Part 2
PAUL: Yes.
LINDA: A lot of songs that people thought you wrote, he probably wrote; and I'm sure there are a lot of songs people thought John wrote that were really written by you.
PAUL: That's right. It was more gray than anyone knew.
LINDA: Oh, absolutely!
PAUL: I mean, I saw a recent account that put George down for his contributions to the Beatles. But the real point is, there are only four people who knew what the Beatles were about anyway. Nobody else was in that car with us. The chauffeur's window was closed, and there were just four of us in the back of that car, laughing hysterically. We knew what we were laughing at; nobody else can ever know what it was about . . . I doubt if even we know, in truth.
PLAYBOY: Even now, do you feel defensive if someone attacks one of the four of you?
PAUL: Sure. I mean, you don't just dismiss George like that! There's a hell of a lot more to him than that! And Ringo. The truth of this kind of question depends on where you're looking: on the surface or below the surface. On the surface, Ringo was just some drummer. But there was a hell of a lot more to him than that. For instance, there wouldn't have been A Hard Day's Night without him. He had this kind of thing where he moved phrases around. My daughters have it, too. They just make up better phrases. Some of my kids have got some brains. "First of a ball," the girls say, instead of "First of all." I like that, because lyricists play with words.
LINDA: Ringo also said, "Eight days a week."
PAUL: Yeah, he said it as though he were an overworked chauffeur. In heavy accent "Eight days a week." Laughter When we heard it, we said, "Really? Bing! Got it!" [Laughs] Another of his was "Tomorrow never knows." He used to say, "Well, tomorrow never knows." And he'd say it for real. He meant it. But all that sounds a bit trivial there. That wasn't all he did. That was just the tip of the iceberg.
LINDA: But you said it. If only the four of you know, everybody else just makes theories. Just as people theorize about life. Who knows about life?
PLAYBOY: Then you agree that your whole was greater than the sum of its parts?
PAUL: Yeah. Yes. Definitely. Oh, yeah.
PLAYBOY: Most performers who have been part of a team continue to insist that their solo work is equal to their teamwork.
PAUL: When the four of us got together, we were definitely better than the four of us individually. One of the things we had going for us was that we'd been together a long time. It made us very tight, like family, almost, so we were able to read one another. That made us good. It was only really toward the very end, when business started to interfere. . . .
PLAYBOY: But to stay with the early days for a bit, did your father object to your joining the group?
PAUL: He wanted me to have a career more than anything. "It's all very well to play in a group," he'd say, "but you have to have a trade to fall back on." That's what he used to say. He was just an average Jim, a cotton salesman, no great shakes; left school at 13 but was very intelligent. He used to do crosswords to increase his word power. He taught us an appreciation of common sense, which is what you found a lot of in Liverpool. I've been right around the world a few times, to all its little pockets; and, in truth, I'd swear to God I've never met any people more soulful, more intelligent, more kind, more filled with common sense than the people I came from in Liverpool. I'm not putting Linda's people down or anything like that
LINDA: No, of course not!
PAUL: But the type of people that I came from, I never saw better! In the whole of the world! I mean, the Presidents, the prime minister, I never met anyone half as nice as some of the people I know from Liverpool who are nothing, who do nothing. They're not important or famous. But they are smart, like my dad was smart. I mean, people who can just cut through problems like a hot knife through butter. The kind of people you need in life. Salt of the earth.
PLAYBOY: When you say something like that, people wonder if you're being insincere. You're a multimillionaire and world-famous, yet you work so hard at being ordinary, at preaching normalcy.
PAUL: No, I don't work at being ordinary People do say that: "Oh, he's down to earth, he's too good to be true. It can't be true!" And yet the fact is that being ordinary is very important to me. I see it in millions of other people. There's a new motorcycle champion who was just on the telly. He's the same. He's not ordinary, he's a champion; but he has ordinary values, he keeps those values. There's an appreciation of common sense. It's really quite rational, my ordinariness. It's not contrived at all. It is actually my answer to the question, What is the best way to be? I think ordinary.
LINDA: Well, it's fun.
PAUL: We can be really flash and have a Rolls-Royce for each finger, but I just don't get anything off that! There's nothing for me at all! It leaves me cold. Occasionally, I get a suit or some nice jacket or something, but I just cannot get into this stuff.
