---

ALL CONTENT ON THIS PAGE IS COPYRIGHT!!

---

Macca Report current Paul News!!!
Macca Report Archived News Index

---

!!!Some links could be outdated!!!

---

---

June 2007 (Page 1)

---

---

June 7, 2007 -- Evening Standard

McCartney to play secret gig for just 1,000 fans

Sir Paul McCartney will play a secret gig at a small-scale London venue tonight.

The performance, details of which have only been released this morning, will inevitably trigger a desperate scramble for tickets.

The former Beatle will play songs from his new album as well as from his back catalogue at the Electric Ballroom in Camden in front of lessthan 1,000 fans.

The tickets, which are free, were only made available from noon today on a first come, first served basis from the box office in Camden High Street. Photo ID will be needed to collect the tickets.

The free concert coincides with the general release of Memory Almost Full, Sir Paul's new album and the first to go out on the label Hear Music, a joint venture between Starbucks, the entertainment arm of the coffee chain, and Concord Music Group.

Sir Paul's spokesman said today: "He is used to playing in front of as many as 500,000 people so it's very exciting to be playing a very exclusive, intimate show. I don't know the last time he did something like this. He is normally used to big arenas or stadia."

MORE

June 7, 2007 -- Ace Showbiz.com

Catch Paul McCartney's Intimate and Secret Show

Paul McCartney's very sudden and secret gig has just been revealed. The singer will give an intimate show tonight (June 7) at the Electric Ballroom in Camden.

This show is intended to promote his latest effort "Memory Almost Full" in front of just few hundred people.

The show will kick off 8pm.

Meanwhile, McCartney, who dedicates "Memory Almost Full" to late wife Linda McCartney, has released a statement that he would not write song about ex-wife Heather Mills. He claims that writing music is "an escape" and "nothing to do with my personal circumstances".

McCartney keeps filling memory bank

On Memory Almost Full, a title inspired by the warning that flashed when his cellphone maxed out on text and voice mails, Paul McCartney seesaws between impulses to dwell on the past and let it go.

"It's a mixed message," he says of the philosophy informing the 13 songs on his 21st solo studio album, out this week. "Look back at the past, but don't live in it and don't expect it to happen again. It's very much a changing world, and you have to leave room for new stuff."

Anyone who interprets that as a veiled comment on his factious divorce from model/activist Heather Mills is misreading between the lines, he says. McCartney, 64, is mum on the split, except to say, "It's a sad thing to have happened, and it's nothing that anyone wanted. I'm not the only person in the world who's going through or has been through this kind of thing. I look for an optimistic conclusion. I'm being positive about it."

And he's positive he does not address the broken marriage in song.

"It's actually the opposite," he says. "For me, music is an escape. It always has been. You're in a bad mood or have an argument, you go off in a corner and write a song. It's a form of therapy. I don't see it as anything to do with my personal circumstances."

That hasn't stopped scrutiny, including speculation that McCartney is the suicidal Mr. Bellamy.

"Is that cuckoo? Why would someone think that?" McCartney says. "It's about a guy jumping off a building. It's imaginary."

He started Memory in 2003 before detouring to make 2005's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard with Nigel Godrich. After completing Memory with producer David Kahne, McCartney shocked many by leaving Capitol/EMI, his home since 1962, to sign as the inaugural artist on Hear Music, the label formed by Starbucks and Concord Music Group.

"It was a carefully considered decision," he says. "Before I left, I said, 'Look, guys, you're not going to be able to do a good job on this. There's a new world out there, and I want to reach people, and I want to have an exciting time doing it.' I had dreaded releasing the album, because you set out on the same old (promotional) trail.

"The major labels know they're in major trouble. And the minute you hear Tower Records is closing, woo, you know this is a changing world."

McCartney is thrilled by Memory's placement in 10,000 Starbucks locations, including 400 in China.

"It's like being a kid again, which is exactly what I wanted, because the danger is now boredom."

MORE:

McCartney's future melds with ever-present past

That's a comfortable upholstered chair on the cover of Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full album, but it's not a rocker. On the cusp of turning 65, the ex-Beatle couldn't be less inclined to cool his jets.

After wrapping up the new disc and a frolicsome video for Dance Tonight, McCartney is already resuming work on a classical guitar concerto and throwing himself into a photography project inspired by his late wife, Linda.

"I'm lucky to have a life that contains all these things," he says in a telephone interview from a studio in Sussex, England. "I do have a lot of interests, and retiring isn't one of them."

Nor is that other twilight tradition: the memoir. McCartney freely rehashes his youth on Memory, yet outside of his contribution to The Beatles' Anthology biography, he won't consider putting his memories to paper, even if only to correct a record that has been bent and stretched in countless accounts of his life story.

"I'd probably get it wrong, too," he says. "This is the definitive version! 'No, it isn't, Paul. We measured it.' I'm too busy doing it to write about it."

