Paul McCartney's horoscope CLICK

IF JUNE 18 IS YOUR BIRTHDAY: Musician Paul McCartney (1942) shares your birthday. You're playful, lighthearted and carefree, but also practical and shrewd with money. Your casual charm can confuse others. You adore new situations (you hate to be bored), and you love to travel. You're very loyal to family. The year ahead will be exciting because it will involve some major changes. Just go with the flow!

You have a sense for your bottom line in all things this year, which keeps you from getting snagged in unimportant details and time-wasters. In general, you know where you're going and get there fast! Friends help you immensely this month and next -- payback for all your past kindnesses. Aries and Scorpio people are wonderful partners for anything. Lucky numbers are 7, 2, 54, 19 and 40.

The most eagerly and lengthily anticipated birthday of any celebrity is finally here. No longer a case of "when"; today, 18 June 2006, Paul McCartney can actually sing "Now I'm 64".

But, as his relatives and closest friends gather for a party on the singer's estate in Peasmarsh, East Sussex, the world's leading popular musician must be wishing that when he wrote his famous song about old age, he'd made it 65 and not 64. For instead of this being a day when the world weighs his considerable achievements, it is one haunted instead by the allegedly seamy past of his recently estranged wife Heather, which he has told friends he fears will overshadow his musical legacy.

"He is, of course, deeply hurt because he feels he has been misled," one told The Independent on Sunday. "I think he is also genuinely shocked - as far as I know, he believed her when she had said the rumours that used to knock around about her past weren't true."

Yet Paul's children will rally round - after all, it is also Father's Day - and he will take it easy this morning after jetting in yesterday from a business trip in the US. After starting the day with a light breakfast of fruit, green tea and water, he will probably relax by saddling up one of his horses and patrolling the rolling fields around his farmhouse. In fact, that much of the song "When I'm Sixty-Four" ("Sunday mornings, go for a ride") will be accurate. Paul will later prepare for a family barbecue. Vegetarian, of course, and probably including some of the meat-free burgers from his late wife Linda's food range which he will cook.

His "nearest and dearest" friends will be welcomed. They will include Olivia Harrison, widow of the former Beatles guitarist George, and drummer Ringo Starr's (Webmaster's note: Ringo was on tour in the US) wife Barbara Bach, as well as Paul's brother Mike. The red wine will be flowing - French is his preference - and towards the end of the day he will indulge himself a tot of Johnnie Walker whisky.

Paul is not a man known for his overindulgence. His drug experimentation in The Beatles days was fairly short-lived, although he did acquire a lifelong devotion to his daily spliff. His love of marijuana led to his brief imprisonment in Japan in the late Seventies, but also exposed cracks in his marriage to Heather. Although his smokes had been fine during his years with first wife Linda, who died of breast cancer in 1998, they were a constant source of irritation to his new wife whom he married four years later. He reluctantly agreed to give up the weed on her insistence.

Whether Heather, 38, will put in an appearance at today's party with their two-year-old daughter Beatrice is unknown. She is said to be keen to visit on such a special day; his family is not so encouraging. One friend said: " It is a tragedy that of all the times this could have happened in his life it is before his 64th birthday. I think there had always been the perception that after such a prolific, productive career, making music in the public eye for 44 years, that this birthday would be a time for everyone to reflect on the fullness of his life. But instead of assessing his achievements, it is now a case of assessing the wreckage. I really don't think he knew about the soft porn past. If he did he kept it bloody quiet."

During the past week he has visited New York for a pre-arranged business meeting, eating his breakfast in a Manhattan diner. Then it was on to Las Vegas to check out preparations for a new Cirque du Soleil show, Love, for which he had given permission for hidden Beatles recordings to be dusted off and used. "He's just been getting on with things and immersing himself in work. It is a business-as-usual approach. He has always tried to live a very private life away from the music business," said an insider.

Paul's older children - Stella, James and Mary, from his marriage to Linda, and Heather, his stepdaughter from Linda's earlier relationship - have long been wary and disapproving of his relationship with the former model. A friend said: "There has never been a photograph of the kids with Heather. I think that says everything you need to know about their relationship."

Stella was already comforting her father in public before the news about the marriage split had even emerged. The pair were seen having an intense heart-to-heart discussion while walking through Richmond Park in south-west London, just hours before the couple officially confirmed their separation. It was an abrupt end. Four years after they had married at Castle Leslie in Ireland's Co Monaghan, the couple issued a statement saying they were splitting "with sadness". They said it had become " increasingly difficult to maintain a normal relationship with constant intrusion into our private lives".

Friends and colleagues have been there for him. Ringo Starr - the man who sang "With a Little Help from My Friends" - said last week that he had been in contact and offered his support: "I just said 'I'm here if you need me'. That's all you can be. Break-ups are always hard." But for Heather, the support has been less intense. She has been largely demonised and columnists have been lining up to take chunks out of her reputation. Paul posted numerous messages on his website defending Heather in the days immediately after the separation, but even those have stopped. Their marriage is now in the hands of their lawyers. Sir Paul's and Heather's legal teams are now thrashing out a deal over custody of Beatrice and the share of his £825 million ($1.5 billion) fortune to which Heather will be entitled.

But Paul McCartney's career goes on. Instead of 64 being a prelude to retirement, he is making plans for a tour next year to swell his fortune further - far from the scrimping and saving his song predicted. His US tour dates last year raked in more than £40 million ($73 million). His creativity also goes on. Last year he released not only an album in his own right, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, to the sort of critical acclaim he had not seen for years, but also an album of remixes with cutting edge producer Freelance Hellraiser, under the name Twin Freaks.

But it will be a poignant moment today when, four decades after asking in his song "will you still need me, will you still feed me?", there is no longer a partner around the answer the question.

Family Jewel: The story behind the song

Stuck for a time-filler during their Cavern Club days, the Beatles would knock out a jaunty instrumental to wallpaper the gaps caused by overheated amps and snapped strings.

The audience could have been forgiven if they struggled to spot the skiffle-driven tune, composed by Paul McCartney on his family piano, as a timeless classic. But nearly a decade after it was written, "When I'm Sixty-Four" was immortalised on one of the band's most iconic albums, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The lyrics looked forward to asking his love: "Will you still be sending me a Valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?" The irony cannot be lost on him today.

