Paul McCartney looks back on his career in exclusive excerpts from the podcast “ Paul McCartney: A Life in Lyrics “.
Since its launch last month, the podcast “ Paul McCartney: A Life in Lyrics ” allowed the artist to discuss the stories behind the songs he recorded with the Beatles and Wings, as well as as a solo artist. In addition to dissecting the lyrics, he also touched on some of the interesting mysteries that surrounded his life. In upcoming episodes (which will be broadcast on Wednesdays by iHeartPodcasts and Pushkin Industries and can be viewed here), McCartney will delve into the history of the Beatles for some interesting anecdotes.
In the episode dedicated to his solo title “ Here Today », he talks about his first meeting with John Lennon. The song, which appears on his album Tug of War from 1982 (his first after Lennon’s death) imagines a dialogue between the two of them. Chatting with podcast host Paul Muldoon (who collaborated with McCartney on the book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present), McCartney recalled that Lennon immediately struck him as his counterpart when they first met.
“ The first time I saw John Lennon, he got on the bus… He was a slightly older guy with a kind of rocker hairstyle, lots of wax, black jacket, sideburnssays McCartney. And I remember thinking, “Well, he’s a cool guy. No idea who he is.” And what happened was when I was talking to people and they asked me, “What are your hobbies? What do you like to do?”, inevitably, I would say: “I wrote a few songs”. And they would say “Oh,” and then the conversation would move on. But I met John, (and) we chatted, and I said “I wrote a few songs”. He replied: “Me too”. Everything stopped. Then we said, “Let me listen to what you did and I’ll show you what I did.” That’s how we started dating. I think I was probably the first person he met to tell him that. This is how our relationship began. We decided to meet up, normally at my house, and my father always left his pipe in the drawer, so we would have tea, fill the pipe with it and smoke it. »
In another episode dedicated to “ Helter Skelter ,” which comes out Dec. 13, McCartney discussed some of the winks and surprises that the Beatles scattered throughout their discography, including some that were revealed when listeners played their records backwards. “ We added little things, explains McCartney. “ These things were for fun. It was so as not to be bored. So when we heard the Beach Boys sing ‘La la la la’, we were like “That would be great to do…” ‘dit dit dit dit’, which on the session (Girl), became ‘tit tit tit tit’ (meaning “tit” in English). We were giggling like schoolchildren and we were really happy. »
“ And in “Penny Lane”, “A four of fish and finger pies” was a ribald reference. We knew the people of Liverpool would understand, but no one else. Everyone would think it was some kind of dish. I think once people said, “There are hidden references,” they looked for them and saw them everywhere, even in things that didn’t really exist. »