In Memory's five-song closing suite, McCartney revisits the signposts of his past. Elsewhere, he touches on mortality and a shrinking future, but never without his signature optimism. Boy Scout days and childhood summers figure into Memory's sunnier moments, and though he sadly ruminates occasionally and takes a dejected detour to examine a suicidal chap in Mr. Bellamy, the music bears his trademark bounce.

The vintage snapshots are not a function of age, he insists.

"A lot of our Beatles songs were quite retrospective," McCartney says. "Penny Lane was about our youth. Songwriters often base material on memory. It happened by accident, as a lot of my stuff does."

The album title, taken from a message that popped up when his cellphone's memory bank neared capacity, was also a lucky accident.

"It struck me as quite poetic," he says. "In modern life, there is so much sensory overload. There's so much coming at you these days that you have to delete something to make room for something else. And it applies equally to a 20-year-old as it does to me."

McCartney, who says Memory's target demographic is "everyone," hopes to reach 20-year-olds through the lighthearted video for mandolin-sweetened Dance Tonight, posted on YouTube. Directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), the clip finds McCartney performing amid high-stepping ghosts. One of them, actress Natalie Portman, was lured to the project by McCartney's designer daughter, Stella.

"Natalie is vegetarian, and Stella does the world's most stylish non-leather shoes," he says. "That was the connection. I rang her up. I think the combination of Michel Gondry and myself interested her."

Rave reviews are comparing Memory to Wings' best efforts, and McCartney is eager to bring such tunes as Only Mama Knows and House of Wax to the stage. Between promotional duties, he and his band are rehearsing for a few surprise shows in the U.K., Los Angeles and New York.

"I won't get seriously out on the road, I would imagine, until next year," he says, attributing the delay to his widely dished divorce from Heather Mills. "I've obviously got my personal circumstances, and there's a lot of sorting out to be done there."

The topic of his broken four-year marriage is off limits. He is, however, voluble on a subject that he spent years dodging.

"For a while there, I just had to say, 'Look, I don't want to talk about The Beatles,' " he says. "I was trying to set up Wings and we knew we had a mountain to climb, and The Beatles were a bigger mountain. I didn't do Beatles songs.

"All of that's gone away. I look at it now with great fondness and as something to be proud of. I love singing Beatles songs."

He's also delighted that the legal fight between Apple Corps and Steve Jobs' Apple finally ended so that Beatles tunes will go online before year's end. And he has no problem with buyers enjoying Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, history's most hallowed concept album, one digital slice at a time.

"It's still available as a sequenced program," he says. "But if people want to change it, hey, it's a free country. I had my own (copy of Memory) shuffled by mistake on my CD player, and it was a freak-out coming at me from another direction. It freshened it up. If people want to shuffle it, cherry-pick it, re-sequence it, that's fine by me. All I want is for people to listen to it."

The Beatles' catalog may expand with Now and Then, a late-'70s John Lennon demo that was considered for the mid-'90s Anthology series, which yielded the refurbished Free as a Bird and Real Love.

McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr added parts to Now and Then, "but we gave up," McCartney says. "John's vocal on the tape, it's pretty bad quality, but emotional. With technology these days, you never know. I'd be interested to see if anything could be done. There is something there in the bushes."

He'll talk to Yoko Ono, Starr and Harrison's widow, Olivia, before exploring a technological fix. It's just another item on a growing to-do list that he has promised his family will be set aside on June 18 for his 65th birthday celebration.

"My kids are throwing a little party for me, I hear," he says.

What's a suitable gift for the globe's richest pop star?

"I never know how to answer that," he confesses. "I always say, a pair of black socks."

On Memory Almost Full, McCartney shares in that wonder with tracks that celebrate his now legendary status from the perspective of a scruffy kid from Liverpool. "That was me, in the cellar, sweating cobwebs," he sings on a track that reads like a spirited flip through a photo album. "When I think that all this stuff can make a life, it's pretty hard to take it in."

Memory Almost Full comes on the heels of a string of brilliant new McCartney recordings-2005's critically acclaimed Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, 2006's Ecce Cor Meum (a concerto that deals with the grief of losing his wife Linda to cancer) and Twin Freaks-the hard-to-find collection of mashed-up and remixed McCartney classics that pre-dates The Beatles Love and Yoko Ono's similarly-conceived Yes I Am a Witch by two and three years respectively.

Tracks like "Gratitude," "Dance Tonight" and "You Tell Me" show what this maestro is capable of achieving when he strips away the veneer, lets his guard down and pours his heart into a song.

Paste: The new issue of Paste, which coincides with the release of your new album, is titled 'Can Rock and Roll Save the World.' So I guess that's my question to you. Can rock and roll save the world?

Paul McCartney: I think it has (long pause).

Paste: How so?

Paul McCartney: I dunno. I was just winging it there (laughs).

No. I think it has. To me it speaks of freedom of thought and individualism. And when we're all thinking, we can save the world. So in some ways, I think rock can save the world and in other ways it already has. It's helped, put it that way.