PLAYBOY: Surely, you wealth has had some impact on those ordinary values.
PAUL: Well, when you first get money, you buy all these things so no one thinks you're mean, and you spread it around. You get a chauffeur and you find yourself thrown around the back of this car and you think Goddamn it, I was happier when I had my own little car! I could drive myself! This is stupid! You find yourself trying to tune in a television in the back of this bloody thing, balancing a glass of champagne, and you think, This is hell! I hate this! You know, I've had more headaches off those tellies in the back of limousines. I just decided to give up all of that crap. I mean, it is just insane! I can't stand chauffeurs, people who live in. They take over your lives. I can't live like that.
PLAYBOY: Do you feel like that, too, Linda?
LINDA: I'm worse. I'm horrible. I cannot get happy from material things. They just upset me. When we were touring America, we stayed in a very lavish house that we rented, and I felt very empty and very lonely.
PAUL: Linda's naturally ordinary. It doesn't always come over when she's talking to someone, being interviewed, but Linda's at her best when she's doing you a meal at home. That's when you see Linda. She cooks, she looks after the kids and she's there. We've got one cleaning lady; that's all we've got. If the kids are sick, there won't be a nurse looking after them; it will be Linda who is there. It's funny, actually, because I'm known as being stingy. When I take my kids to the seaside and they come up and say, "Dad, can we have some money to play on the machines?" I'll give them a reasonable amount of money, but I won't give them a lot. Linda's got tales of parents she knew in the States who used to pay their kids off--"Anything you want, kid." You know, $ 50 or anything. But the parents never looked after them. The money was their surrogate. It all makes me think, Sod it, I'll be the parent. I'll give them only as much as I figure they can handle.
PLAYBOY: That brings up an interesting question: Does too much emphasis on day-to-day life, on domesticity, dull the edge in a composer? It's commonly felt that your earlier stuff had more bite--and meat--than your more recent music.
PAUL: I can see that argument. I can see that if you have a domestic situation, let's say, it's less likely that you're going to hear a lot of new music throughout an evening--as apposed to when you're young and single and music is all you fill your time with. In my case, maybe the kids want to watch a TV show or I want to just sit or whatever. So I think a domestic situation can change you and your attitudes. I suppose if you did get a bit content, then you might not write savage lyrics and stuff. But I don't know. I don't really believe all that. I hate formulas of any kind.
PLAYBOY: Despite your own father's advice about getting a trade, it was he who encouraged you to play music. Did he ever write music or lyrics himself?
PAUL: He wrote one song. He was in a band for quite a few years. It wasn't a very successful band. They used to have to change their name from gig to gig. They weren't invited back otherwise. But eventually, he became a bit of a pop star in his own right. . . . Strange we should be talking about it, because my brother's researched our early family history and asked all the aunties about what went on. He found a letter from a fella who said he used to be in love with my mum. It's a long story, but--to cut it short--he said that he had really fancied my mum, and he took her out for a long time. Then he suddenly twigged that she'd been getting him to take her around to dances, and he wondered why. They were going to joints, and she wasn't that kind of a girl. It turned out that that was where my father was playing! She was following him round, as a fan. It made me think, God, that's where I get it all from.
LINDA: You know, I didn't realize until now that he was as involved with music as he was.
PAUL: Which brings us back to your question. Did my dad ever write anything? Well, he used to have this one song, which he'd play over and over on the piano. It was just a tune; there were no words to it. I actually remember him, when I was a real little kid, saying, "Can anyone think of any words to this?" We all did try for a while; it was like a challenge. Well, years later, I recorded it with Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer in Nashville. We called ourselves the Country Hams, and it was a song called Walking in the Park with Eloise. I told my dad, "You're going to get all the royalties. You wrote it and we're going to publish it for you and record it, so you'll get the checks." And he said, "I didn't write it, son." I thought, Oh, God, what? He said, "I made it up, but I didn't write it." He meant he couldn't notate; he couldn't actually write the tune down. And, of course, that's like me. I can't write music. I just make 'em up, too.
PLAYBOY: Is "just making up" a song the thing that fulfills you most?
PAUL: Yes, nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music.
