul in 1969. The cute Beatle was caught and not before his time, how wild were those days, I mean, are you wild?, Wow, what wild on a scale of one to ten thirty-eleven was the beginning of the sexual revolution, whatever you call it. The girls were suddenly all on the pill so it was a good idea for me and our family, other guys did more than the alpha male so it was like Moses turned on all the water and said let's have a good time while, many of the stars of the sixties did not.

Do it, I mean shooting star syndrome and you got caught up in alcohol and drugs and stuff, how close were you guys, pretty close, yeah, in the '60s there was a lot of excess with drugs in particular and alcohol I think at first it was all pretty harmless, it was all what they call social drugs now, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't that bad, a glass of wine and a little marijuana, and it didn't drive anyone completely crazy, and the worst thing that ever happened to me. It happened most of the time you fell asleep, you know, you never went out and murdered anyone or anything, you know, it was all pretty harmless, but as is the nature of drugs, it escalates and once, at one point, There was a very good friend of mine who used heroin and he said here, to smell this a little.

I said: what is zerrin? and I say, you know, God knows how I did it, but I actually sniffed that sniff and I could have been hooked for life. but somehow my guardian angel just said that you don't like this, so I heard this story that you know Linda

saved

you from the hero and this is a bit exaggerated, yes, she probably

saved

me from general excess, which was quite total. A kind of party and work, I mean, I remember one time with the Beatles we went to work on a Sunday and we had worked like we worked all night, on Saturday we slept for two hours and everyone went back to work.

I remember entering. in the taxi and I see a guy water on his chrysanthemums in the morning and he's booked and I said who's right, me with all the fame and all the money or water are gifts on a Sunday, you know, suddenly, sir, he has , he's the one with the leisure I'm fooling myself together Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote some of the world's most enduring hits songs that became milestones at the height of their fame in the late 1960s the partnership collapsed it was a divorce ugly and public I know it's the hardest The period was when John, when the bailiffs broke up and John was tearing me down in public, that was probably the worst I could take because I knew he had an opinion that a lot of people listen to, it was just a critic saying Oh McCartney, stupid, you know? when it was John saying things like everything you did was yesterday, I mean, that's hurtful, it was really sad, I don't know if it was that Savage, he actually just said, you know, like a total drip and all this. but your general portrait of him is not light and yes, that whole area I tell you what hurts.

I knew he would stick like mud to the wall. I knew it's thick, it's a public pain. In fact, I privately made peace with him before. He died where the fire was speaking words of wisdom, whatever I'm glad I never came out with my big resentment about John because now he's dead and I would feel very depressed if all that was up in the air, you know, if I had to give my answer and I resisted, I just thought it was just John, he was always joking, John was always joking, no, he would always turn out okay, you know, it's made of me, it's called magic, Alex. he's my guru, oh yeah, and you know, I had to take John with a pinch of salt.

Could someone like you making a living making lighter songs ever compete? I mean, the genius martyr, it's a pretty nice tool. I don't want to, I won't live forever. Contrary to what is rumored, so I will have my day, you can mind genius, no, I will have my day when he dies. I think there will be several programs and it wasn't bad. You know, that will be the Australian version. I'm sorry. Hey, let me down, he's one of the richest men in Britain with one of the most famous faces in the world, but this is what he will be remembered for in the songs of his life.

I know what I've already done. I have done a lot, I know, I know that at sea, I will tell you that it is very difficult to answer this question without suddenly seeming like the biggest guy in the world, but I know that, looking at the 20th century, I must be considered among the artists of the 20th century I must be in the top 20, how do you know that you don't let it pass you by in record sales? Hi, I'm Sarah. Thanks for watching to stay up to date with the latest news from 60 Minutes Australia. Make sure you subscribe.

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