Paste: In 1998 you said "if anyone wanted to save the planet all they need to do is stop eating meat." I was wondering if you could elaborate on that.

Paul McCartney: Yeah. Well, one problem that is bound to affect this planet is overpopulation. We're not going to get less people on this planet, or so it looks. So then the problem becomes how to maintain this planet and yet have so many people. And if that is a true fact that you can feed twenty times the amount of people by you know, being vegetarian-which is something I've been over thirty years-then I think that's the sort of valid avenue for people to explore. And I think that now there is even more of an argument for going veggie than ever before. Because if you take things like An Inconvenient Truth, you see it's the little things that are screwing up our nest. I hope that's not mixing too many metaphors.

Paste: You're the first artist to appear on the new Starbucks Hear Music label. That's sure to raise a few eyebrows. It's quite a non-traditional approach to distributing music.

Paul McCartney: Yeah. I've become a bit disillusioned with, uh, the major record labels and the way they operate. I think they themselves are going through problematic times and my friend and producer David Kahn said they were a bit like the dinosaurs sitting around discussing the asteroid, and that really struck me. We're in a new world now so the idea is that music isn't bought traditionally through record shops anymore. I mean, this has been happening for years. I've known for years that my records have been selling in Best Buy and Walgreen's while Tower Records is closing. So you see this shift.

But for me that was coupled with, I was not looking forward to releasing the record, the physical release of it, because it can be very boring when we just go through the motions. So I was looking for things that could be exciting and David happened to know the guy who had just been appointed one of the heads of music at Starbucks. He was an old friend of David's and David said, "he's a fan of yours and what's more, he's a bass player" And I thought "whew! That just about sews it up!"

So I met him. He was called Alan Mintz and he was very exciting. He just started saying "we could do this, and what about that" so it actually just interested me, because what are we trying to do anyway? To reach people, and I don't actually mind whether it happens through the Internet, through record stores or supermarkets or through a coffee chain. It doesn't much matter to me, you know? As long as there is some excitement.

So I eventually met them. I met Howard Schultz and the Starbucks team, and they were just really excited. Excite-ted. They all came into this meeting, about six of them, down in a basement studio in New York where we were finishing up Memory Almost Full and they all walked in carrying Starbucks. It was hilarious. I said "Guys. Next time I come to a meeting with you I'm going to get me and all my guys come walking in with a copy of my album under our arms." They just displayed this passion and an interest that I hadn't seen in awhile.

Paste: And your catalog was released recently on iTunes.

Paul McCartney: Right. It's the same thing when I talked with Steve Jobs about iTunes and the whole Apple thing. It wasn't just that it was a great idea, from a business standpoint. It was more than that. It was a great thing to be doing. It was an exciting way to do things.

Paste: You've been on a great run, with Chaos and Creation and Ecce Cor Meum, but some critics still hold you accountable for songs like 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' and a string of lackluster albums from the eighties. A common refrain is, "How could the guy who wrote 'Hey Jude' write 'Spies Like Us'?"

Paul McCartney: Well, you know, I'm multi-talented, Brent (laughs). No seriously not to be frivolous.

Paste: Yeah, but some of your best songs seem to come from a really personal place

Paul McCartney: Like what?

Paste: Oh, like "Maybe I'm Amazed," "Love in Song," "Here Today"

Paul McCartney: Yeah I think it's not just one side of my character that interests me. I'm not always in that kind of mood. You know, it can be a bright summer's day and I can just be in a happy-go-lucky mood and want to write something to dance to, and it's not as easy to write something like "Hey Today," to dance to. Hey a little coincidence. I'm actually upstairs in my mill here where I wrote that song, many, many years ago. In sort of the exact space. Funny you should mention that.

Anyway those songs, you've got to be in that mood, and you've got to want to write like that. So I've either got a choice to say, "Ok, you're in a sort of fun-loving mood, don't write something. Just go and have a swim or something," or "Hey, write something and publish it and be damned. It doesn't matter." So that's me.

It has led to the criticism that some of my songs will be more meaningful than others. And you know, I don't actually see that as a bad thing. And it doesn't apply to everyone. There are some people around whom I'll go, "Oh, God. I'm actually a bit ashamed about that song' I remember talking to a producer friend of mine about (switches to the voice of Spinal Tap's Derrick Smalls) "Bip. Bop."

Paste: I actually like that song

Paul McCartney: Right. I was talking to a producer about that song and he said "That's actually one of my favorites!" And you couldn't call that meaningful. That is, "bip bop, bip, bip, bop, bip bop bip bop and bam!" You know? But it's just a mood thing. When I wanna to write those, I don't resist the urge and I write them. And so they come out alongside things that are perhaps better. But I don't worry about it too much.

Paste: One of the best songs on the new album is "Dance Tonight." I like that song because it has a certain kind of rawness to it. Even though it's lighthearted, it's very honest. And fresh. It's almost like playing the mandolin has put you in a different place and challenged you in a different way.