The inspiration for those lyrics was Paul's father Jim, the man who instilled in him a love of music and bought him his first instrument, a trumpet, which he later swapped for a Zenith acoustic guitar. Jim was a keen self-taught pianist and trumpet player himself and led his own jazz ensemble, Jim Mac's Band, many years before Paul was born. Paul said: " He was my musical education. There was none in school - we never got music lessons. My dad was also a great crossword puzzle man and used to tell us kids to practise crossword puzzles - it would improve our word power. Having left school very early he'd had to educate himself. He taught me words that no one else knew and I was the only kid in my class who could spell 'phlegm'! "

Jim was a salesman at a Liverpool cotton exchange, which closed during the war years when he worked for an engineering firm producing aircraft engines, as well as working as a voluntary fireman. He later returned to the cotton exchange and worked there until his retirement.

Jim was still 56 when the piece was written by 16-year-old Paul, seated at the piano in the McCartneys' home in Forthlin Road, Liverpool. But by the time the band recorded the track, the first song to be recorded for the Sgt Pepper album, he was actually 64.

"It was all rather tongue in cheek," Paul said. "I wrote that tune vaguely thinking it could come in handy in a musical comedy. I didn't know what kind of career I was going to take back then." Indeed.

He must rue his unwitting gift to headline writers: "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?"

On the occasion of Paul McCartney's landmark 64th birthday, the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) is releasing today an 8-minute movie as a birthday gift to the former Beatle. Sixty-four of the most dramatic and spectacular images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, including one mosaic from the European-built Huygens probe of the surface of Titan, are composed together in a cinematic voyage through the Saturn system and put to the music of the Beatles.

"In their creation of new musical forms and directions, and in their expansive vision of the art of popular music, the Beatles reached heights of achievement in their brief time together that nobody has been able to surpass", said Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader and the producer/director of the movie. "And being a major element in that incredible story makes Paul McCartney, in my mind, one of planet Earth's brightest stars. It makes me very happy to be able to celebrate him in this way. I hope he likes our movie."

The movie 'Sixty-four Sights from Saturn' is available today on the home page of http://ciclops.org. High resolution versions may be obtained by emailing cpcomments@ciclops.org.

The Cassini imaging operations center (CICLOPS) is based at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo.

You ever notice at all those concerts for a cause there's one guy who always closes the show?

There is famous, very famous, and then there's Paul McCartney, CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod observes.

It might be painful to realize, but it's been 40 years since the Beatles first conquered America.

Now as he celebrates his 64th birthday, McCartney is still center stage -- recently completing a world tour promoting his latest album, "Chaos And Creation In The Back Yard," his 20th since the Beatles broke up.

Asked if the mostly positive reviews the album's received matter much to him, McCartney says, "I care. I care, yeah, I just don't dare read 'em in case there's some terrible little line in them."

The album is being praised for its depth and emotional complexity: a different tune from some critics who at times have derided his solo work as once-over-lightly ear candy.

"I said to myself, 'I'm gonna make a good album.' I gave myself a task," McCartney explains.

"Whereas normally you come in, something you do, it's your job, you just come in to work say, 'Oh, I wonder what's gonna happen today. Here's a guitar, oh, okay, let's do some.' But on this album, I thought, 'No, don't start. Don't, don't stop there. Actually just come in the studio with some stuff you're really proud of and then work this record, don't let anything escape.'"

Maybe McCartney brought something to the studio he just didn't have before: the sunny optimism of the "cute one" tempered by life.

"You know, I think when someone gets successful and famous as I did with the Beatles, I think the sort of assumption is he's fireproof, nothing can get to this guy," McCartney intimates.

"Well, I haven't found that. You know, I'm just some guy. You know, I, I'm pretty famous. I know people look at me like, 'Oh, you're just some guy.' Believe me, inside I feel like just some guy.

"There's this other guy who's amazingly famous and who's written all these songs and has got all this stuff. It doesn't alter who I am," McCartney says.

"You know, I'm not one of these people that just because I've done all that I now become Superman. You can't touch me. You know, you can touch me. I'm very, unfortunately, very reachable," McCartney admits.

And life has reached him. Losing a wife of 31 years to cancer as well as two of the lads with whom he made history.

Axelrod asked McCartney how he left things with John and George. McCartney offered a sentimental recollection of Lennon.

"John and I had had a lot of arguments through the Beatles break-up, but I was very lucky because we had reestablished our friendship," McCartney says.

"You remember little things about people. I remember sort of seeing him and he comes in and gives me a hug and says 'touching is good.' I'll never forget that. Touching is good. So I do a lot of hugging now," McCartney says.

As for Harrison, McCartney recalls, "George I never really fell out with. We had a beautiful last meeting. It was very emotional for me. It was very touching. We sort of held hands and I realized we'd never done that 'cause you don't. You're Liverpool guys. You grow up together, you know? Here he was sort of terminal illness and we were holding hands."

McCartney adds, "I think, I think it all is informing me, yeah. I think, you know, you, you've got great memories, you've got great emotions.

"I think one of the things I like about getting older is you can free your emotions more."

Which would explain why "Chaos and Creation" is an album with echoes: a piano riff that recalls "Lady Madonna." Or take "Jenny Wren," a lovely, haunting relative of "Blackbird." This is what evolution sounds like in the mind of McCartney.

"When we were kids, George and I used to hang out and we had, we had one little party piece which was to show that we weren't stupid," McCartney says, adding that guitar players at that time were not viewed highly.

"So we used to do this thing by Bach that was our own little version of it, and we got it wrong," McCartney explains as he strums a guitar. "But we didn't know that and that's the bit where we changed it, I realized. And then I realized what I was doing was making and I made that same thing into "Blackbird," so it came from Bach to "Blackbird."

Continuing to play, McCarthy adds, "So then, so then because I've got this (guitar), the bass thing going with the melody, same style and then it just sort of goes into 'Jenny Wren.'

"His past seems to coexist more comfortably than ever with his present. But like good neighbors, sharing bordering pieces of the same block, he maintains good fences too.

"If I'm writing a song and I'm stuck, I might then go, 'OK, what would we have done?' But it's not like, 'Johnny, help me baby.' You know, it's not quite like that. 'Yes, Paul, put that word in.' You know, it's actually come out a little bit like that, so I'm playing that down now. You know, it always informs you.

"I think who you are, what you are, what you've done, what you've written, what you haven't written."

Even by modern standards of celebrity, he's lived an extraordinary life. He's not just rich, he's a billionaire. He's not just adored, he's been knighted. He's not just admired, he's been elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice.

Not exactly the resume of someone with something to prove. Someone who, say is embarking on a grind of a 2 1/2 month-, 37-city tour.

Axelrod wonders aloud to McCartney, saying, "The touring part of this, what's that given you? I mean, I, to be honest, I'm wondering, 'Wait a minute. The guy, he doesn't need money, he doesn't need adulation, he doesn't need validation.' What's it about?"

