Interview for El Pais

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Paul McCartney’s 2024 “Got Back” tour kicked off on October 1 in Montevideo, Uruguay. In the weeks leading up to the concert, Paul and his band rehearsed in Los Angeles. From there, he gave an interview with the Uruguayan newspaper El Pais, published on September 22.

The interview has been auto-translated from Spanish to English.

Paul McCartney is eating. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon in Los Angeles and as I hear him chewing the answers, I’m beginning to suspect that I’m interrupting lunchtime. A minute later he drowns, apologizes, asks for some water, he says, “You know why that happened? I’m eating a chocolate. And I shouldn’t do it while I do an interview, should I? I should be more professional.“

Sitting on the carpeted floor of a room, in front of the screen of a cell phone through which an unknown number runs, I babble some comment but I don’t know what I answer. Paul McCartney, the most important living musician and one of the greatest of all time, attends El País in the midst of a break from rehearsals for the tour that will bring him once again to Uruguay.

McCartney, 82, the man who redefined music and something like a god, still rehearses, is required, thinks he should be more professional. You take everything very seriously. He says, “Please send kisses and hugs to all the people of Uruguay from those of us who do the tour. I’m looking forward to going. We’ll see them over there soon.” […]

Do you remember the moment you felt like you fell in love with music?

My dad used to play the piano at home. He was an amateur pianist, and that was the first music I heard he liked, because he was pretty good at playing the piano. He didn’t believe it, but I thought it was very good, so my first music came from him, just listening to him. I was a kid, he would throw me on the ground and he played. And the other was the radio. I loved it, listened to all kinds of very different music. But there was nothing rock and roll when I was a kid, that came after. Can you imagine a world without rock and roll?

Not at all.

Right? But it was. And I’m lucky I hear things and absorb them like a sponge. Something comes in and really stays with me. But I remember listening on the radio the song “Besame Mucho“ (of Consuelito Velázquez and recorded in 1962 with the Beatles). You know her?

Of course.

Well, it starts in a minor tone, the melody is in a smaller tone, and suddenly halfway through the song it goes to a bigger tone, and I found it so exciting to hear how that was going. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but I knew something had happened. And I didn’t know what it was until much later, when I understood about guitars, chords and tones and things on the piano. I realized that it was like a minor sun, the younger sun, the younger sun, and suddenly (singles it), Mayoor, and that was like happiness. Those little things stay, even from my childhood, and those are the things that fascinate me from music.

And you remember the last time you cried for a song?

Yeah, it’s funny you ask. I was a friend of Jimmy Buffett; I didn’t know him from a long time ago, but we’ve been friends over the last few years. And when he died, his wife was organizing a tribute concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, and there were a lot of very good musicians, and there were the Eagles who were like the top number, and they asked me to participate somehow. Because I was with Jimmy a few days before he died, and he was in bed, he only had two days to live, and his wife and wife asked me to play a couple of songs for him. Wow, that was hard… Because being hand-in-hand singing for someone is always half difficult. But knowing Jimmy was dying, it was very hard for me to sing. So I sang Blackbird crying all the time, and I looked at my wife to see if she could help me, and it was a sea of tears, and I looked at Jimmy’s wife and it was the same. And the last song I played to him, I played him on guitar, was “Let It Be.” So when I was asked to go to the concert, I got to rehearsal, I was standing on the side of the stage, the Eagles were playing “Take It To the Limit.” Vince Gill, who has a beautiful voice, was singing. And I stood there and started crying. So that was the last time the music made me cry.

This is a question from my colleague, Rodrigo Guerra, and it comes to the case. Your song Confidante is dedicated to your guitar, which has been your confidant since your teens. Now, at 82, how would you define the emotional support music has given you in the most difficult times?

If you try to analyze the music, you realize that it’s just frequencies, that there’s nothing but frequencies, notes that settle down, but something magical happens when they come together in a beautiful way. So any good music, whether it’s classic, whether it’s rock and roll, whether it’s old booths or South American music, has a way of affecting you. I recently, for example, I learned of the death of Sérgio Mendes and I was listening to a lot of his music on Spotify. It’s just that listening to good music always eases my soul. That’s the power of music, even if scientifically speaking it’s just a collection of frequencies. And we’re the only ones in the animal kingdom that we can do it. Whales make sounds, but only humans write songs. That’s magical, too.