Paul McCartney: Yeah. Well, that is exactly true. Yeah. So, that's what I mean. You have that choice. If you took yourself very seriously, you wouldn't write "Dance Tonight." You'd just think. "OK, that's fine, that's a little fun thing. Over the Christmas, you'd just play that to your friends in the kitchen," Or, I have, a little 3-year old girl who dances her head off to that one. So, I have the choice of thinking, "Yeah, well, it's fun, but don't use it. Just keep it as a goofy thing you do," or I can record it. You can never tell. You can never tell.

In time, I can't tell which songs will be considered better than others, so I just write 'em as they come. And uh, they're all a pleasant experience to write. I pretty much enjoy writing them all and so, some of them will mean more to certain people than they will to other people. You just have to realize that. Perhaps people who take themselves and me too seriously might not like some of those songs, but there are also a huge group of people in the world that don't take themselves too seriously, or me too seriously, and it might appeal to them. So there you go. It's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Paste: One of the tracks that really stands out on your new album is "You Tell Me," which could almost be seen as an answer, forty years later, to "Things We Said Today."

Paul McCartney: It's a cool track, man. Yeah. It's really about the summers I spent in Long Island. I was there when I wrote it, and I'd actually just listened to a Leonard Cohen album that I liked. Very simple. Straightforward. I just started writing, and as I wrote, a bright red cardinal flew down from the tree, and he just worked his way into the song.

It's to do with beautiful golden summers that I'd experienced in that particular location. It's not an answer to anything though. I don't analyze myself like that, you know. That's your job (laughs). I'm the guy who gets to write it, you're the guy who gets to write about it.

Paste: On this new album, there's a general tone in songs like "Ever Present Past" and "That Was Me" of 'Holy Shit! I was a Beatle!' Do you ever stop to think about the chain of events that led you to the position you are in today? I mean, by any cosmic flip of the coin you could have been a geek that writes about music for a national magazine or a kid starving on the streets of Darfur.

Paul McCartney: I actually don't allow myself to realize I'm Paul McCartney. In my mind, I'm James Paul McCartney, this kid from Liverpool.

I was talking to this guy in a young band the other day about just that very thing, and we both agreed. He's already accomplished so many of his dreams, you know, he's in a band, he made a record, and on this particular day he got to hang around with Paul McCartney. But you know, he has to keep a watch (breaks into Johnny Cash) "I keep a good watch on this heart of mine" You have to keep a watch on all that, or-as we'll both agree-your head will explode. It's just too much.

I said to him, you're just starting. Just think about me. I wrote "Let it Be." Now that's enough for your head to explode, just in one lifetime. But I also wrote "Hey Jude, Long and Winding Road, Lady Madonna, Fool On the Hill " And I was in the Beatles. I was one of four Beatles. I was the guy who wrote with John Lennon. Stop me, or I'm going to explode! And it really is true. You have to watch it. You just have to kind of This is possibly why I don't take myself too seriously. If I did, I just might explode.

Paste: I imagine it could do odd things with your sense of identity. Have you ever seen a Beatles tribute band?

Paul McCartney: No. I've just never come across them. I've seen them advertised, but none of us has ever been to a Beatles fest. We sort of frowned on them in the beginning. But now we kind of realize it's a tribute. But still, I've never been to one. I've kind of run into Beatle bands at places, funny enough. People come up to me and say, "Hi, Paul. I'm you." I'm like, "Great, nice to meet me." It's pretty bizarre.

Paste: I imagine it is do they look like you?

Paul McCartney: No. Never. But they're always cool people. It's a huge tribute. It's an honor, really.

In an exclusive interview with "Good Morning America," music icon Paul McCartney opened up about his divorce from former model Heather Mills.

"It's very tough, you know, going through a separation," McCartney told ABC News' Nick Watt. "But I'm just trying to keep my dignity, trying to just move forward and not talk about it in interviews really," he said.
Watch the full interview Thursday on "Good Morning America," 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. EST (ABC).

The former Beatle also talked about his latest album, "Memory Almost Full," which is being hailed by critics as a masterpiece. One standout track on the album "The End of the End" describes what McCartney says he'd like his funeral to be like. "It deals with death, which is quite a serious subject," McCartney said. "But it deals with it in a sort of light way."

The release marks his 21st solo album. But surely this isn't his last? "I hope not," he quipped.

McCARTNEY REMAINS 'OPTIMISTIC' ABOUT DIVORCE

Former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney is determined to remain upbeat during his divorce battle with his estranged wife Heather Mills.

The star wants to reach an amicable agreement with Mills for the sake of their three-year-old daughter Beatrice. McCartney says, "It's a sad thing to have happened and it's nothing that anyone wanted.

"I'm not the only person in the world who's going through or has been through this kind of thing. I look for a optimistic conclusion. I'm being positive about it."

