HMVNipper
Mar 29, 2006, 06:35 AM
Paul is the cover story in the latest issue of the AARP Magazine. (If any of you have parents or grandparents who get the magazine, ask them to save it for you! And of course, if you get it yourself, well... :wink1: ) There are some additional interactive links on the webpage with the article, including a quiz to "Test Your Paul IQ."
http://www.aarpmagazine.org/entertainment/my_birthday.html
You Say It’s My Birthday?
By Anthony DeCurtis, May & June 2006
What could Paul McCartney possibly have known about being 60 when, as a teenager, he wrote one of his most famous songs, "When I'm Sixty-Four"? The Beatles later recorded the tune when McCartney was 24, and, from that youthful vantage, 64 could only seem a time of cute, dithering romance as a hedge against loneliness ("You'll be older too/And if you say the word/I could stay with you"), dead-end domesticity ("Doing the garden, digging the weeds,/Who could ask for more"), and a steady descent into mortality ("Yours sincerely, wasting away")—all with a wink and a nudge. London was swinging, and the Beatles were the avatars of a seismic youthquake. Come on—who was ever going to get old?
As it turns out, all of us. If not old, we have—the lucky ones—at least gotten older. Nearly 40 years after the release of "When I'm Sixty-Four," which appears on the Beatles' 1967 masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, many of us are only a stone's throw from that number—as is the eternally cherubic Sir Paul, who turns 64 on June 18.
Understandably, there was much about the future that McCartney could not foresee back in the halcyon days of peace and love. For one thing, he would have had a hard time imagining that he would still be playing rock 'n' roll in his 60s. In an interview I conducted with him in London in 1987 for Rolling Stone, McCartney looked back on the Beatles' early days and noted, "You see old interviews with us now, and Ringo says, 'Well, you know, I might get lucky and have a string of hairdressing salons.' That was the apex of his vision at the time. And John and I are talking nervously: 'There might be 10 years in this.' Remember, we were 18, 20, maybe, saying this. We couldn't see playing rock 'n' roll beyond 30. Of course, by the time we were 30, it was still all happening."
And today McCartney rocks on. Last year he released Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, a solo album that found him near the height of his creative powers. Many critics—including me, in a lead review for Rolling Stone—compared it favorably to McCartney, the album he put out in 1970 that essentially marked the end of the Beatles. More personally, he's in a new marriage, and less than three years ago he became a father again. So, as he approaches 64, Sir Paul is hardly "wasting away," as his song so pessimistically predicted. If anything, he's experiencing vital reinvention and growth—but not without having been served his share of sorrow and doubt along the way.
When I interviewed Paul McCartney a second time, in 2001, once again for Rolling Stone, he described the emotional devastation he suffered when his first wife, Linda, died of breast cancer in 1998. Their union was enviable by any standard, but for a celebrity marriage it was an extreme rarity, and not only because of its longevity. During their 29 years together, the couple rarely spent time apart—to the point that Paul enlisted his wife to play keyboards and sing background in his band Wings, even though she was a photographer by trade, not a musician. Linda was roundly mocked, but Paul shook off the barbs. Having Linda in Wings just made the band more fun for him.
Their greatest performance, though, was as parents. Paul and Linda had three children together, and he also adopted Heather, Linda's daughter from a previous marriage. All four children have gone on to lead stable, productive lives, a tribute to the grounded, unpretentious way in which they were raised. Heather is a renowned potter whose work is sold and exhibited around the world; Mary, like Linda herself, has become a well-known photographer; Stella has made a prominent name for herself as a fashion designer; and James is a guitarist who has played on his father's albums. "I must say that is one of the things that Linda and I always said: 'Our greatest achievement is our kids,' " McCartney once told singer Chrissie Hynde for a story in USA Today Weekend. "People say that they are really good people."
Beyond that, Paul and Linda shared a passion for vegetarianism. They determined to give up meat one day after making the emotional connection between the leg of lamb sitting on their meal plates and the lambs they were watching gambol on their farm in Scotland. Along with establishing a successful line of frozen vegetarian meals, Linda became an ardent animal rights activist, a commitment that Paul shares and continues to honor.
Fame, wealth, and accomplishment did not shield McCartney from the wracking pain brought about by the death of a spouse. "I thought, 'How the hell do I deal with this?' " he told me. "For about a year, I found myself crying—in all situations, anyone I met. Anyone who came over, the minute we talked about Linda, I'd say, 'I'm sorry about this. I've got to cry.' "
But McCartney, the man who famously advised "Take a sad song and make it better," slowly began to rebuild his life. He resumed his work as a musician and songwriter, and he explored other aspects of his creativity, as well. He published Blackbird Singing (http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=43945&sourceid=0041447667&bfpid=0393020495&bfmtype=Book) (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001), a collection of his poems and lyrics, and Paintings (http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=43945&sourceid=0041447667&bfpid=0821226738&bfmtype=Book) (Bulfinch, 2000), a portfolio of the work he had done privately as a visual artist for nearly two decades.
