- 2 months ago
The legendary musician meets NME at Abbey Road Studios to discuss his new album ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ and look back on memories of the Fab Four
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00:00They show you the song, and I start thinking, I'm playing with the Stones, and I'm well chuffed.
00:07I mean, I think you could have been a bit blasey and go, yeah, okay, you know, so what?
00:12But for me, it wasn't, it went the other way.
00:14It was like, wow, there's Mick, oh, there's Keith, oh, there's Ronnie.
00:25Hi, I'm Rhianne Daly, and today I'm joined by Paul McCartney for the Latest in Enemies in Conversation video series.
00:31How are you today, Paul?
00:33I'm good, thank you very much.
00:35I'm Paul McCartney, and I don't work for the Enemies.
00:38You don't, unfortunately not.
00:40No, you do your own thing.
00:42We are here in Studio 2 at Abbey Road today, which is a place where you recorded some of your
00:48new album, little parts of it.
00:50Also a place that you have a lot of history.
00:52What is it like to come back here and come back here with new music?
00:57It's always great for me to come back here because just so many memories, you know.
01:03Coming in that door over there, which was the tradesman's entrance,
01:09and gradually working our way up into the control room, that was a big, you know, moment.
01:15Yeah, but through the years, you know, there's so many memories that it's great.
01:23It's very nice, you know.
01:24I can always sort of think, oh, yeah, I remember doing the vocal, John doing the vocal on Girl,
01:29or I remember me doing a Love Me Too line, and da-da-da-da-da, whatever, you know.
01:35There's always little specific things of the stuff we did.
01:42So many memories, yeah.
01:44And this album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, it's looking back at a period of your life
01:48where it's like your youth, growing up in Liverpool, the early years of being friends with the other Beatles.
01:53Why did you want to go and write about that period at this point in your life?
01:57Well, you know, I didn't think I was doing that,
02:01but once I sort of looked at all the songs I'd recorded for this album,
02:05a lot of them are backward-looking.
02:08But then I thought, well, I mean, what else is there?
02:14You're going to look at a year ago and talk about that.
02:19You're going to look at a love you had,
02:24or you're going to look at, you know, your youth, your school, growing up, or whatever.
02:30It's so rich, that field of information,
02:36that I think a lot of people write about that.
02:39So I do.
02:41And I suppose, you know, maybe I'm at a kind of sentimental point in my life
02:48when I think of things like Liverpool.
02:51Because a lot of my memories will include John and George,
02:54who, the fact that they're not with us anymore,
02:58makes it even more emotional to be here
03:01and to think about them in songs.
03:05So it is more emotional than it might have been had they been here.
03:10Yeah.
03:11When you're writing about John and George,
03:12do you feel kind of a sense of responsibility, I guess,
03:15to honour them in the right way
03:16and kind of represent them as they were to you?
03:21I suppose so.
03:22I never think of it like that.
03:25But I just think, I mean, there's, in one of the songs,
03:31Days We Left Behind, there's, we talk, I talk about,
03:36we met at Fortlin Road, which is where I used to live in Liverpool.
03:41And we wrote a secret code to never be spoken, la, la, la.
03:45So, yeah, I don't feel like I have to be respectful.
03:50He's just a mate.
03:51He's just this guy who I met, and we did stuff together.
03:56We wrote songs together.
03:59So I don't feel like a sense of responsibility.
04:03I hope it is responsible, you know,
04:07and I think the thing is I have very good memories
04:11of the guys with John and George,
04:15even though towards the end of The Beatles,
04:18John was slagging me off a lot.
04:19Yeah.
04:22At the time, it was very hurtful.
04:24It was like sticking little daggers in me, you know.
04:26It was like, ooh.
04:29And even, it was just annoying,
04:31because you thought, oh, I've got to answer him back.
04:33What am I going to do, you know?
04:36So that was just annoying.
04:37But I suddenly realised, you know, wait a minute.
04:40This is John.
04:42This is the guy I've known since I was 16.
04:47That's what he does.
04:48You know, if he doesn't like someone or something they did,
04:52he'll come back at it.
04:54So I thought, oh, that's okay then.
04:56That's how he was, you know.
05:00So it didn't sting so much once I realised it was just John being John.
05:05Yeah.
05:05And there's a little water under the bridge now as well.
05:07You guys made up before he died as well.
05:09Yeah, that was so important to me.
05:12I was lucky.