Paul McCartney Debuts #1

The Latest Sales Info:
STREETPULSE reports PAUL McCARTNEY "Memory Almost Full" 9UMGD/Concord)
#1 debut based on first day sales from yesterday.

Top 5 Overall Sales Debuts:

#1 PAUL McCARTNEY "Memory Almost Full" 9UMGD/Concord)
#2 RIHANNA "Good Girl Gone Bad" (UMGD/Island)
#3 MARILYN MANSON "Eat Me Drink Me" (UMGD/Interscope)
#4 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN "Live In Dublin" (SBME/Columbia)
#5 T-PAIN "Epiphany" (SBME/Zomba)

Sales Debuts by Format:

#1 AC PAUL McCARTNEY "Memory Almost Full" (UMGD/Concord)

James, Mary and Stella were at the London taping. They sat at tables on the side of the stage.

Stella was interviewed by Jools and seemed nervous. Her husband, Alasdhair, cuddled her for comfort. Jools asked her why she was there and she said, "I've come to see Paul McCartney!"

Paul kept going over to talk to Mary, Stella and James during the breaks to make sure they were OK. He was wearing a white shirt, black jacket, dark trousers and the ubiquitous sandals - no socks! He took his jacket off when he got hot as it was sweltering in there and rolled up his sleeves. His shirt was very damp and stuck to his back.

Paul was doing yoga stretching exercises for his back because he was standing for so long which delighted the female fans.

Paul started the show off with "Dance Tonight". He stayed on his stage (there were several stage sets) throughout the other performances - dancing quite a lot! He crossed the studio to have a chat with Jools Holland about the CD cover and his mandolin. He mentioned there was something 'rude' in the symbolism on the chair design that is on the cover.

He hung around while the tapes were checked and then had to re-do "Dance Tonight" (he fluffed a few words the second time). Then he hung around again while they checked. He did a speeded up version of "Dance Tonight" for the audience and danced around while hamming it up for laughs.

Other acts were interspersed with Paul's. The next song he did was "I've Got a Feeling" then "Only Mama Knows" which was a great live rocker and went down well. A piano was brought to the center of the studio and opposite was an organ. Paul sang "Lady Madonna" and played piano and Jools Holland played the organ.

At the end of "Lady Madonna" Mary and Stella who were bopping during Paul's performance shouted out encore songs, i.e. "Maybe I'm Amazed." Paul didn't do an encore.

During the breaks Macca chatted with some of the fans. After the show he shook hands and signed some autographs for them.

Paul will be on "Later ... with Jools Holland," Friday, June 8th at 11:35pm on BBC 2 television.

*Exclusive news may not be used, copied or paraphrased, without crediting The Macca Report!

Fans of Sir Paul McCartney got the chance to get a little closer to their icon today by recording personal video messages wishing him a happy birthday.

The former Beatle turns 65 on June 18 and bosses at coffee chain Starbucks - who run his new label - are determined to make the celebration a party to remember.

Well-wishers in London, Seattle, New York, Berlin, Philadelphia, Miami, Atlanta, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Los Angeles were all invited to record video messages at designated outlets throughout the day. The tributes will premiere on McCartney's birthday via a host of online outlets.

Sir Paul McCartney's hopes of topping the U.K. charts have suffered a serious blow with news sales in his new label's stores are not eligible for the top 40.

The former Beatle has just released his 21st solo album, Memory Almost Full, on a label run by coffee chain Starbucks, called Hear Music. He decided to leave EMI after 43 years with the company after complaining the record giant was "jaded". However, the 64-year-old may live to rue his decision because the chain's 533 U.K. stores are not registered with the Official U.K. Charts Company - which means CDs bought there will not count towards any chart position.

Starbucks says it has no immediate plans to contribute sales data to the chart compilers. McCartney's record is also being sold through traditional high-street retailers and internet download services like iTunes.

The 13-track LP is full of surprises, both musically and lyrically: From spontaneously learning to play mandolin for one track to using one fan's advice to celebrate death as the inspiration for another, McCartney delivers a project that's daring and extremely personal.

In this track-by-track commentary, he shares the intimate details behind each song. Listen to the CD while you read McCartney's memories.

Paul McCartney isn't afraid to try new things. The music icon, who has been recording for 45 years, has teamed up with Starbucks for the first global release on the coffee giant's new record label -- his 21st solo album, 'Memory Almost Full.'

'Dance Tonight'

This was the last track I recorded for the album. I was on my way into a meeting, but before I actually got there, I had a bit of a walk to experience life for a minute. There's a guitar shop that I always drop in on, and I was chatting to the guy in there. He mentioned that he had a left-handed mandolin that he wanted to show me. I ended up getting it. The great thing about it was that I didn't know how to play.It's tuned like a violin, so I had no idea what the chords were. It took me back to when I was a teenager being presented with an instrument.I had to figure out how to play it.I found one chord, then another, then a real strange chord.I still don't know what it is, but it sounded great.With this little instrument at home over the holiday, I started stomping in the kitchen, just enjoying myself, trying to find chords.I start singing, "Everybody gonna dance tonight." Every time, my little girl would come running in and start dancing, so I fell in love with this song and with the mandolin.The song kind of wrote itself. I thought I'm just gonna keep it simple. I liked it so much I ran into the studio to record it and stuck it on the album. It seemed like a good atmospheric opening.

