Siobhan
Apr 07, 2003, 06:17 AM
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12817634&method=full&siteid=50143
"I'M SO PROUD TO HAVE KNOWN GEORGE" Apr 7 2003
By Brian Reade
THE only song Paul McCartney sings on this world tour that is not his own is the one Frank Sinatra called the greatest love ballad ever written.
He performs Something alone, on a ukulele and, as he does, the huge bank of video screens around the stage throw up his brother Mike's informal black-and-white pictures of the song's author, George Harrison.
The poignancy of the delivery makes the hair on the back of 18,000 necks go rigid.
Although McCartney has lost people close to him since he was a young teenager, the death of George 16 months ago came as a shattering blow. "It was different from my mum's and John's and Linda's because theirs were sudden and we knew George had been very ill for a while.
"But it was very, very sad because I loved him so much," says McCartney in his Barcelona dressing-room, still choked by the loss of the life-long pal he persuaded John Lennon to let into The Beatles all those years ago.
"I'd just been through cancer with Linda and here I was going through it all over again with a mate of 50 years. He wasn't my immediate family but he almost was. He'd always felt like my little brother.
He takes a breath, focuses on a point in the distance, mutters "What a lovely boy" then carries on. "The last time I met him, he was very sick and I held his hand for four hours. As I was doing it I was thinking 'I've never held his hand before, ever. This is not what two Liverpool fellas do, no matter how well you know each other'.
"I kept thinking, 'he's going to smack me here'. But he didn't. He just stroked my hand with his thumb and I thought 'Ah, this is OK, this is life. It's tough but it's lovely. That's how it is'. I knew George before I knew any of the others and I loved that man. I'm so proud to have known him.
"Still, as sad as it was, you take the great bit, which was that last time you saw him, and that's what you remember. That and all the other lovely memories."
I ASK now that John and George have gone, whether he and Ringo ever joke with each other about who is next.
"It's not worth thinking about, is it? When your number's up, it's up. So live your life. I don't worry too much about it. I was walking down the street in London the other day and some guy said 'Eh, Paul! No, no, you shouldn't be doing this. I don't like this. Where's your minder?' He was telling me off like he was my dad.
"But I enjoy life, I always have. I go to the pictures on my own, get on buses, even in New York. People are always going on at me for using the London Underground. But I use it all the time. I just wander off.
"I prefer to live life the way it should be and not worry too much because when the great man upstairs wants you, he'll have you."
Forty years after The Beatles had their first No.1, McCartney is on the UK leg of a sell-out world tour which is smashing box office records and making him the highest-earning celebrity in the world. I ask if the man who famously wrote a parody about being 64 ever thought he'd be doing this at 60 and he shakes his head and laughs.
"When I was a kid in The Beatles, I didn't think I'd be doing this at 30. Back then nobody really lasted past their 20s.
"If you'd have said to me back then that I'd be playing for the Queen in her garden when I was 60, I might have laughed at you. But I did and I'm here still doing it and I don't feel too bad.
"As long as people are so interested they want to pay to see you, then it's cool." This 16-country tour, which arrives in Manchester on Thursday, is his first for 10 years and when it ends in Liverpool on June 1, he will have played 91 concerts, performing songs 3,276 times.
He is looking and singing like a man many years his junior and with his 35-year-old wife Heather Mills on his arm, it's clear he is enjoying a second wind.
So how old does he feel? "I don't feel any age, I never have. Those 30, 40, 50, 60 landmark birthdays never meant anything to me. I treat them all the same and it seems to work out like that. Life is really good right now, so why worry about things?
"When I was with Wings I used to worry about the shadow of The Beatles. So I wouldn't do any of their songs. Now I don't care. I just look at my whole career and choose anything I fancy doing. Which is why I'm doing 23 Beatles songs every night. It's great for everyone."
HIS lack of self-awareness, plus the talented backing group he has assembled, allow McCartney to turn in some of the best performances of his life and win the kind of reviews he would have killed for when he was with Wings.
At times, the criticism of that group was savage, particularly where the vocal performance of his first wife Linda was concerned. How did somebody feted one minute as half of the most talented songwriting team on earth cope with sudden accusations of naffness? He says: "I've learned that if you try something different, you are going to get knocked. If I had just carried on doing my Beatles stuff maybe I wouldn't have got knocked. But I wanted to see if I could do something different.
"It was hard at first with Wings, because we were a bit rough. But there was a time when The Beatles weren't very good. The difference was we were being bad in private, whereas Wings were being it in public.
"It's what happens when you take risks. I like taking risks. Half the time I don't know why I'm doing it. But I know that if The Beatles hadn't taken risks there would have been no Sergeant Pepper."
At a conservative estimate, the lad from a Liverpool council estate who left school at the first opportunity is worth £700million. Last year, when his US tour grossed £70million, no other performer earned more than him. And it is something he is immensely proud of.