McCartney says, "You know obviously I ask myself that for those same reasons. You know, it's kind of hard work to put a big tour like this together, but the audience is so great and that's what it is. You know, it's the only point in your career where you actually get all these people sitting there (and) back this thing that you just felt. And it's pretty powerful. And it's, it really, it hooks you."

So what do you do: insulated, if not isolated by megastardom and yet needing exactly the kind of vital ordinary connection that your monster success seems to make so elusive?

If you're Paul McCartney, it's easy: you hit the road.

"But I've looked out at audiences, I've seen the effect some of these songs -- it's like, it's hard to be me and sing them," McCartney admits.

"You know because I mean, I remember just in Europe -- in Finland -- I saw this very stately, older man -- grey-haired man and his wife, a grey-haired lady. And he's just sort of standing there and he just had his arms around her. Very emotional," McCartney says.

"And she was just on his chest, you know, and I was just doing -- it was a Beatles song," McCartney says, adding "and I just was singing it, and I caught them in the audience, and you do. And it's just like a picture, it's like a Rockwell or something. Very emotional."

McCartney adds that "it's not every day you get that, but you get that kind of thing from an audience.

The singer says finally, "I mean, this is like, real."

This need to keep "real" in sight has been with McCartney for a long time.

Everyone, it seems, has a "McCartney moment," a special way some line of some song affected them. It's only natural to want something so profound to carry the same emotional weight for the man who created it.

But do the math: from "She Loves You" to "Yesterday," "Hey Jude," "Let It Be," "Maybe I'm Amazed" and a hundred more, that's a lot of moments for a lot of people. But gracefully, McCartney does seem to get it and, it seems, get something for himself.

When Axelrod explains that "Blackbird" is a special song between him and his daughter, McCartney says, "Oh, these are the moments we love. This is why I do it, man. This is why I do it."

Which is why at 64, McCartney is once again headed out in search of more of those moments he loves.

But McCartney shares a lot more with the kids' parents or grandparents. You ever wonder what happened to the last 40 years?

When asked if "When I'm Sixty Four" was on the tour's playlist, McCartney shoots back, "No. Perhaps, next year."

Sixteen when he wrote it and 25 when he recorded it, McCartney is now living it and no, the age doesn't look or feel like what he thought it would.

"You know losing John, losing Linda, losing George. You know these are all very sort of difficult things to deal with obviously," McCartney says.

And there are new difficulties to deal with. Last month McCartney and his second wife, Heather Mills, announced they were divorcing after nearly four years of marriage.

No one's long and winding road is without its bumps. But look at Paul McCartney as he turns 64. He seems to be humming along at a pretty good clip. He may just need to update a few lyrics.

"I was on holiday and there was this lady and she said, 'I play piano in an old people's home,' McCartney recalls, adding that the woman admitted playing Beatles songs.

"I hope you don't mind," McCartney remembers her asking. "I said, 'Of course I don't.' I said, 'What song is it?' She said, 'Well, it's "When I'm Sixty Four.' I said, 'Great,'" McCartney says laughing.

"But I had to actually change the lyrics," she said. "I play when I'm 84 because 64 doesn't seem very old to me."

Heather stays away from Sir Paul's birthday celebration

As birthdays go, it is unlikely to be his best. Instead, Sir Paul McCartney has opted for a remarkably low-key celebration to mark turning 64.

He will be joined by family today for a quiet barbecue at his £4 million ($7.4 million) home in Peasmarsh, Sussex.

However, one person will most definitely not be present - his estranged wife Heather.

Until last month, he had been sharing the sprawling estate with the former model. They have since separated and she is battling allegations that she was once a prostitute.

Reports that she was hoping for an invitation to Sir Paul's muted birthday celebrations have been denied by friends, though he will see his two-year-old daughter Beatrice who was dropped off with him on Friday night.

One source said of Heather: "She will not be going to Paul's tomorrow. It would ruin the day and there's no way that she would do that. She's hardly going to stand in the kitchen and chat.

She and Bea have been making things all week for Father's Day and Bea will stay with him for the whole weekend."

As Sir Paul celebrates his birthday, Heather is staying with friends.

Now weighing just seven stone, she is wheelchair-bound and faces the prospect of being unable to wear a prosthetic limb if her muscles waste.

The source added: "She's in a very dire place at the moment. But she and Paul are in touch every day and she will speak to him on his birthday."

Last night Heather's spokeswoman Anya Noakes said: "Heather will not be attending the party as they are in the process of getting divorced."

A friend close to Sir Paul said: "It's going to be a very private affair with just family. On previous birthdays he's invited people he's worked with, but this year it's going to be tighter."

His daughters, designer s, 34, and photographer Mary, 36, will travel to Sussex today for the barbecue.

Also present will be his son James, adopted daughter Heather and his brother Mike.

Sadly, the muted celebrations will be far from the optimism Sir Paul showed in the Beatles song When I'm Sixty Four, released when he was just 25.

A pal revealed yesterday: "She sent him the present along with a separate Father's Day gift from their daughter Bea.

"It's a very difficult time for Heather - she looks like a ghost - but she is hoping Paul enjoys his 64th birthday."

The source denied Heather had tried to get an invite to today's When I'm 64 bash, organised by Macca's daughters Stella and Mary at his Sussex estate. The friend insisted: "She didn't even know about it."

Heather, 38, is being comforted by friends this weekend after being devastated by a string of stories about her past.

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney turns 64 on Sunday.

The singer, who wrote When I'm 64 for The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper album, says his children have urged him to disappear for the day, which is sure to trigger a flurry of press attention.

Here is how his life has changed over the last seven decades.

CHILDHOOD: 1942 -1951

James Paul McCartney was born to a working class family on 18 June, 1942, at Walton Hospital in Liverpool.

His mother, Mary, had been a nursing sister at the hospital, and was given a bed in a private room for the birth.

Sir Paul was baptised as a Roman Catholic, his mother's faith, but religion did not play a strong part in his upbringing.

His father, Jim, was a gifted musician who played with a jazz band in the evening while holding down a day job as a cotton salesman.

Both Sir Paul and his younger brother Michael received piano lessons during their early years, but neither kept up the instrument.

TEENAGE YEARS: 1952 - 1961

The McCartneys moved several times during Sir Paul's early life, but eventually settled in a terraced house in Liverpool's Forthlin Road in 1955.

Just one year later, the family was struck by tragedy when Sir Paul's mother died of breast cancer, aged 47.

Her death had a huge impact on Sir Paul. He referred to her in the lyrics of Let It Be, singing: "When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me".