05:14Because, you know, we'd been separated because of the business troubles and stuff.
05:23And John had eventually come round to my way of thinking
05:26that the guy that they wanted to bring in was a crook.
05:31And I'd suffered because they all thought I was the nutter.
05:37I was the crook.
05:40And so when it turned out that I was right,
05:43it was good to hear John sort of say,
05:45I think Paul might have been right.
05:48Begrudgingly, you know, he wasn't one to say,
05:50yeah, you know what Paul was talking about.
05:52He'd be like, yeah, he was right.
05:54But, yeah, so that made it much better to think that
06:00even though it was a painful period,
06:03we kind of had to go through it
06:05or someone would have robbed us.
06:08There's a lot of memory songs on this album, but good memories.
06:12One of the songs is Down South, which is about you hitchhiking with George.
06:15You were saying earlier in the fan listening event that you did
06:19that you can't remember who was suggesting the hitchhiking,
06:22but you think it was probably you out of the three of you.
06:25Is that because you were kind of the more adventurous, more rebellious one?
06:28Why would you think that you were the one who was doing that?
06:30I think that's just my character is to be a bit more of a planner, you know,
06:40and I would just think, wow, what a good idea.
06:43And so I'd float it to the other and sort of say to George,
06:47what do you think?
06:47You know, we could go on a cheap holiday because you didn't have much money.
06:53So, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was me.
06:57And then I went on a couple of hitchhiking trips with George, which were great.
07:03And they're very bonding.
07:05So that was before the Beatles.
07:07So when we became the Beatles, we knew we had those memories already in common.
07:15And then when John was 21, I think I was 19,
07:21John was 21 and he got this amazing 21st birthday present of 100 pounds
07:26from his rich uncle in Scotland.
07:32And so we said, what are we going to do?
07:34So I said, well, we can hitchhike and then you can spend the money as we go, you know.
07:41So we did.
07:42We were going to go to Spain, but we got as far as Paris.
07:45Loved Paris and spent everything in Paris.
07:48Yeah, that's still quite far to get.
07:49It was good, yeah.
07:51But again, it was bonding, you know.
07:53It was getting to know you.
07:56Yeah.
07:57Yeah.
07:58Someone asked you who you have a very strong bond with on this album
08:00is obviously Ringo, who is drumming and singing on Home To Us.
08:04Which is a song about growing up in Liverpool.
08:06That was like for you guys back then.
08:09Why did you want him not just drumming, but also singing,
08:11singing the whole way through the song on this one?
08:14Well, I originally kind of written it for him.
08:17Because I knew he had done this drumming for Andrew Watt.
08:23And I knew nothing was being done with it.
08:26So I thought, when I listened to it, I thought, oh, it's good.
08:29It's nice drumming, you know.
08:31So I thought maybe we should do a song about that.
08:34So I wrote it specially with Ringo in mind.
08:37And so, you know, even though it was rough, it was home to us.
08:43And I like to think that a lot of people can identify with that.
08:48A lot of people, you know, look back on their childhood and think,
08:51we didn't have much.
08:54Particularly my generation.
08:56Because it was, you know, right after World War II.
09:01So I like to think that even though we didn't have much, we loved it.
09:07We didn't know any better.
09:10So, and this place was home to us.
09:14Liverpool in my case and Ringo's case.
09:17You have played with Ringo on stage a few times in recent years,
09:20including at the O2 at Christmas, I think in 2024.
09:24What's it like when you guys get back on stage together
09:27and are able to perform for a few songs again?
09:29It's great.
09:31It's really lovely, you know.
09:34Because the reason Ringo was in the group
09:37was that he was depping for our drummer at the time
09:43who couldn't make this engagement.
09:46So Ringo sat in and the three of us,
09:51me, John and George, were up front of the stage.
09:54Ringo was behind us.
09:55And I remember when we kicked in,
10:00all looking at each other and going,
10:02wow, this is different.
10:05You know, obviously his style was different from Pete Best,
10:08who was our first drummer,
10:10well, our other drummer.
10:11And, but there was just something that gelled with Ringo.
10:16And it was very special.
10:19So nowadays when he comes on stage,
10:24we have to do something that's not got a big complicated arrangement
10:28because he's normally just coming up for a laugh kind of thing.
10:31And so we often do helter-skelter,
10:34which is just a big sort of rocking thing, you know.
10:37And we listen back to the recording.