Paul leaves Linda and the interviewer alone.
LINDA: I'd love for Paul to compose more. All these business problems taking up his time! If he were only left to write great songs and play with good musicians! I think he has such soul for writing and is such a great singer . . . I don't think people realize what a great musician Paul is.
PLAYBOY: Most people probably do.
LINDA: You think so? I think they feel he's just a cute face. He's so good that I would really like to see him expand musically. That's what I see. It's this business stuff. . . . I hate business. Give me a lump of bread and a bit of lettuce in the garden, and forget the rest.
Paul returns.
PLAYBOY: Paul, when you and John were still hungry, you'd say to yourselves before composing a song, "Let's write a car. Let's write a house."
PAUL: Yeah. "Let's write a swimming pool." PLAYBOY: What do you say now? Is there anything left for you to want? Isn't something important gone?
PAUL: Yes. I think greed is gone. You know, the hunger. You're right: It probably is good for a greyhound to be lean and toughened up. It will probably run faster.
LINDA: But Picasso wasn't hungry.
PAUL: Exactly. That's what I was saying about formulas. It's not always that important to be hungry, actually. I think it's just one of those artistic theories, as Linda says. Picasso wasn't hungry, and there are a lot of artists who haven't lost anything to domesticity. In my case, it probably did happen. When I was not at all domestic, and clubbing it and knocking around and boozing a lot and whatever in the Sixties, it probably did expose me to more and leave me with more needs to be fulfilled which you use songwriting for. Songwriting's like the thumb in the mouth. The more crises you have, the more material you have to work on, I suppose.
But then again, I don't know if it's true! I mean, we'd really have to decide which song we're going to pick on. If we're going to pick on Yesterday, well, let's see, I can't remember any crisis surrounding that one. So it may not be true at all. I think that I could easily turn around and be more content and have less edge and write something really great.
PLAYBOY: You're obviously ambivalent about the subject.
PAUL: For me, the truth of this domesticity thing is confused. In my case, it wasn't just domesticity that changed me. It was domesticity, plus the end of the Beatles. So you can see why I would begin to believe that domesticity equals lack of bite. I think it's actually lack of Beatles that equals lack of bite, rather than just domesticity. The lack of great sounding boards like John, Ringo, George to actually talk to about the music. Having three other major talents around . . . I think that had quite a bit to do with it.
PLAYBOY: You seem to be in a remarkably frank frame of mind. Even though it's the most thoroughly discussed breakup in musical history, we don't think we've heard it straight from you, Paul: Did you or didn't you want the Beatles to continue?
PAUL: As far as I was concerned, yeah, I would have liked the Beatles never to have broken up. I wanted to get us back on the road doing small places, then move up to our previous form and then go and play. Just make music, and whatever else there was would be secondary. But it was John who didn't want to. He had told Allen Klein the new manager he and Yoko had picked late one night that he didn't want to continue.
LINDA: And Allen said to John, "Don't tell the others." . . . I don't know if we dare tell this.
PAUL: Yeah, I don't know how much of this we're allowed to say--but Allen said, "Don't tell them until after we sign your new Capitol Records deal."
LINDA: I don't know if we're allowed...
PAUL: It's the truth, folks.
LINDA: It's the truth.
PAUL: Even if it can't be said, we'll say it. It's the truth. So it was the very next morning that I was trying to say, "Let's get back together, guys, and play the small clubs and. .. ." That's when John said
LINDA: His exact words were "I think you're daft."
PAUL: And he said, "I wasn't going to tell you until after I signed the Capitol thinkg, but I'm leaving the group." And that was really it. The cat amongst the pigeons.
LINDA: But what also happened, after the shock wore off, was that everybody agreed to keep the decision to break up quiet.
PAUL: We weren't going to say anything about it for months, for business reasons. But the really hurtful thing to me was that John was really not going to tell us. I think he was heavily under the influence of Allen Klein. And Klein, so I heard, had said to John--the first time anyone had said it--"What does Yoko want?" So since Yoko liked Klein because he was for giving Yoko anything she wanted, he was the man for John. That's my theory on how it happened.
PLAYBOY: But it's also been said that you got your revenge by giving out the news first, even though you'd all decided to sit on it for a while.