Soon after she passed away, Sir Paul asked his father to buy him a guitar, and the young musician learnt to play by imitating American R&B hits he heard on the radio.

In October 1957, Sir Paul auditioned for John Lennon's band, The Quarrymen, at a church fair and was asked to join as the group's third guitarist.

The pair began writing songs together and several of their earliest hits were composed in the house on Forthlin Road, including Love Me Do and I Saw Her Standing There.

It was also about this time that Sir Paul wrote When I'm 64, and the band are reported to have played it early concerts.

After decamping to West Germany to play a residency in the Indra Club in Hamburg, the band - now rechristened The Beatles - returned to Liverpool in 1960.

It was at a gig in the Cavern nightclub that they were seen by Brian Epstein, who offered to become their manager.

BEATLEMANIA: 1962 - 1971

Epstein secured The Beatles an audition with Decca on New Year's Day 1962, but the record company decided not to offer the band a contract.

However, the manager eventually persuaded producer George Martin to sign the group to Parlophone Records in May 1962.

Beatlemania was not long coming. The group's first single, Love Me Do, reached number four in October, and by August 1963 they spent seven weeks on top of the charts with She Loves You.

By then, The Beatles were household names, with Sir Paul as the band's main pin-up.

Around this time, he started to date actress and party cake designer Jane Asher. Several Beatles songs are thought to be about their relationship, including We Can Work It Out and Here, There and Everywhere.

The band conquered America in 1964, after an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show was seen by a reported 73 million people.

When I'm 64 was featured on the band's milestone album, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, released in 1967.

The vaudevillian song is atypical of the album, featuring a clarinet trio, rather than the psychedelic rock that characterised the rest of the record.

Many speculated it was a love song to Linda Eastman, who later became Sir Paul's wife, but the couple didn't meet until a launch party for the Sergeant Pepper album.

Sir Paul married Eastman in a low-key register office ceremony in 1969.

The musician claims he nearly forgot to buy a wedding ring after becoming engrossed in a recording session.

The couple had three children together, and Sir Paul adopted a daughter from Eastman's previous marriage.

By the time of their wedding, The Beatles were becoming more and more fractious, with musical and personal differences tearing the band apart.

Sir Paul released his first solo album, McCartney, in 1970 at around the same time as The Beatles' swansong, Let It Be.

Some copies included a self-written interview explaining the break-up of the band.

WINGS: 1972 - 1981

In the year that he turned 30, Sir Paul found two of his singles banned by the BBC.

Give Ireland Back To the Irish, released in February, was blacklisted for its political content, while December's Hi, Hi, Hi was thought to contain drugs references.

Both singles were recorded by the musician's new band, Wings, which went through a variety of line-ups during the 1970s.

Sir Paul's songs of this period were often derided by critics for being overly-sentimental, but they found great favour with the public.

Mull of Kintyre, a paean to his Scottish retreat with Linda, stayed at number one for nine weeks in 1977 and for several years held the record for being the highest-selling single in the UK.

Wings' other hits included the James Bond theme Live and Let Die, and Band On The Run.

In 1980, Sir Paul was arrested in Tokyo's Narita airport for possession of marijuana. He spent ten days in prison before being released and deported to the UK.

In December that year, Sir Paul's former bandmate and writing partner, John Lennon, was shot dead on the steps of his New York home.

SOLO: 1982 - 1991

After Wings disbanded in 1981, Sir Paul had continued solo success with his albums McCartney II and Tug Of War.

His duets with Stevie Wonder, on Ebony and Ivory, and Michael Jackson, on The Girl Is Mine, were big hits - but critics were becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the saccharine nature of Sir Paul's work.

Even the public turned their backs on the 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street, written by and starring Sir Paul - although a single from the film, No More Lonely Nights, was a huge hit.

The artist's reputation for creating groundbreaking music took another blow in December that year when he released We All Stand Together, a waltz for Rupert The Bear credited to Paul McCartney and the Frog Chorus.

1989's Flowers In The Dirt, which featured several collaborations with Elvis Costello, was better received, and was followed by Sir Paul's first world tour in a decade.

As he approached 50, Sir Paul made his first foray into classical music, scoring the Liverpool Oratorio with composer Carl Davis.

LEGEND: 1992 - 2001

The emergence of Britpop saw many artists citing The Beatles as an influence.

And, as fans of new bands such as Oasis started to investigate Sir Paul's back catalogue, so did he.

He helped to compile the Beatles Anthology albums, which unearthed alternative takes and forgotten recordings, and took part in the accompanying TV series.

Perhaps as a result, Sir Paul's next album, Flaming Pie, saw him go back to the skiffle and R&B songs that inspired The Beatles 30 years earlier.

He also kept up his interest in classical music, and released two albums of dance music under the pseudonym The Fireman.

In 1996, Sir Paul opened the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts, which was built on the site of his old school.

The following year, he received a knighthood.

However, the honour was overshadowed by the death of his wife, Linda, who succumbed to breast cancer, at the age of 56.

NOW I'M 64: 2002 - Present

Sir Paul's diverse interests came to the fore after his wife's death. He publicly exhibited his paintings for the first time, and released a book of poetry, Blackbird singing.

He has continued to record and tour, and headlined the Glastonbury Festival in 2004.

But Sir Paul's music has been overshadowed by his marriage to the model Heather Mills.

The couple tied the knot amid considerable secrecy in Ireland in 2002.

Following their marriage, Mills and Sir Paul devoted much time to charity work, and recently campaigned against the slaughter of seal pups in Canada.

The couple had a daughter, Beatrice, in the autumn of 2003.

However, they separated last month, blaming press intrusion for putting a strain on their relationship.

When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now / Will you still be sending a Valentine, birthday greetings, bottle of wine?

I remember the summer of 1967 as the summer when the Beatles' eighth album, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," took over the airwaves and revolutionized music. We were just kids drawing chalk cities on the sidewalk, but, even then, "When I'm 64" struck us as one of the landmark album's whimsical, lightweight numbers.

Well, let's face it. It wasn't whimsical so much as fantastical. Absurd. The Beatles turning 64? Never!

This wasn't some kind of "Hope I Die Before I Get Old" alienation. It was simple incredulity. The Beatles personified youth -- and youth as it had never been lived before. They would never turn 64.

"Paul McCartney wrote the song when he was 16, and you know when you're a teenager you don't think 64 is ever going to happen to you," noted Ann Stevens, who hosts "Breakfast With the Beatles Show," a Sunday morning radio program in Dayton. "I'm turning 50 and I still don't believe it."

You'll be older, too / Aah, and if you say the word, I could stay with you."