10:41And there's my drummer, Abe,
10:44who always plays it great.
10:46But then this one night,
10:48Ringo gets in and plays with Abe.
10:50And it's just, it's very special, you know,
10:55because he was the original drummer on it.
10:57And also because it's Ringo.
11:00He's got a great style.
11:02Yeah.
11:02And, you know, what he brings to a song is interesting,
11:09to say the least.
11:11What do you think that he brought to Home to Us then?
11:14Brought the drumming, all the drum track.
11:18And I think,
11:21I like the idea that the two of us are duetting.
11:24Yeah.
11:25Because none of us ever did that in the Beatles.
11:28You never got John and George doing a special duet.
11:33And so, yeah,
11:34so the idea that now,
11:36after all these years,
11:38we've suddenly done a song that's got me singing the vocal
11:42and Ringo singing the vocal, sharing the vocal.
11:44It's really nice.
11:46You know, it's a first.
11:48And I think it kind of works
11:50because it's talking about how Liverpool was home to us.
11:55And Ringo is from a really rough area called the Dingle.
12:00And, you know, he tells stories.
12:03He would go to work and then coming home,
12:07he would have to go past like a mob of guys on the corner,
12:11like Teddy Boys, you know,
12:13go past these Teds.
12:15And he was kind of scared
12:18because you could get beaten up, you know.
12:20So, he came from that rough area
12:24but ended up, there was so much goodness.
12:29I think family mainly, all his aunties,
12:33all the sing songs that happened in those days, you know.
12:37It was just the way,
12:38because nobody had all the iPads and phones and everything, you know.
12:44So, if you wanted to have a sing song,
12:46you had to just have a piano or something,
12:48somebody could play it.
12:49And it was different.
12:50It was very nice.
12:52In fact, it's funny,
12:53we did some gigs recently in L.A.
12:57and at a small club called The Fonda.
13:02And we outlawed phones.
13:06Because, you know, normally people are just not watching your show,
13:09they're just holding their phones up.
13:10That's all you can see now.
13:11And they'll watch it when they get home.
13:13But, they have a service over there now called Yonder.
13:17Yeah.
13:18Yonder Pouch.
13:20And they put your phones away.
13:22But if it's an emergency, you can unlock them and stuff.
13:25But it means that nobody's standing in the audience.
13:28They're all just holding phones up.
13:31They're not doing that.
13:32They're all just watching you.
13:34And I'm watching them.
13:35So, it's like an old gig.
13:37It's like how everyone used to play.
13:39Yeah.
13:39And it's really special.
13:41Yeah.
13:42It's a great connection.
13:44How were those Fonda gigs for you?
13:46Obviously, that's a very small venue for you to be playing.
13:48Yeah.
13:49It was, I think it was 600 or 700 people.
13:52They were great.
13:53It was really nice to be playing.
13:57Without the phones, it made it very special.
14:00And then, all the people could be full on with their attention.
14:06And also, because it was a small gig, you could chat to them from the stage.
14:13You know, you'd hear somebody say, what?
14:15What did you say?
14:16And, you know, it made for a great little atmosphere.
14:19Yeah.
14:20Is that something you miss when you're doing bigger venues like the O2 or like Headline
14:23and Glastonbury, for instance?
14:24There really so much, you know, a little bit, but it's much harder.
14:28Yeah.
14:28But in those little gigs, you really get, you can start throwing out requests.
14:33You go, oh, yeah, we do that one.
14:36Are you someone who's still kind of prepared them for, like, being quite agile with the
14:40set list and not sticking to a run of pre-deserved songs?
14:44Yeah.
14:45You know, you can switch it up a little bit.
14:51So, they're very, very nice to do those gigs.
14:55And it's a special excitement for you and for the audience.
14:59It really lifts the vibe in the room.
15:03And so, you feel like you play better and you don't care as much.
15:10So, it's taking you back to why you got into music in the first place.
15:15It's just the joy of playing, you know.
15:18Yeah.
15:19You said earlier in the fan event that if you didn't have to, you would still be playing,
15:23you would still be touring every day.
15:25Can we still expect kind of a lot more music, a lot more tours from you then in the years
15:30to come?
15:31I don't know.
15:32I never know, you know.
15:33I remember when I was 50 years old, my manager at the time said, well, so you're thinking
15:40of retiring, are you?
15:41I went, uh, I don't think so.