Most important, however, he fell in love again. He first spotted Heather Mills, a model and anti-land mines activist, about a year after Linda's death at a charity event where they were both presenters. He initially contacted her about her work, but their relationship soon grew personal. McCartney then went on the sort of complex emotional journey that will be familiar to anyone who has once again sought romance after a beloved husband or wife has died. In his conversation with me in 2001, he called it "the married guilt."
"I beat myself up about that," he said about finding himself attracted to Mills. Eventually, though, he came to understand that Linda would have wanted him to be happy. "So I started going out with Heather," he recalled. "Started having a laugh, feeling good. 'Oh, my God. Am I dating? I don't believe it. I haven't done this for 30 years! Can I do it?' And it was 'Yes, you can.' I started to fall for Heather. And that was it. That reawakening brought back a lot of energy."
McCartney's new romance did not sit entirely well with his children, at least if you believe the tabloids, which have, in particular, gleefully reported feuds between Mills and Stella. Keep in mind, too, that Mills was 31 when she and McCartney met, barely older than McCartney's biological children and younger than the daughter he had adopted. Given Mills's age, the couple's engagement also raised the prospect of a new family, something that is often hard even for adult children to accept. Publicly, at least, all the principals vigorously deny any rifts, and the press seems to have let up a bit. McCartney and Mills married in Ireland on June 11, 2002, in front of 300 family and friends. And, on October 28, 2003, Mills gave birth to their daughter, Beatrice Milly—just the thing to keep McCartney young.
Indeed, McCartney has sought youthful influences in all areas of his life. In an admirable attempt to freshen up his approach to record making on Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, he collaborated with producer Nigel Godrich, who is 30 years his junior.
Godrich, who was personally recommended to McCartney by the Beatles' producer, George Martin, had earned his own reputation working with bands such as Radiohead and Travis. He proved anything but a yes man. McCartney recalled walking out of a session because Godrich dismissed one of his songs as "crap"—a word that McCartney had probably not heard spoken to his face since the breakup of the Beatles. But he checked his ego and wound up making an album that is both mature and bracingly contemporary. Chaos and Creation garnered McCartney three Grammy nominations, and Godrich was nominated for Producer of the Year.
http://www.aarpmagazine.org/entertainment/my_birthday.html
You Say It’s My Birthday?
By Anthony DeCurtis, May & June 2006
What could Paul McCartney possibly have known about being 60 when, as a teenager, he wrote one of his most famous songs, "When I'm Sixty-Four"? The Beatles later recorded the tune when McCartney was 24, and, from that youthful vantage, 64 could only seem a time of cute, dithering romance as a hedge against loneliness ("You'll be older too/And if you say the word/I could stay with you"), dead-end domesticity ("Doing the garden, digging the weeds,/Who could ask for more"), and a steady descent into mortality ("Yours sincerely, wasting away")—all with a wink and a nudge. London was swinging, and the Beatles were the avatars of a seismic youthquake. Come on—who was ever going to get old?
As it turns out, all of us. If not old, we have—the lucky ones—at least gotten older. Nearly 40 years after the release of "When I'm Sixty-Four," which appears on the Beatles' 1967 masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, many of us are only a stone's throw from that number—as is the eternally cherubic Sir Paul, who turns 64 on June 18.
Understandably, there was much about the future that McCartney could not foresee back in the halcyon days of peace and love. For one thing, he would have had a hard time imagining that he would still be playing rock 'n' roll in his 60s. In an interview I conducted with him in London in 1987 for Rolling Stone, McCartney looked back on the Beatles' early days and noted, "You see old interviews with us now, and Ringo says, 'Well, you know, I might get lucky and have a string of hairdressing salons.' That was the apex of his vision at the time. And John and I are talking nervously: 'There might be 10 years in this.' Remember, we were 18, 20, maybe, saying this. We couldn't see playing rock 'n' roll beyond 30. Of course, by the time we were 30, it was still all happening."
And today McCartney rocks on. Last year he released Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, a solo album that found him near the height of his creative powers. Many critics—including me, in a lead review for Rolling Stone—compared it favorably to McCartney, the album he put out in 1970 that essentially marked the end of the Beatles. More personally, he's in a new marriage, and less than three years ago he became a father again. So, as he approaches 64, Sir Paul is hardly "wasting away," as his song so pessimistically predicted. If anything, he's experiencing vital reinvention and growth—but not without having been served his share of sorrow and doubt along the way.