Good thing we didn't know then what we know now: Only two of our beloved Beatles would even make it to the age of 64, and their first wives would die long before then. Linda McCartney died of breast cancer in 1998 in Tucson. Maureen Starkey had been divorced from Ringo Starr, but he stayed by her bedside when she died of leukemia in 1995.

And today, Paul McCartney turns 64 -- only weeks after announcing his separation from his second wife, Heather Mills McCartney. "It's poignant," Stevens said. "All of the Beatle People are feeling very sad that Paul will celebrate his 64th birthday with this cloud of heartbreak over him."

All of the Beatles, she noted, have had both a long marriage and a short one. "And all but Ringo have had a marriage ended by death," Stevens said.

When the teenage Paul penned "When I'm 64," he could never have foreseen the media firestorm when he actually reached the milestone.

The Beatles would not record the song until 1966. (Rumor has it John Lennon disliked the song because Paul wanted to record it in honor of his father, bandleader James McCartney, who turned 64 in 1966).

Forty years ago, they were the Fab Four, the kings of the universe. And they posed the question to their then-loves: "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64?"

Sadly, not a one of them can answer yes.

Stella and Mary get Paul's grandkids to sign tribute version of When I'm Sixty-Four at the Beatles' legendary London studio

Paul McCartney's grandchildren have prepared a secret birthday treat for him today... by recording their own version of his song When I'm Sixty-Four.

They even went into legendary Abbey Road studios - made famous when The Beatles recorded there in the 1960s - to sing the pick-me-up treat.

Sir Paul's family, led by daughters Stella and Mary, believe it is the perfect way to put the smile back on his face following the torment of his split from wife Heather last month.

A close friend of the family said: "Stella and Mary know exactly how down in the dumps Paul has been feeling.

"The trauma of the break-up and then the shock of finding out more about Heather's past left him shell-shocked and at his most gloomy in years.

"But they are determined to put a smile back on his face for his birthday and thought this was the perfect way.

"His marriage to Heather is over but they want him to know he still has his family, who are utterly devoted to him."

The new recording to celebrate Paul's 64th birthday today was organised by photographer Mary, 36, and fashion designer Stella, 34.

Son James as well as adopted daughter Heather - from his late wife Linda's first marriage - are also believed to have helped with the surprise.

Paul's lyrics, written when he was just J 15, are about a man looking forward to a I gentle old age with the love of his life. They include the line: "Grandchildren on your knee... Vera, Chuck and Dave."

The sisters took Paul's real-life grandchildren, including Stella's 16-month-old son Miller plus Mary's sons Arthur, seven, and Elliot, three, into the studio in North West London last Monday.

Giles Martin, son of Beatles producer and long-term friend Sir George, helped rewrite the lyrics I and took charge of the recording session.

The family even made sure they recorded the track in Studio Two, the legendary room where The I Beatles recorded nearly all of their songs, including the original version of When I'm 64.

A close friend said: "The whole family are absolutely thrilled with the surprise.

"They know how down their dad has been recently and were desperate to think of the perfect pick-me-up to celebrate his big day. They wanted a money-can't-buy type of gift and were all just so thrilled when they hit upon this idea. Stella led the organisation and has been delighted at the way it has all come together."

An onlooker added: "They were beaming when they left the studio after the recording. It was not exactly The Beatles reforming but Heather and Stella were delighted with the recording of the song."

The family will play Macca their new version as an emotional birthday I surprise when they I gather at his £4 million estate in Peasmarsh, East Sussex, today. Sir Paul will man a barbecue for the occasion, serving vegetarian treats to his children plus brother Mike.

Close friends Olivia Harrison, widow of Beatle George, and Ringo Starr's wife Barbara Bach are also due - Ringo is on tour in America with his All Starr band.

Superstar Macca went back to the house on Friday night after returning from a business trip to the States.

Paul spent time in New York and Las Vegas during the four-day visit.

He had meetings about a DVD of his 2005 US tour as well as the Beatles-inspired Cirque du Soleil production which will open in Las Vegas this summer.

He arrived back at Peasmarsh at 9pm and was reunited with daughter Bea, two.

He and the family will spend today at the rambling farmhouse - his preferred base with late wife Linda - having a birthday party.

Estranged wife Heather will not be there.

A close friend said: "This is what Paul needs. There's no doubting the difficulties Heather and his family all had getting on.

"Now it's just Paul with his close-knit family at the home he and Linda loved."

Paul and wife Heather split last month after almost four years of marriage.

He walked out on the former model, who lost a leg when she was hit by a police motorcycle in August 1993, after a series of bitter rows. He became fed up with being treated like a "doormat" by Heather, who he first met in 1999 at our sister newspaper The Daily Mirror's Pride Of Britain Awards, where she was present in her role as an anti-landmines campaigner

The split turned more bitter after it emerged how in 1988 she had posed for a series of shocking porn pictures in a German magazine, Die Freuden der Liebe.

Peter Wilson - her co-star in the pictures - told the Sunday Mirror last week how she was "wild, brazen and up for it" during the X-rated studio session.

We also revealed how furious Macca had no idea of wife Heather's pornographic past despite claims from her friends. He has also been left shocked at allegations that she worked as a prostitute before she met him - although Heather has vowed to sue over those claims.

Paul's friends say he will not publicly attack Heather's camp, and the couple are still in contact, especially regarding Bea, their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

Pals now fear any chance of an amicable divorce is gone. Instead, they believe the battle of the McCartneys could turn into the most bitter in show-business history.

All these years gone by and the Beatles' Paul McCartney is finally receiving the answer to his burning question "Will you still need I'm sixty-four?" -- which he first asked in the catchy 1967 Beatles' song "When I'm Sixty-four." The answer is a resounding "yes!" and is respectfully and cleverly personified in the new unique "Paul McCartney is Sixty-four," a tribute/parody song with all-new lyrics and performed with reverence to Sir Paul. The song, more of a tribute than parody, is debuting this week.

The fan tribute song's lyrics were written by an avid Beatles and McCartney fan who felt the famous rocker presented a question in the original song that required an inspired answer, and that Paul's big birthday occasion should be marked in history with another song everyone can sing along to, this time to Paul.

"Paul asks 'Will you still need me?' in this original song and we never formally answered him. Like the words in my song say: 'The world wants to send him a ValentineA 1942 bottle of wine,'" said the tribute's songwriter, Bruce Baert, 44, of Whittier, California. Baert added that he wanted to pen a heartfelt tribute to the youngest living member of the best rock 'n' roll band of all time. "I hope this song is quaint," Baert quipped.

