Paul McCartney Gets Back To Work

It has been an annus horribilis for Paul McCartney, but having just released his second album in as many years, he is back to his buoyant best. He takes Jonathan Wingate down the long and winding road through his ever-present past.

Last time we talked to Paul McCartney (RC 315), he seemed decidedly upbeat about life, but that was before he was dragged into the media maelstrom that has kept him permanently splashed on the front pages of every tabloid newspaper for the last year. This was the first interview he had agreed to since his split from Heather Mills, and there was no getting away from the feeling that he was slightly anxious for the first few minutes of our conversation, almost as if he is anticipating a flurry of personal questions. He needn’t have worried. We have important matters to discuss with the greatest living songsmith in the history of popular music.

As ever, McCartney is casually attired: sandals, chinos and collarless shirt topped off with two Make Poverty History bands. Belying recent press photographs, he looks 10 years younger than his actual 64 years. Considering what he has been through over the last 18 months, once we get going he seems relaxed, trusting and remarkably open.

Paul McCartney is talking to one of his secretaries in a room outside his private office, a pile of papers in his hand. Meeting him face to face for the first time is a surreal, not to mention unsettling, moment. McCartney, of course, is used to having this effect on people. He has, after all, been one of the most famous people on the planet for most of his …

by Jonathan Wingate
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