'Ever Present Past'

Sometimes I just sit down and try and write a pop song. I've done it throughout my life and it's an interesting thing to do, to make something kind of catchy that might be attractive.It starts off, "I've got too much on my plate."The way I write I just follow that thought and think, "What did I mean by that? Explain yourself." So I think, "Well what I meant was ..."After I'd got the verse, this idea of my past, my 'Ever Present Past,' came about. No deep meaning in it. I think what happens with me is I just write a thing and people read into it.I like that because I think often you do things in a subliminal way you don't actually realize what you are doing. So something that I might think is a simple statement, somebody might go, "Yeah, but it means that."I like multiple meanings to these things even though I often start it off as a phrase that's really to help me write the song, to get me to the next bit.

I'd already recorded most of the songs, but when it came to put the bass on it I did it fairly straightforward. Then just for my own pleasure I started goofing around, playing way too much, going over the top and I joked with the producer at the end of the take, "Whoa that was way over the top!" He said, "No that's great, do another take like that.I think that's exactly what the song needs." That was dangerous, because I pulled out every lick in the book and just had fun playing. But when I listened back, it all seemed to make sense. I was going where I wouldn't normally go, throwing in notes, but somehow it fit. I think I only did two takes, it's mad like that, but those were the ones that we used.

'Only Mama Knows'

'Only Mama Knows' really is like a short story. I've done that in the past, not always writing from a personal perspective. So it's kind of nice because you get more into your imagination, and that's something I enjoy. Writing about Eleanor Rigby;I don't know a woman who picks up rice in a church, nor do I know anyone who was stranded in the transit lounge of an airport, as in 'Only Mama Knows,' but I like to get into those imaginary stories and then just follow them through and become that character. So the lead character who's singing is someone who was left by his mother, doesn't know why she left him and doesn't know if he'll ever see his father's face.It's interesting because it gets you out of yourself.You can become an alter ego.It doesn't have to be me singing it.It can be this other guy singing. It's good to do, it lets you have another vocal and emotional approach.

'You Tell Me'

I started off just remembering summers."Were we really there?" "Was it real?" Sometimes for a lot of people your memories, particularly childhood memories, seem so golden and you think, "Did it really never rain all summer or am I just imagining the sunny bits?"And then the phrase, 'You tell me," began to be the theme of the song.I wrote it out in Long Island, during one of those summers.I was just looking at a red cardinal.For someone English it's magical, seeing a bright red bird coming out of a tree, so he appeared in the lyric. A lot of it was actually just there as I was writing. It became a tribute to golden summers.

'Mr. Bellamy'

Who is Mr Bellamy? I never know who these people are. Who are Chuck 'n' Dave from 'When I'm 64'? Who is Eleanor Rigby? Who's Desmond and Molly from ['Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da']?I don't know.I make them up.I like giving characters names, just making them up and trying to make them fit.I had a little piano riff that is behind the verse.I wanted some lyrics that would poke in and poke out of this piano riff so I began, with "I'm not coming down, no matter what you say. I like it up here."Sometimes I don't actually know where I'm going, so then I look at just what that verse is and in this case I got a picture of a guy sitting on top of a skyscraper and all the people in the street, the rescue team, the psychiatrist, the man with the megaphone shouting "Don't jump" and the people shouting "Jump."So I fished around for a name and came up with "Bellamy," which just sounded like someone who might want to jump. And I just followed the story through.The end is like a pull back on a camera, there he is, little Bellamy sitting on the ledge, enjoying it up in the clouds.And that's how we recorded it, as a sort of film.

'Gratitude'

I've always had a couple of voices.Originally you're just a kid at home, like everyone else and then you start to dream this dream of maybe being a singer. My heroes then were Elvis Presley, so my ballad voice I think was based on Elvis and the screamy voice was me trying to be Little Richard. I loved him so much.When I got in the Beatles, John used to like that and it's remained with me as something I enjoy doing, that sort of gritty soul-y voice. So on this track I was just thinking of how much there is to be grateful for in life and I wanted to put that into song and use this voice to do it with.

'Vintage Clothes'

For me, 'Vintage Clothes' is about my clothes from the '60s and the fact that what's out comes back, fashion going round in circles. I meet quite a few guys in young bands and a question they always ask is, "Did you keep the clothes?" As a matter of fact I have. The Beatles' tailor Dougie Millings is in a scene in 'A Hard Day's Night.' Instead of just going to get a suit as you used to before that, for a job interview or whatever, suddenly you were going to get epaulets and fancy buttons, materials and linings. To me, that is where 'Vintage Clothes' comes from. It's sort of saying don't hold onto the past. The message of vintage clothes are great but don't live in the past.