Baert, a former daily newspaper reporter, was five-years-old when the Fab Four released 'When I'm 64'. He says, "I was trying to write a tribute in the spirit of the original and not just use a bunch of well-worn clichés or a laundry list of Beatles' song titles. Surprisingly, there has not been a 64th tribute song that I know of."

Baert recruited an old friend, Tony Barron, to sing the tribute. Barron, 42, is a businessman and a resident of Laguna Hills, Calif. Barron's voice has been described as a mixture of McCartney and Mick Jagger. He was lead singer and guitar player for the L.A. club circuit band occasion should be marked in history with another song everyone can sing along to, this time to Paul.

Hear song:
http://www.whatgoeson.com/sounds/paulis64.mp3

(A Tribute Song)

Based on the original 1967 Beatles song: "When I'm Sixty-four," original music/lyrics © by Paul McCartney with John Lennon.

(To the tune of "When I'm Sixty-four"):

The Beatles' Paul McCartney's turning sixty-four,
All these years gone by.
The world wants to send him a Valentine,
A youthful guy from the best band of all time.
Even after the Beatles broke up, you never became a bore.
Paul we still need you, we'll 'even' still feed you,
Now that you're sixty-four.

(Hmm-------mmm---mmmh)
We are older too
And your fans have spoken: You stayed with us and we with you.

You've been handy mending a muse, and never lost your hair.
From "Yesterday" to "Hey Jude"
You've taken us here, there and everywhere.
Beatlemania hit England then America,
Women let out a roar!
Sir Paul we still love you, we'll 'even' still feed you,
Now that you're sixty-four.

Every song you or Lennon wrote was a legend, like the album of white.
You-lov-ed-Lin-da sooo
In your family you live on,
Including Ringo, George and John.

Let's send Paul a card, drop him a line, a '42 bottle of wine.
When you wrote 'Sixty-four' back in the day
Did you know your 64th was on Father's Day?
Give us your answer, will you still tour? Sing this when you're 94?
Ah, Paul we still need you, we'll 'even' still feed you,
Now that you're sixty-four. Hoo!

Despite their harmless facade, The Beatles seemed to symbolize the generational revolt-even an estrangement from parents-that marked the 1960s. "My mother hates them, my father hates them, my teacher hates them," said one young fan. "Can you think of three better reasons why I love them?"

However, this was not the intent of John, Paul, George and Ringo. With the exception of John Lennon, The Beatles grew up in loving, stable homes. And they generally respected and revered their parents, which came through in their music-especially Paul McCartney's.

"My parents aspired for us. That is one of the great things you can find in ordinary people. My mum wanted me to be a doctor," McCartney said. "And my dad, who left school at fourteen, would have loved me to be a great scientist, a great university graduate. I always feel grateful for that."

The happiness and security of Paul's life were brutally shattered when his mother, Mary, died in 1956, leaving his father James with the task of guiding his two teenage sons through the difficult period of adolescence. Paul later preserved his mother's [Mary] memory in the beautiful ballad "Let It Be," based on a dream he had about her a decade after her death. Paul's younger brother Michael commented on how their father was there for them after their mother died. "We both owe him a lot. He stayed home and looked after us." But it would be the musical influence of Paul's father that would last.

James McCartney, born in 1902, had his own band in the late 1920s. Jim Mac's Jazz Band, which included his brother and cousin, played the dance halls around Liverpool during the time of vaudeville.

As such, music had always been a focus of McCartney family life. They had an old upright piano at home, and one of Paul's early memories is lying on the floor, listening to his father play. "My dad was an original," Paul remembers. "To us kids he was a pretty good player, he could play a lot of tunes on the piano. I was very influenced by him." Paul still, in fact, has his father's old upright piano.

James arranged for 11-year-old Paul to be auditioned for junior choir at Liverpool Cathedral, but he was not accepted. This did not stop him from encouraging Paul's clear interest in music. "My Dad was the big influence because he was playing the piano all the time by ear," Paul recalls. "I tried to get him to teach me, but he said no, you've got to get lessons."

James was not only a musician but also an amateur composer. "He wrote some stuff," Paul has said of his dad. "I actually did a song of his with Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer called 'Walking in the Park with Eloise.' I said to my dad: 'Do you know you wrote that song?' He said: 'I didn't write it. I made it up.' I said: 'I know what you mean, but we call that writing these days, Dad!'"

It wasn't surprising when Paul began writing songs. "Something was making me make it up, whether I knew how to do it or not," Paul said. "I'd already written the tune of 'When I'm Sixty-four(right-click, save as)' when I was sixteen." Not surprisingly, there is a strong vaudevillian flavor to this song.

The musical influence of his father also pervaded Paul's work with The Beatles. "He had a lot of music in him, my dad. He taught me and my brother harmony. I learned very early how to sing harmony, which was one of my big roles in The Beatles. Whenever John sang, I automatically sang in harmony with him, and that's due to my dad's teaching."

Paul even credits his father for his now-legendary status as The Beatles' bass player. "My dad would point out the bass on the radio."

As The Beatles were trying to break through, Paul's father encouraged them. He allowed the Quarry Men-Paul and John's pre-Beatles group-to rehearse in the McCartney home on Forthlin Road. And as the budding Beatles, Lennon and McCartney wrote some of their classics, such as "I'll Follow the Sun(right-click, save as)," there. "I remember writing that in our front living room at Forthlin Road," says Paul.

When James turned 64 in 1966, Paul revived and rewrote "When I'm Sixty-four" as a tribute to his father. The Beatles recorded the song on December 6, 1966 at Abbey Road Studios in London between sessions for Lennon's classic, surreal "Strawberry Fields Forever(right-click, save as)." And it was the first cut completed for their masterpiece album, the legendary Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Paul's father lived to see The Beatles become the most influential entertainment act in history, with Paul half of the greatest pop songwriting duo of all time. James must have been proud when he heard those great piano riffs on such Beatle songs as "Let It Be" and "Hey Jude(right-click, save as)"-both written and played by Paul.

James McCartney died in 1976. Just before he passed away, he said, "I'll be with Mary soon." But the bond between father and son has lasted over the years, even as Paul celebrates his own 64th birthday this month.

This affectionate bond is reflected in a song Paul wrote about a phrase his father used to resolve family disputes. Here are some lyrics from "Put it There" on Paul's 1989 album, Flowers in the Dirt: "Give me your hand, I'd like to shake it. Put it there, If it weighs a ton, That's what a father says to his young son."

McCartney catching up to own geriatric whimsy

Today, Sir Paul McCartney, that most steadily prolific of all ex-Beatles, will pass through his own musical threshold as he catches up to the once improbable forecast of one of his jauntier tunes, When I'm 64.

