Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney Says the Beatles Struggled With Mental Health Issues
Paul McCartney recently revealed that The Beatles were most likely struggling with mental illness at the height of their fame. Instead of talking about it with each other, “they talked about it through [their] songs.” In The Sunday Times, McCartney discussed how he, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison would all hide their problems by making fun of them. He mentioned how John especially would use songwriting as a way to express his issues. “‘Help! I need somebody,’ he wrote. And I thought, ‘Well, it’s just a song,’ but it turned out to be a cry for help,” McCartney said. He continued: “Same kind of thing happened with me, mainly after the break-up of the band. All of us went through periods when we weren’t as happy as we ought to be.” He added: “Ringo had a major drinking...
Paul McCartney ‘Wishes’ He Was More Like ‘Legendary’ Bob Dylan
In a cover story in the UK magazine Uncut, Paul McCartney admitted “Sometimes I wish I was a bit more like Bob Dylan…He’s legendary… and doesn’t give a shit!” McCartney, however, admits, “I’m not like that.” NME reports that during an interview centered on the making of his new solo album, McCartney III, the Beatles bassist said, “I always like what [Dylan] does. His new album [Rough and Rowdy Ways]? I thought it was really good. He writes really well. I love his singing — he came through the standards albums like a total crooner. But, yeah, I like his new stuff.“ He also cited prolific Canadian-born rocker Neil Young as a longtime favorite. While the Beatles and Dylan were certainly peers, Dylan’s self-titled debut album came out in March 1962, while the Beatles launched th...
Damon Albarn Suggests Gorillaz are Working on New Music With Paul McCartney of The Beatles
Gorillaz just released their collaboration-heavy long form project Song Machine Season One: Strange Timez late last month, but in a recent podcast interview, co-founder Damon Albarn suggested there’s even more new content from the group waiting in the wings. During an appearance on KINK, Albarn suggested the animated band behind hits “Feel Good Inc.” and “Clint Eastwood” has a recording with The Beatles‘ Paul McCartney that could see its way onto a future Gorillaz record. “I have a recording of Paul and myself that I could use for a Gorillaz track,” Albarn said. “It could easily fit on a Gorillaz album.” Albarn hinted it’s perhaps too early to say the group has a track with the legendary Beatle, imp...
Paul McCartney Announces New Album McCartney III
Nearly 40 years after the release of McCartney II (and five decades after his solo debut), Paul McCartney announced his latest album, McCartney III. The record is out Dec. 11 on Capitol Records. McCartney hadn’t planned to release new music in 2020, but the quarantine/lockdown (or in his words, “rockdown”) changed his perspective. Here’s what he had to say about it in a statement: I was living lockdown life on my farm with my family and I would go to my studio every day. I had to do a little bit of work on some film music and that turned into the opening track and then when it was done I thought what will I do next? I had some stuff I’d worked on over the years but sometimes time would run out and it would be left half-finished so I started thinking about what I had.&nb...
Paul McCartney, the Who, the Cure, More Sharing Unseen Live Footage
The Who’s Roger Daltrey is tasked each year with putting on the Teenage Cancer Trust’s annual concert series at London’s Royal Albert Hall. But when the pandemic halted organizers’ plans for a major gig supporting the U.K. organization, Daltrey recruited some friends for a creative workaround. The Teenage Cancer Trust Unseen will take place Oct. 8 to 18, streaming unseen concert footage from the Who, Paul McCartney, the Cure, Ed Sheeran, Noel Gallagher, Them Crooked Vultures, Muse and more. The sets span several years, with McCartney’s Oct. 11 set recorded back in 2012. The material will streaming for free on the trust’s recently launched YouTube channel, but organizers are still urging fans to donate. “I know things are really tight for everyone at the moment, our whol...
Paul McCartney Calls for Meat to Be Optional in England School Meals
You’d think that people would have had enough of silly school meals? After asking fans to “ditch meat” for his birthday last week, Paul McCartney is speaking up again. The former Beatle, along with daughters Stella and Mary, signed a letter urging England’s Education Secretary Gavin Williamson to no longer make meat mandatory in England’s school meals. The letter was part of the “consultation process” for the National Food Strategy, a landmark review of Britain’s food system, according to the Guardian. “No one needs to eat meat, so it shouldn’t be mandatory to serve it in schools,” the McCartneys said in a statement. “It’s time to revise the School Food Standards to help the planet, spare animals, and promote healthy eating.” As of now, the current school food plan ...
Watch Dave Grohl, Paul McCartney Play ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’
Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney teamed up as part of a sorta-Nirvana reunion in 2012, recording the rowdy hard-rock track “Cut Me Some Slack.” Now the duo have joined forces once more, and the results are a bit more…low-key. The Foo Fighter and former Beatle participated in a ramshackle version of “When the Saints Go Marching In” as part of the ‘Round Midnight Preserves virtual livestream benefit, hosted Saturday by New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Band. The instrumentation was a bit unexpected: Grohl handled tambourine, and McCartney played trumpet. The song also featured contributions from Elvis Costello, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, Dave Matthews, Irma Thomas and Nathaniel Ratleliff, among others. A video of that performance is available below. The livestream, which raised ...
Paul McCartney Wants Fans to Stop Eating Meat for His Birthday
Next week, Paul McCartney will be celebrating his 78th birthday on June 18th. Ahead of the big day, Macca has a birthday wish for you all: stop eating meat. In a post published on PETA’s website, McCartney kindly requested that fans “Watch my PETA video and ditch meat.” The ask comes 10 years after the ex-Beatle recorded a video titled “Glass Walls” (which has been viewed over 20 million times) that brought to light what happens in slaughterhouses and the animal suffering that takes place there. “All I’ve ever wanted for my birthday is peace on Earth—including for the animals,” McCartney wrote. “That’s why this year I’m urging fans to watch a video I hosted for PETA titled ‘Glass Walls’. We called it that because if slaughterhouses had glass walls, who would want to eat meat?” His hope is ...
Paul McCartney on George Floyd Protests: ‘Saying Nothing Is Not an Option’
Always one to use his platform as far back as in the ’60s, Paul McCartney has issued a statement in support of the George Floyd protests. Starting with a story about the Beatles’ show in Jacksonville in 1964, McCartney described the band’s reaction to it being a segregated venue and how they decided to cancel the show because of that. “It felt wrong. We said, ‘We’re not doing that!’ And the concert we did do was to their first non-segregated audience. We then made sure this was in our contract. To us it seemed like common sense,” he said. “I feel sick and angry that here we are almost 60 years later and the world is in shock at the horrific scenes of the senseless murder of George Floyd at the hands of police racism, along with the countless others that came before,” McCartney co...