"When I read about things like that I think, that's not me. Heather said to me this morning, 'I don't think of you as rich, you know.' And I said, 'I don't either.' But I am. And the best thing about it is being able to help friends and relatives with health problems.
"We just had a friend of Heather's who was stuck in an NHS hospital. She was going to be in over Christmas and I said 'Get her private'. They did the operation that night and she was home for Christmas. It sounds a bit goody-goody but that's the real buzz I get out of money."
So his massive fortune doesn't embarrass him? "Not at all. When I left school I set out to get a job and earn good money if I could. I'm no different from anyone else. Some people think making all this money is uncool. I don't. I'm trying to do what I do to the very best of my ability. I'm not embarrassed if that means I earn loads."
The last time The Beatles played live was in 1968. They played roughly a dozen songs. On this tour McCartney plays 36. But the real difference now is he can hear himself. "At the end with The Beatles we couldn't hear ourselves with all the screaming. Our sound was going through little amps and baseball speakers in these huge stadiums and it was just a joke. So we just took the Mickey."
Paul laughs as he recalls: "John would be totally pissing about on the piano, whacking his arm up and down the keyboard and we were in hysterics.
NOW we've got these gigantic speakers so no matter how loud they scream, we're going to win."
There is a sense that McCartney is returning to Britain just when we need him. With the country at war we all need cheering up and he is keen to oblige.
"We're here to lift people's spirits. We're musicians, not politicians. I'd prefer peace to war and I agree with those people who went on the marches, because there was no second resolution.
"But it is a complex issue and it's happening now. So I'm not going to say that our boys shouldn't be in there when they're laying their lives on the line. I've got relatives out there so I'm not going to say anything that would lower their morale. But yes, peace would definitely be preferable."
The Beatles were widely attributed with lifting America out of depression after John F Kennedy was assassinated and McCartney did it again last year after 9/11. They loved him for the support he showed New York and they rewarded him by breaking box office records in 21 cities.
The Yanks claimed the tour, with all those classic Fab Four numbers, reminded them of a better time. Which, when you think about it, has always been the function of The Beatles.
But this return to Britain's stadiums after 10 years is all about a revitalised McCartney plundering his untouchable back catalogue and letting rip. If you never saw The Beatles, commit crimes to get a ticket because this is as close as it will ever get.
And the highest compliment I can pay McCartney is that his performance was so mesmeric I didn't notice one thumbs-up all night.
"I'M SO PROUD TO HAVE KNOWN GEORGE" Apr 7 2003
By Brian Reade
THE only song Paul McCartney sings on this world tour that is not his own is the one Frank Sinatra called the greatest love ballad ever written.
He performs Something alone, on a ukulele and, as he does, the huge bank of video screens around the stage throw up his brother Mike's informal black-and-white pictures of the song's author, George Harrison.
The poignancy of the delivery makes the hair on the back of 18,000 necks go rigid.
Although McCartney has lost people close to him since he was a young teenager, the death of George 16 months ago came as a shattering blow. "It was different from my mum's and John's and Linda's because theirs were sudden and we knew George had been very ill for a while.
"But it was very, very sad because I loved him so much," says McCartney in his Barcelona dressing-room, still choked by the loss of the life-long pal he persuaded John Lennon to let into The Beatles all those years ago.
"I'd just been through cancer with Linda and here I was going through it all over again with a mate of 50 years. He wasn't my immediate family but he almost was. He'd always felt like my little brother.
He takes a breath, focuses on a point in the distance, mutters "What a lovely boy" then carries on. "The last time I met him, he was very sick and I held his hand for four hours. As I was doing it I was thinking 'I've never held his hand before, ever. This is not what two Liverpool fellas do, no matter how well you know each other'.
"I kept thinking, 'he's going to smack me here'. But he didn't. He just stroked my hand with his thumb and I thought 'Ah, this is OK, this is life. It's tough but it's lovely. That's how it is'. I knew George before I knew any of the others and I loved that man. I'm so proud to have known him.
"Still, as sad as it was, you take the great bit, which was that last time you saw him, and that's what you remember. That and all the other lovely memories."
I ASK now that John and George have gone, whether he and Ringo ever joke with each other about who is next.
"It's not worth thinking about, is it? When your number's up, it's up. So live your life. I don't worry too much about it. I was walking down the street in London the other day and some guy said 'Eh, Paul! No, no, you shouldn't be doing this. I don't like this. Where's your minder?' He was telling me off like he was my dad.
"But I enjoy life, I always have. I go to the pictures on my own, get on buses, even in New York. People are always going on at me for using the London Underground. But I use it all the time. I just wander off.
"I prefer to live life the way it should be and not worry too much because when the great man upstairs wants you, he'll have you."