This clarinet-driven slice of geriatric whimsy stood out as the one markedly unpsychedelic track on that most celebrated of mind-stretching albums, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

McCartney had reportedly been fine tuning this song for the better part of a decade before the band recorded it in 1967. In the Beatles' Cavern gigs in Liverpool and during their amphetamine-fuelled furloughs as house band in the seedy dives and bars of Hamburg, Germany, this corny music hall ditty was the song they'd start playing on their acoustic instruments whenever their amps blew a fuse or the power went out.

The tune was not beloved by the other Beatles. When John Lennon said in a 1980 interview, "I would never even dream of writing a song like that," he was not pointing to his song-writing companion in a spirit of admiration or envy. While later retreads in a similar style, such as Your Mother Should Know or Honey Pie, do not constitute jewels in the Beatles' crown, When I'm 64 most definitely does.

At their creative peak, the individual members of the Beatles brought a wild diversity of taste and talent to their collective endeavours that widened their appeal immensely. Whenever I hear When I'm 64, I remember that afternoon in my 15th summer when I had just bought the album and was reading some of the printed lyrics aloud to a friend as we drank our milkshakes at the Woolworth's lunch counter.

There was an older woman working on a club sandwich across the way, who seemed to be within a decade either way of the age in question, though I recognize now that

15-year-old boys aren't particularly gifted at such calculations. Indeed, I wonder today if she was even out of her 40s. But the amazing thing was this. As this significantly older being eavesdropped on my reading, she actually laughed at the gormless pathos of the narrator, who repeatedly asks, "Will you still feed me?" and indulgently smiled at his cataloguing of his grandchildren, "Vera, Chuck and Dave."

She was absolutely charmed by McCartney's lyric and I doubted she would've been similarly amused by the snide musings on aging being thrown about by other bands like the Rolling Stones ("What a drag it is getting old") or the Who ("Hope I die before I get old"). That woman's delight struck me at the time as a commendation of some value, and it still does.

It's dead easy for a pop star in his 20s to lip off at the fogies and tick them off. It may win him a fleeting sense of loutish solidarity with his equally young peers, but, barring catastrophe, a day will inevitably dawn -- like McCartney's this Sunday -- when he enters into those once maligned ranks. This McCartney now can do with no apologies needed for cheap shots or hypocrisy.

Still there are notes of pathos attached to the prospect of a pension-aged Paul McCartney. One is that only he and Ringo Starr -- one half of the Beatles -- were able to make it to the not very advanced age of 64. The other is that this most family-centred of pop stars, after surviving the death of Linda Eastman, his beloved wife of nearly 30 years, is now undergoing the pain and disappointment of divorce from his perhaps too hastily married second wife, Heather Mills.

Apparently that uncharacteristically shrill bit of grandstanding that the McCartneys perpetrated on Canadian ice floes this spring to save the baby seals was Paul's last-ditch attempt to save the marriage by going along with one of Heather's campaigns.

If he can refocus all of his energy now on music, with a little extra urgency provided by the romantic angst he's enduring, McCartney's 65th year could end up being a lot more fruitful than anyone -- including he -- would ever have predicted.

Silly song will be reality for McCartney, but do we have to hear it?

As Beatles songs go, "When I'm Sixty-Four"? is a goof and a trifle, intentionally so.

At a time when the quartet was in peak form as studio experimenters and social commentators, the song appears as comic relief, an exhale in between plunges into the musical deep end of the late '60s.

Unfortunately, the laughs fade before the song does, all 2 minutes and 37 seconds of it.

It was never meant to be taken seriously, even by its primary author, Paul McCartney, who turns 64. It was a deliberately anti-art statement that appeared on an album often cited as a touchstone of art-rock, the 1967 release "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

If "Pepper"? is essentially a series of elaborate disguises and jokes, an opportunity for the Beatles to try on different clothes and be anybody but themselves, then "When I'm Sixty-Four" is the band playing at being their parents.

McCartney slips into an English music-hall guise, the British equivalent of a vaudeville crooner specializing in rooty-tooty rhythms and catch-phrase lyrics. The song isn't so much propelled as cast adrift by a trio of snoozy clarinets and plodding bass.

McCartney's vocal is jauntily tongue-in-cheek, both honoring and skewering lifelong monogamy ("Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm 64"?).

The kindest assessment is that "When I'm Sixty-Four"? is actually a subversive commentary: the Beatles warning their peers that someday they, too, will be consumed not with changing the world, but only with who will bother to spoon them oatmeal.

Now that's darkly funny, in a way that reflects the Beatles' love of the 1950s BBC comedy "The Goon Show,"? starring Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan.

Paul McCartney: When I'm 64

The Beatle's 64th birthday is not merely a personal event. It is a cultural milestone for a generation

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?

At least Paul McCartney had the prescience to ask a question rather than making a statement. Other Sixties icons have had to become living disavowals of their statements of youthful arrogance. "Hope I die before I get old," wrote Pete Townshend, a chap who now drives around in a mobile home. "I'd rather be dead than singing 'Satisfaction' when I'm 45," sneered the butterfly Mick Jagger, who is now also eligible for a bus pass.

But time has no favourites. Just a month after he split up from his second wife, McCartney actually is 64, and the words of one of his best-known songs - if you can select for fame from such a stellar oeuvre - ring with unhappy irony.

When I get older losing my hair,

Many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a Valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine?

If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door?

He has not lost his hair, though he dyes it with a colour which many find a little too vibrant in its red-brown hue. And just at present there is no one at home to lock him out if he goes on a bender - nor anyone indoors to nag him if, in deference to his advanced years, if he decides just to stay home and light a spliff. But, as to the Valentines, I expect he will still get a few.

One of the most noticeable qualities of the public and press reaction to the news of his marriage break-up has been the ferocity of its protective affection for the former Beatle, which has found its obverse in the vituperative attacks on his estranged wife Heather Mills McCartney. But that tells us more about us than it does about her.

You'll be older too,
And if you say the word,
I could stay with you.

And so he has. For Paul McCartney's 64th birthday is not merely a personal event. It is a cultural milestone for a generation too. For, such is the nature of celebrity, McCartney is one of those people who throughout his life has, in some intangible way, represented the hopes and aspirations, joys and sorrows of those who were born in the baby-boom era which had its adolescent awakening in the Sixties and Seventies.

"When I'm Sixty-Four" was the first song the Beatles laid down on 8 December 1966, the day they began recording what Rolling Stone recently adjudged to be the most influential rock album of all time, placing it at the head of their 500 Greatest Albums listing. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was, in the words of its producer George Martin, "the most innovative, imaginative, and trend-setting record of its time". The most influential high-brow of the day, Kenneth Tynan, went further, describing the album as "a decisive moment in the history of Western civilisation".