It's ['Vintage Clothes'] the opening of a medley. The next four songs are designed, with this as the opener. I hadn't done since 'Abbey Road' and I thought it would be quite nice to flirt with that idea again. It just means it's a slightly longer form, you've got to think, "What came before? What statement are you going to make now? How's this going to lead on?" It's not that different from just sequencing an album, but you suddenly think of them as a suite of songs and it becomes interesting to write them in that way.

'That Was Me'

One of those things that I hear people say often is that they can remember more from their childhood than they can from a month ago. I think that is a fact of life, I don't know why.So all I had to do for this song was to think back. And immediately I go back to Liverpool where there was a little place we could escape to, beautiful little woods.Come springtime there would be these carpets of bluebells.It was a magical place. There's something about me at the bus stop that's a big part of my memory, going to school, coming home from school, going to the pictures, going to your friend's house. So all of these things got in there, in the cellar, which is the Cavern; Royal Iris, which is a ferry boat they used to have, they'd call them River Boat Shuffles, and some of our earliest gigs were on these. So these are just exciting memories of mine.And when I connected them, "on a blanket, in the bluebells, at the bus stop" and then eventually get into the Beatles "that was me, on TV, sweating cobwebs in a cellar."It was great to revisit it.

'Feet in the Clouds'

Because of the retrospective look of this medley, it then goes back to school and teachers. I had a real motley bunch of teachers at the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys. Some of them were complete maniacs. School was very dark and gloomy, the building itself wasn't the lightest of buildings, it was an 1825 building. This seemed to affect the attitude of the teachers. They were quite a dark bunch of people. So the song is like a therapy session for me.I wanted to go robotic on some harmonies, to do a vocoder type thing because it's kind of a nostalgic sound and yet it's robotic. It could be from the future but in fact it's from the past, so I liked that.

'House of Wax'

There's something about chords in a song that can take you to a place. In this song they are not complex but there's something in the tonality of them that takes you to what the vocal becomes. And I like the lyrics." Lightning hits the house of wax, poets spill out on the streets, to set alight the incomplete remainders of the future. "It's quite surreal lyrically. So I enjoyed singing them because of those chords and the mixture of the melody and the lyrics. I think this will be a good to do live. It's another one that the band was on. In fact the medley was conceived early on in this album and the band is featured on a lot of it.

'End of the End'

I'd read something somebody had written where they were talking about dying and I thought, 'That's kind of brave."It seemed a brave subject to deal with rather than just shying away from it. So I fancied looking at this as a subject of myself. And then I thought, well I like the Irish approach of a wake, where it's celebratory. I remember once an Irish woman wished me well by saying, "I wish you a good death," and I was like, "Say what!?"I thought about it and thought actually, it's a great thing to wish someone.It was quite a brave subject for me.I thought, "Well, what would I like?"Jokes, wake, music, rather than everyone sitting around glum saying, "He was a great guy," though they can do a bit of that.So that led into the verse "On the day that I die I'd like jokes to be told and stories of old to be rolled out like carpets."I have played it to my family and they find it very moving because, you know, it's Dad. It's a strange combination, because you're talking about a very serious subject.But I'm dealing with it lightly.

'Nod Your Head'

Well, that 'End of the End' brought the party down, didn't it? 'End of the End' was going to be the last track on the album, but then we thought we can't leave everyone going, "Oh, God, I'm not going to listen to that again." So we had a little stompy rocker called 'Nod Your Head,' and we thought, 'We've just got to let them off the hook." So it goes into this much more abrasive rocking thing.

I think it's good to talk about difficult subjects and then to get off it and just rock out. So that was the feel of making the album. Get some personal thoughts out ('Gratitude,' 'End of the End'), talk about that subject ('Vintage Clothes' and the medley), talk about my childhood, talk about love, about beautiful memories. Try and get it all said but at the same time with a feeling of optimism and enthusiasm. I thought if I could accomplish that, then that would be a good thing to do.

He may be a British icon worth millions but Sir Paul McCartney is not too big for a telling off from his 90-year-old Welsh aunt!

The former Beatle incurred his relative's wrath after he compared Wales to a "Third World country". And Dilys Mohin told WOS she won't Let It Be until she's set him straight!

Merseyside legend Sir Paul, 64, made the gaffe in an interview when he revealed to Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson he never gets recognised in the Third World. His younger rock rival joked the same thing happens to him in Wales.

To which Macca cheekily replied: "Well, Wales is a Third World country, isn't it?"

Realising we're a sensitive lot, he quickly added: "We love Welsh people by the way... especially my Aunty Dilys."

Sir Paul's people were quick to stress his quip in music mag NME was firmly tongue-in-cheek.

But Dilys doesn't see it that way!

The living legend - who is preparing to make a comeback with a new album following his costly divorce to Heather Mills-McCartney - is facing an ear-bashing from Dilys, whose late husband was the brother of Macca's mum, Mary.