PAUL: Two or three months later, when I was about to release the solo album I'd been working on, one of my guys said to me, "What about the press?" All of us were still in shock over John's news, and I said, "I can't deal with the press; I hate all those Beatles questions." So he said, "Then why don't you just answer some questions from me and we'll do a handout for the press." I said fine. So he asked some stilted questions and I gave some stilted answers that included an announcement that we'd split up.
PLAYBOY: It still seems a bit calculated and cold on your part.
PAUL: It was going to be an insert in the album. But when it was printed as news, it looked very cold, yes, even crazy. Because it was just me answering a questionnaire. A bit weird. And, yes, John was hurt by that.
LINDA: Let me just say that John had made it clear that he wanted to be the one to announce the split, since it was his idea.
PAUL: He wanted to be first. But I didn't realize it would hurt him that much or that it mattered who was first.
PLAYBOY: What John said later was that he found it hard to forgive you for using the split as a publicity stunt for your first solo record.
PAUL: I figured it was about time we told the truth. It was stupid, OK, but I thought someone ought to say something. I didn't like to keep lying to people. It was a conscience thing with me.
LINDA: It's madness, when you think of it--who got to tell first.
PLAYBOY: Aside from who did what, how did the breakup affect you emotionally?
PAUL: Truth is, I couldn't handle it for a while.
PLAYBOY: Why? Didn't you see it coming?
PAUL: I'd never actually gone that far in my own mind. Our manager, Neil Aspinall , had to read the official wording dissolving the partnership. He was supposed to say it aloud to us in a deadly serious voice and he couldn't do it. He did a Nixon wobble. His voice went. And we were all suddenly aware of a sort of physical consequence of what had been going on. I thought, Oh, God, we really have broken up the Beatles. Oh, shit.
PLAYBOY: What happened then?
PAUL: Linda really had a tough time. I didn't make it easy for her.
LINDA: I was dreaming through the whole thing.
PAUL: I was impossible. I don't know how anyone could have lived with me. For the first time in my life, I was on the scrap heap, in my own eyes. An unemployed worker might have said, "Hey, you still have the money. That's not as bad as we have it." But to me, it didn't have anything to do with money. It was just the feeling, the terrible disappointment of not being of any use to anyone anymore. It was a barreling, empty feeling that just rolled across my soul, and it was . . . I'd never experienced it before. Drugs had shown me little bits here and there--they had rolled across the carpet once or twice, but I had been able to get them out of my mind. In this case, the end of the Beatles, I really was done in for the first time in my life. Until then, I really was a kind of cocky sod. It was the first time I'd had a major blow to my confidence. When my mother died, I don't think my confidence suffered. It had been a terrible blow, but I didn't feel it was my fault. It was bad on Linda. She had to deal with this guy who didn't particularly want to get out of bed and, if he did, wanted to go back to bed pretty soon after. He wanted to drink earlier and earlier each day and didn't really see the point in shaving, because where was he going? And I was generally pretty morbid.
LINDA: Confidence is the word. It really shattered your confidence.
PAUL: There was no danger of suicide or anything; it wasn't that bad. . . . Let's say I wouldn't have liked to live with me. So I don't know how Linda stuck it out.
PLAYBOY: How did you cope with him, Linda?
PAUL: Own up, now; come on, own up.
LINDA: It was frightening beyond belief. But I'm not a person who would give up. I wouldn't think, Oh, well, this is it. But it surprised me, because--
PAUL: Mind you, a lot of things were surprising you around that time.
LINDA: Oh, God! I was the most surprised person!
PAUL: She'd come over in the early days and see a photo of me up on my wall--a magazine cover or something--and she'd say, "Oh, God, I didn't think you'd even seen that."
LINDA: I thought the Beatles were above all that. They wouldn't look at their own press clippings, because they were such a buzz. I was surprised.
PAUL: But we were real. I, unfortunately, had to break that news to her.
LINDA: The image we Americans had of the Beatles and their music was so positive and cheery, pointing out that life is so ridiculous that we might as well laugh about it. But I never actually thought there were any problems that could happen to these people, these Beatles. So for me, the whole thing after the breakup was unreal. I was doing my little trip through life, you know: Here I am in England and oh, really? It was all happening so fast that I just kept going.