But McCartney's influence went well beyond being one of the keystones of the psychedelic rock revolution of the 1960s. He may have been going in and out of style since Sgt Pepper taught the band to play (almost 40 years ago today), but his overall career has made him the most successful pop composer of all time. According to Guinness World Records he has sold more records (400 million), penned more No 1 hits (50) and played to a bigger paying audience (350,000) than any other songwriter. It has made him the richest rock star in the world, with an estimated personal fortune of £825 million ($1.5 billion). His song "Yesterday" is one the most recorded songs ever, with more than 3,000 versions. And yet, in a world all too often characterised by envy, McCartney's success, like his genius, is embraced by his generation almost as a wishful projection of their own life journey.

I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone.

You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride,
Doing the garden, digging the weeds,
Who could ask for more?

There are in that echoes of McCartney's happy childhood. He was born to working-class parent at Walton Hospital in Liverpool. His Irish Catholic mother, Mary, had worked as a nurse and midwife there. His British Protestant father, Jim, was a cotton salesman and a self-taught pianist and dance-band leader. "He had a lot of music in him, my dad," the singer has said. "He taught me and my brother harmony. Whenever John [Lennon] sang, I automatically sang in harmony with him, and that's due to my dad's teaching."

They pair had met when John Lennon's band, the Quarrymen, was playing at a local church fete. With the addition of McCartney, then aged 14, and George Harrison (who became lead guitarist because he knew more chords) the band morphed into the Silver Beetles and then the Beatles.

They learned their craft playing long sessions in Hamburg, Germany, where the band first played a version of the song that would become "When I'm Sixty Four", as a bit of what Paul called acoustic "rooty-tooty" when the power failed and their amps went off. It lurked in the background throughout the Beatles' heyday in which they became the most extraordinary international hit-making phenomenon the pop world had seen, influencing everything from music to fashion and spirituality to politics.

The song embodied in its cod sentiments what Paul McCartney wanted for his own children. Not long after it was recorded, at the launch party for Sgt. Pepper he met the photographer Linda Eastman. They married and had three children.

For all his fame what Paul craved for his family was the happiness and security of his own childhood. He sought out ordinariness, sending his kids to the local comprehensive, eating Linda's home-cooked (and not always very appetising) food and even insisting that she did the family's laundry so that the house would smell of ironing to evoke the memories of his childhood home. Guests invited to lunch might be treated to a personal performance at the piano afterwards, but then they were expected to help to wash up.

There was an irony in the idyll. For though McCartney was usually considered the most conventional of the Beatles - an image which Lennon fostered to contrast with his own as a wayward genius - the image was misleading. McCartney was never quite what he seemed.

While the rest of the Beatles retreated to secure stockbroker belt estates McCartney lived in the centre of London exploring the more avant garde of the capital's influences. It was he, not Lennon, who cultivated the London art scene, launching the art shop in which Yoko Ono first met the Beatles. He became a friend of leading art dealers, explored experimental film, and attended "alternative" events, such as the launch party for International Times which he attended, as so often, in disguise. He was the first British pop star to admit openly to using LSD.

Yet Lennon was always accounted the radical. It was that, as part of the long years of friction and rivalry, along with what the other three Beatles saw as the baleful influence of Yoko Ono, that finally eroded the men's friendship.

Every summer we can rent a cottage,
In the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear
We shall scrimp and save
Grandchildren on your knee
Vera, Chuck & Dave

In 1966, the year Sgt. Pepper was recorded, McCartney's father Jim reached the age of 64. His son decided to record the old tune as a tribute. At that point grandchildren were but a dream for McCartney Snr. When the real ones came along McCartney christened them Mary, Stella, James - two of them named after his parents.

There was a poignancy to that. For the happy old age the song celebrated was one which McCartney's parents did not enjoy. His mother, Mary, died of breast cancer when he was just 14. It shattered the happiness and security of Paul's life and it was more than a decade later that he seemed to become reconciled to it; the song "Let It Be" is based on a dream he had about her a decade after her death. It was a cruel blow to McCartney that the disease which killed his mother was then diagnosed in his wife Linda, who died three years later in 1998 after almost 30 years of marriage.

Send me a postcard, drop me a line,
Stating point of view
Indicate precisely what you mean to say
Yours sincerely, wasting away

Several lost years followed Linda's death, much as they had in 1970 after the Beatles broke up when McCartney was just 27. After long periods of introspection McCartney tried to reinvent himself. His post-Beatles solo career was chequered, with considerable commercial success but little critical acclaim for material such as "Mull of Kintyre", one of the best-selling British singles ever. He sought refuge in collaborations, with a succession of musicians: Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Elvis Costello, Youth of Killing Joke, Super Furry Animals and the remixer Freelance Hellraiser.

After Linda's death he attempted a similar reinvention, remarrying another campaigning blonde, but though he and Heather Mills had a daughter, the marriage was short-lived.

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four?

It will be a birthday tinged with sadness that the woman he hoped would answer that question will offer no reply. But Paul McCartney can take some comfort that there are millions of fans out there who will still answer resoundingly in the affirmative.

A Life in Brief

BORN James Paul McCartney, Liverpool, 18 June 1942. Mother Mary, a nurse; father Jim, an amateur band leader.

FAMILY Married, 1969, Linda Eastman (died 1989), three children, Mary, Stella and James, plus one adopted daughter Heather (child of Linda's first marriage); 2002, Heather Mills, daughter Beatrice Milly born in October 2003 (separated 17 May 2006).

EDUCATION Art college, Liverpool.

CAREER Songwriter, singer and bass player with the Beatles (1958-1970), the biggest musical act of the 20th century. Add to that a multifarious solo career since then and McCartney is the most successful pop composer of all time. He was knighted in 1997.

HE SAYS "None of us wanted to be the bass player. In our minds he was the fat guy who always played at the back."

THEY SAY "Paul McCartney is a genius and the Beatles are the greatest band to ever walk this earth." - Ozzy Osbourne, singer

Age: 64. Born June 18, 1942 in Liverpool, England.

Fast Fact: Between his work with the Beatles and as a solo artist and leader of Wings, McCartney has written or co-written more than 50 Top Ten singles.

By the numbers: When combined with the Beatles' 49 Top 40 U.S. singles, it is a matter of statistical fact that Paul McCartney is the most successful pop-music composer ever and the second greatest hitmaker, behind Elvis Presley.

Source: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

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