The Beatles were certainly a magical thing. Last year the theme “Now and Then” was published, and there are four biopics of the band on the way. It’s like they’re an endless box, which never ceases to surprise us. Over the years, have you rediscovered anything they’ve done about?

I think once the Beatles finished and each did their stuff, over the years I learned to appreciate more what we did. If I hear a John or George song now, I think, wow, this is so cool, so beautiful. I think my appreciation of everything the Beatles did has grown because I look at it from afar. At the time I was inside, there was no time to reflect. You’re just there: you compose, you work, you play, you record, you do. But when you walk away, it’s different. I am now like a fan of John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. I listen to this work and I think, God, this is amazing. So now I’m the biggest Beatles fan in the world.

Many people adopt it be as a philosophy of life. What’s yours?

I think being true to oneself. It’s something Shakespeare once said (in Hamlet): “To thine own self, be true.” Be true to yourself. I studied it at school and always thought it was a great teaching. So that’s been my philosophy: trying to be true, to be honest with myself. If there’s something I don’t like, if I do a piece of music that doesn’t really convince me, I must admit it. When we go on tour, that’s a good example, because we’re like 100 people working and we get along very well, as a family. So, even if we’re working, we’re still having a good time. And that extends to life, to all things. I’m trying to be kind and sincere.

What are you proud of?

My family, my children.

Is there anything about the future that scares you?

Donald Trump. He’s a scary guy. It’s crazy because it’s only there because it was popular on television. It’s a TV guy. I don’t like it, in fact, I really dislike it. Yeah, I think it’s scary. But hopefully he won’t win (the US election). And if that’s true, maybe it just disappears, which would be wonderful.

You think you’ve written your best song yet?

Probably. I’m very lucky to have written some songs that I think are… good. Many artists, dancers, painters, actors, often do their best when they are young. So I think I probably already wrote my best songs, but that doesn’t make me stop trying. Doing songs for me is like a hobby, and I would still do it if I wasn’t a professional. And I have new songs and I think there’s one or two that are really good and I think they could be from the Beatles. It’s not for me to judge him, but who knows?

So, if the songs were just a hobby, what would you have done?

Would you be a teacher. That was my ideal profession.

“Three Rabbits” and a ride: McCartney’s days in Uruguay

Beyond the music, Paul McCartney’s two visits to Uruguay left some picturesque postcards. Relaxed, the musician signed autographs at the airport, went out for a bike ride on the rambla, and at the 2014 concert, he dared to modify the setlist to play “One After 909,” at the desperate insistence of a fan whom he even came to mention in later interviews.

Facing a new turn (he is expected to rehearse in Montevideo on 30), McCartney does not mention any specific memories, but says: “I like to ride a bike if possible and tour the city, take a little look. Because people tell me, you’ve been to Uruguay? and I say yes, it was great, all that. And how is it? And sometimes I just get off the plane, do the show and get back on the plane, and I don’t have much to tell. But with a walk you see a little parks, the beautiful areas of the city, and a little fresh air is always good.“

What can you say in Spanish? McCartney laughs and repeats a childish phrase that is already a classic of his: “Three rabbits in a tree“. (“Tres conejos en un árbol”.)

Tour, album and film for the future of Macca

“I’m very lucky, I always have new projects,” Paul McCartney tells El País when asked about what’s to come.

First, of course, is this tour. It starts in Uruguay and then continues through Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, San Pablo, Florianópolis, Córdoba, Lima, Bogotá, San José de Costa Rica, Monterrey and Mexico City, where it will close on November 17. His concert schedule does not end there: in December he will play in Paris, Madrid, Manchester and London. But there’s more. “This past year I’ve been recording new songs, and I’ve got a lot I’ll probably release next year, so I’m excited about that, but since I’m on tour I still couldn’t finish mixing them and that, go ahead.” He says there’s one or two that could have been from the Beatles; so far, his last studio album is McCartney III of 2020, followed by the reimagined version, full of collaborators that premiered a year later.

“And I’m also involved in an animation project that’s being done in Paris, and I’m working on music for that. And I already want to record, but we have to wait to see who the actors will be,” he says about High in the Clouds, a film directed by Toby Genkel based on Macca’s own homonymous children’s book.

And, of course, he gave the go-ahead to the four biopics Sam Mendes will do about the Beatles, scheduled for 2027.

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