When I interviewed Paul McCartney a second time, in 2001, once again for Rolling Stone, he described the emotional devastation he suffered when his first wife, Linda, died of breast cancer in 1998. Their union was enviable by any standard, but for a celebrity marriage it was an extreme rarity, and not only because of its longevity. During their 29 years together, the couple rarely spent time apart—to the point that Paul enlisted his wife to play keyboards and sing background in his band Wings, even though she was a photographer by trade, not a musician. Linda was roundly mocked, but Paul shook off the barbs. Having Linda in Wings just made the band more fun for him.
Their greatest performance, though, was as parents. Paul and Linda had three children together, and he also adopted Heather, Linda's daughter from a previous marriage. All four children have gone on to lead stable, productive lives, a tribute to the grounded, unpretentious way in which they were raised. Heather is a renowned potter whose work is sold and exhibited around the world; Mary, like Linda herself, has become a well-known photographer; Stella has made a prominent name for herself as a fashion designer; and James is a guitarist who has played on his father's albums. "I must say that is one of the things that Linda and I always said: 'Our greatest achievement is our kids,' " McCartney once told singer Chrissie Hynde for a story in USA Today Weekend. "People say that they are really good people."
Beyond that, Paul and Linda shared a passion for vegetarianism. They determined to give up meat one day after making the emotional connection between the leg of lamb sitting on their meal plates and the lambs they were watching gambol on their farm in Scotland. Along with establishing a successful line of frozen vegetarian meals, Linda became an ardent animal rights activist, a commitment that Paul shares and continues to honor.
Fame, wealth, and accomplishment did not shield McCartney from the wracking pain brought about by the death of a spouse. "I thought, 'How the hell do I deal with this?' " he told me. "For about a year, I found myself crying—in all situations, anyone I met. Anyone who came over, the minute we talked about Linda, I'd say, 'I'm sorry about this. I've got to cry.' "
But McCartney, the man who famously advised "Take a sad song and make it better," slowly began to rebuild his life. He resumed his work as a musician and songwriter, and he explored other aspects of his creativity, as well. He published Blackbird Singing (http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=43945&sourceid=0041447667&bfpid=0393020495&bfmtype=Book) (W.W. Norton & Co., 2001), a collection of his poems and lyrics, and Paintings (http://service.bfast.com/bfast/click?bfmid=43945&sourceid=0041447667&bfpid=0821226738&bfmtype=Book) (Bulfinch, 2000), a portfolio of the work he had done privately as a visual artist for nearly two decades.
Most important, however, he fell in love again. He first spotted Heather Mills, a model and anti-land mines activist, about a year after Linda's death at a charity event where they were both presenters. He initially contacted her about her work, but their relationship soon grew personal. McCartney then went on the sort of complex emotional journey that will be familiar to anyone who has once again sought romance after a beloved husband or wife has died. In his conversation with me in 2001, he called it "the married guilt."
"I beat myself up about that," he said about finding himself attracted to Mills. Eventually, though, he came to understand that Linda would have wanted him to be happy. "So I started going out with Heather," he recalled. "Started having a laugh, feeling good. 'Oh, my God. Am I dating? I don't believe it. I haven't done this for 30 years! Can I do it?' And it was 'Yes, you can.' I started to fall for Heather. And that was it. That reawakening brought back a lot of energy."
McCartney's new romance did not sit entirely well with his children, at least if you believe the tabloids, which have, in particular, gleefully reported feuds between Mills and Stella. Keep in mind, too, that Mills was 31 when she and McCartney met, barely older than McCartney's biological children and younger than the daughter he had adopted. Given Mills's age, the couple's engagement also raised the prospect of a new family, something that is often hard even for adult children to accept. Publicly, at least, all the principals vigorously deny any rifts, and the press seems to have let up a bit. McCartney and Mills married in Ireland on June 11, 2002, in front of 300 family and friends. And, on October 28, 2003, Mills gave birth to their daughter, Beatrice Milly—just the thing to keep McCartney young.
Indeed, McCartney has sought youthful influences in all areas of his life. In an admirable attempt to freshen up his approach to record making on Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, he collaborated with producer Nigel Godrich, who is 30 years his junior.
Godrich, who was personally recommended to McCartney by the Beatles' producer, George Martin, had earned his own reputation working with bands such as Radiohead and Travis. He proved anything but a yes man. McCartney recalled walking out of a session because Godrich dismissed one of his songs as "crap"—a word that McCartney had probably not heard spoken to his face since the breakup of the Beatles. But he checked his ego and wound up making an album that is both mature and bracingly contemporary. Chaos and Creation garnered McCartney three Grammy nominations, and Godrich was nominated for Producer of the Year.