15:44But he obviously thought 50, which, you know, I get it.
15:48Yeah.
15:48Because we thought, you know, 30 was like really old, because we were 20.
15:54Yeah.
15:55You know, so 30 was like, no, that would be unseemly.
15:58But it came and it went and people were still playing, you know.
16:02And audiences like the music, so if the music is from that period, they don't get to hear it live
16:12any other way.
16:13So you've got to hear Neil Young live to get the whole feel of Neil.
16:20The Neil feel.
16:23And, you know, same with a lot of bands, the Stones, Eagles.
16:31There's nothing like it.
16:32You mentioned the Stones there.
16:34Just before I came in the room, it was announced that they're releasing their new album soon with you on
16:38it,
16:38which is your second time playing on a Stones album in the last few years.
16:42What can you tell me about working with them on the last record and on this record?
16:46Well, it was all one day.
16:48And these are two tracks over two albums.
16:52But it was really exciting because I normally don't play as a session guy.
16:58And it's really nice to just show up at a studio with your bass and just say, right, where do
17:06you want me?
17:07Where do I plug in?
17:08Whatever.
17:10And you start playing and they show you the song.
17:14And I start thinking, I'm playing with the Stones.
17:18And I'm well chuffed.
17:20You know, because you, I mean, I think you could have been a bit blasey and go, yeah, okay, you
17:25know, so what?
17:27But for me, it wasn't, it went the other way.
17:29It was like, wow, there's Mick.
17:31Oh, there's Keith.
17:33Oh, there's Ronnie.
17:35And it was exciting.
17:37It was really good.
17:38And the great thing is all I had to do was play bass and not make mistakes.
17:43So it was good.
17:44I was able to just concentrate on my bass part.
17:48At the same time, though, watch them.
17:52Watch Keith working out.
17:53On the new album, I think the track is called Covered in You that I played on.
17:59And so I could hear Keith, as we did various takes, working his lick out, working his thing that ended
18:09up on the album.
18:10And Ronnie working his solo out, Mick, working the vocal out.
18:16So, yeah, I went home that day and I'm saying to everyone, I just played with the Stones.
18:21You know, it was good.
18:25I was glad I wasn't blasé about it and just, you know, thinking, yeah, so what?
18:29Yeah.
18:30I was glad that it really, it was really exciting.
18:35You know, it's not everyone plays with the Stones.
18:37No, exactly.
18:38Very special.
18:39And the interesting thing is, because they're the Stones, you've got to be quite careful.
18:46You can't start doing sort of, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
18:50It's like, no, that's not the Stones.
18:52So you've got to be, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, whatever the groove was, you
18:56know.
18:57You've got to keep it quite simple and let them be the record.
19:03Yeah.
19:03I'm just the bass player.
19:04I enjoyed it.
19:06Yeah.
19:06It's very nice that you're still excited at this point in your career about doing stuff like that.
19:10What would you say gives you creative satisfaction these days?
19:13I think audiences, you know, is a great satisfaction.
19:19Creative satisfaction is just writing a song.
19:22It's still the same old satisfaction that it was.
19:28There's something magical about it.
19:30And, you know, I often think I'd never set out to be like a singer, songwriter person.
19:38You know, when I was at school, you know, I thought the only thing left for me would be a
19:44teacher.
19:45Because I didn't have massive qualifications.
19:50Unfortunately, that means you want to be a teacher.
19:52But I got in the band, you know, and it just led me to this.
20:00So, yeah.
20:02So the satisfaction is just being able to write a song.
20:08And, you know, if you pull it off, that's the same satisfaction that it always was.
20:15Some of them, you pull them off better than others.
20:20But it's still a great thing, you know.
20:22It's still a great achievement to sit down with, let's say, my guitar.
20:27And there's nothing there.
20:29And I'm just noodling around.
20:31And suddenly, maybe after three or four hours, I've got a song.
20:36And I know how it goes.
20:37And I've written the lyrics down.
20:40And it's like a real achievement.
20:42You know, of course it is.
20:44You know, it's...
20:46So that still is a magic feeling for me, that.
20:52So, yeah, I think that's the creative buzz still.
20:58And hopefully always will be.
21:00Hopefully.
21:00Hopefully we get to hear a lot more songs from you to come.
21:03I think that is sadly all of our time.
21:05But thank you so much for talking to me today, Paul.
21:08It's a pleasure.
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