Interview for The Daily Mirror

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PAUL McCARTNEY, headphones clamped over long flowing hair, his frilly white shirt glued by sweat to his chest, conducted the choir with a matchstick as a baton.

No surprise on the faces of the twenty-three girls in the choir, their eyes fixed on the matchstick. They are all Welsh — like the flaxen-haired girl out front, huddled to her own microphone. She wears tan boots, beige sweater and brown skirt. Her life is now close to Paul’s.

She is Mary Hopkin, the eighteen-year-old discovery who soared to the top of the charts with “Those Were The Days.” It is late and the day has been long and without pause. The strain is showing in the Beatle’s eyes. He is tired but still determined.

For Mary Hopkin is making another big step in her career — an album. It is a very special album. Beatle people don’t make ordinary records and neither does Miss Hopkin.

Says Paul: “Mary is too much of a perfectionist” — and then instantly corrects himself — “but you can’t be too much of a perfectionist really. She tries to give too much, that’s all.“

Mary had called for a re-run on one of the tracks. “I’d like to do again. I’m sure I can do it better,” she says. Paul, in the glass-panel-led control room, nods.

As well as conducting the choir he also plays back the tapes and mixes the orchestral and choral tracks to blend with Mary’s voice. They’ve been a fortnight on the album.

Donovan has composed three of the songs. One may be released as a single — and maybe not.

Paul explains: “Mary is not making the Top Ten her ideal. She’s not a pop singer as such. Her pride is in her singing.”

There is a break—and Mary joins us in the control room for coffee. She confirms what Paul has said. “Most artists are more concerned about the hit parade than they are about their singing,” she tells me.

Paul says: “I want to be a backroom boy now. I’ve come through the other scene and I don’t want it any more.” But we know he can never be a backroom boy. Once a Beatle, always a Beatle.

And as he is the only bachelor left in the group it is not altogether unexpected that some fans have already conjured up a romance between Paul and Mary.

But Paul says: “I am trying to assist Mary’s career where I can. And that’s all.”

There are others who believe that Paul and Jane Asher will repair their rift.

Back to Paul: “Jane was my girlfriend, but not any more. We are still in love with one another — but it’s impossible. It didn’t happen … I still love all my old girlfriends, don’t you?“

Now to the girl whose camera is probing Paul’s life more closely than any other. Her name is Linda Eastman. She’s twenty-five and from New York. Paul says: “She is now divorced.”

Linda, a strawberry blonde, met Paul in New York three months ago. Last month she came to England with her five-year-old daughter Heather and they went on holiday with Paul to his Scottish farm. Now they are staying at Paul’s home in St. John’s Wood, London.

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