Forty years after The Beatles had their first No.1, McCartney is on the UK leg of a sell-out world tour which is smashing box office records and making him the highest-earning celebrity in the world. I ask if the man who famously wrote a parody about being 64 ever thought he'd be doing this at 60 and he shakes his head and laughs.
"When I was a kid in The Beatles, I didn't think I'd be doing this at 30. Back then nobody really lasted past their 20s.
"If you'd have said to me back then that I'd be playing for the Queen in her garden when I was 60, I might have laughed at you. But I did and I'm here still doing it and I don't feel too bad.
"As long as people are so interested they want to pay to see you, then it's cool." This 16-country tour, which arrives in Manchester on Thursday, is his first for 10 years and when it ends in Liverpool on June 1, he will have played 91 concerts, performing songs 3,276 times.
He is looking and singing like a man many years his junior and with his 35-year-old wife Heather Mills on his arm, it's clear he is enjoying a second wind.
So how old does he feel? "I don't feel any age, I never have. Those 30, 40, 50, 60 landmark birthdays never meant anything to me. I treat them all the same and it seems to work out like that. Life is really good right now, so why worry about things?
"When I was with Wings I used to worry about the shadow of The Beatles. So I wouldn't do any of their songs. Now I don't care. I just look at my whole career and choose anything I fancy doing. Which is why I'm doing 23 Beatles songs every night. It's great for everyone."
HIS lack of self-awareness, plus the talented backing group he has assembled, allow McCartney to turn in some of the best performances of his life and win the kind of reviews he would have killed for when he was with Wings.
At times, the criticism of that group was savage, particularly where the vocal performance of his first wife Linda was concerned. How did somebody feted one minute as half of the most talented songwriting team on earth cope with sudden accusations of naffness? He says: "I've learned that if you try something different, you are going to get knocked. If I had just carried on doing my Beatles stuff maybe I wouldn't have got knocked. But I wanted to see if I could do something different.
"It was hard at first with Wings, because we were a bit rough. But there was a time when The Beatles weren't very good. The difference was we were being bad in private, whereas Wings were being it in public.
"It's what happens when you take risks. I like taking risks. Half the time I don't know why I'm doing it. But I know that if The Beatles hadn't taken risks there would have been no Sergeant Pepper."
At a conservative estimate, the lad from a Liverpool council estate who left school at the first opportunity is worth £700million. Last year, when his US tour grossed £70million, no other performer earned more than him. And it is something he is immensely proud of.
"When I read about things like that I think, that's not me. Heather said to me this morning, 'I don't think of you as rich, you know.' And I said, 'I don't either.' But I am. And the best thing about it is being able to help friends and relatives with health problems.
"We just had a friend of Heather's who was stuck in an NHS hospital. She was going to be in over Christmas and I said 'Get her private'. They did the operation that night and she was home for Christmas. It sounds a bit goody-goody but that's the real buzz I get out of money."
So his massive fortune doesn't embarrass him? "Not at all. When I left school I set out to get a job and earn good money if I could. I'm no different from anyone else. Some people think making all this money is uncool. I don't. I'm trying to do what I do to the very best of my ability. I'm not embarrassed if that means I earn loads."
The last time The Beatles played live was in 1968. They played roughly a dozen songs. On this tour McCartney plays 36. But the real difference now is he can hear himself. "At the end with The Beatles we couldn't hear ourselves with all the screaming. Our sound was going through little amps and baseball speakers in these huge stadiums and it was just a joke. So we just took the Mickey."
Paul laughs as he recalls: "John would be totally pissing about on the piano, whacking his arm up and down the keyboard and we were in hysterics.
NOW we've got these gigantic speakers so no matter how loud they scream, we're going to win."
There is a sense that McCartney is returning to Britain just when we need him. With the country at war we all need cheering up and he is keen to oblige.
"We're here to lift people's spirits. We're musicians, not politicians. I'd prefer peace to war and I agree with those people who went on the marches, because there was no second resolution.
"But it is a complex issue and it's happening now. So I'm not going to say that our boys shouldn't be in there when they're laying their lives on the line. I've got relatives out there so I'm not going to say anything that would lower their morale. But yes, peace would definitely be preferable."
The Beatles were widely attributed with lifting America out of depression after John F Kennedy was assassinated and McCartney did it again last year after 9/11. They loved him for the support he showed New York and they rewarded him by breaking box office records in 21 cities.
The Yanks claimed the tour, with all those classic Fab Four numbers, reminded them of a better time. Which, when you think about it, has always been the function of The Beatles.
But this return to Britain's stadiums after 10 years is all about a revitalised McCartney plundering his untouchable back catalogue and letting rip. If you never saw The Beatles, commit crimes to get a ticket because this is as close as it will ever get.
And the highest compliment I can pay McCartney is that his performance was so mesmeric I didn't notice one thumbs-up all night.