The outspoken OAP, who lives in the Welsh hills, says she will give her cheeky nephew a Hard Day's Night the next time he dials to say Hello, Goodbye.

Dilys said: "Yes, I read what Paul had to say about the Welsh and I'm going to pull him up on it the next time I speak to him. He's not going to get away with it. After all, I'm Paul's Welsh aunty.

"But I must say, it's not the first time he has had a go at Wales. When he calls, he pokes fun at my Welsh accent on the phone, but I give it him back reminding him of his working class roots.

"I don't know why some people have a go at Wales all the time. There are some very noble people from Wales."

But although Macca's comments echo those of Weakest Link presenter Anne Robinson - who sparked outrage in 2001 when she branded the Welsh "irritating" - Dilys says Welsh fans should not Twist and Shout about them.

"When Paul says something it makes headlines but he only means it as a joke," Dilys said.

"Paul knows whatever he says will be reported; he has had it all his life, but he's only joking about Wales.

"Paul is in great spirits at the moment. He is going through a divorce but he is coping very well. Paul is great, he's the same as he has always been. He is very down to earth and doesn't show off his wealth.

He bought me a lovely present for my 90th in February. I'm not going to tell you what it is... but it wasn't a country house."

Paul McCartney hasn't slowed down. in the midst of a messy divorce, the 40th anniversary of "Sgt. Pepper" and preparations for his 65th birthday, McCartney is releasing his 22nd post-Beatles studio disc, "Memory Almost Full," on Starbucks' Hear Music label. Nostalgic yet inventive, it's his most vibrant record in years-and the first one to come out on Apple's iTunes store. McCartney spoke to NEWSWEEK's Andrew Romano and Daniel Klaidman last week by phone while driving through the English countryside to rehearse with his band for an upcoming series of (shh!) secret, small-club shows. Excerpts:

McCARTNEY: Good morning to the two of you. Welcome to our little soiree.

NEWSWEEK: Let's start out with the new record, "Memory Almost Full." It's absolutely fantastic-your best, I think, in some time. I hear a definite Wings influence.

McCARTNEY: People are saying Wings, but I must admit that I can't see it. Then again, I'm the worst analyzer of my music ever.

NW: When a song evokes Wings or The Beatles, is that spontaneous or a conscious decision?

McCARTNEY: I don't think I ever say, "Let's write a Beatles song." But the truth of it is, I'm the same guy I always was. I use virtually the same bunch of tricks that I always have used-and add a few as I go along. Sometimes they resemble Wings or the Beatles just because that's who I am. No other reason.

NW: How do you see the songs you're writing now as different from the songs you were writing when you were, say, 24?

McCARTNEY: Some aren't that different, but some have a more mature viewpoint. I'm more mature. More water has gone under the bridge. Still, I look back and say, "Man, I was writing 'Yesterday' when I was 24 or something." Talking about "I'm not half the man I used to be" as if I'm an old geezer or something. Even though I was 24 ... You find it in 24-year-old novelists. They talk like they're old people, when they're patently not. If there is a difference, I think "The End of the End" is something I wouldn't have tackled then. Because it's about ... death. Which then I might have thought was too tricky a subject, or just something to avoid.

NW: Is mortality something you've thought about more recently?

McCARTNEY: [Laughs] I think so, yeah. I wrote this song "When I'm Sixty-Four" not expecting to be here. Of course, little did I realize that I would not only reach that mark but still be here working, and highly embarrassed at the attention that song would bring to my age. But, you know, it's actually passed off relatively peacefully. In a few weeks I move on to actual retirement age. Sixty-five! Luckily, I still have a sense of humor-and some hair.

NW: What would the Paul who wrote that song in 1967 have thought of the 64-year-old Paul? Would he have been surprised?

McCARTNEY: I think he would've been surprised, yeah. We were always surprised that the Beatles lasted at all. I remember being 17 and looking at a guy who went to John's art college who was 24 and thinking, God, that's awfully old. He had a 5 o' clock shadow, and I really felt very sorry for this guy. But when I became 24, I thought, This is a fabulous age. And 34, similarly fabulous. And 64, too. It doesn't seem to have bothered me that much. It would be great to be physically younger. But then again, I wouldn't want to think any younger. I'm happy with the way I think right now.

NW: Has it been any harder to age as a Beatle, as an emblem of the youth culture?

McCARTNEY: I think there may be an element of that. All the iconic images of me and [tone of mock nostalgia] "the boys" are of these very young, you know, moptops. There's that comparison, inevitably. It doesn't seem to bother me, really. I keep expecting it to, but, you know ... I certainly love doing what I do: writing, singing, recording, playing. I just finished a week of rehearsing with my band. We're going to be doing some little secret gigs to support the album, small clubs and things. It's just a joy.

NW: Do you ever look at any of these so-called biggest bands in the world-U2, or Coldplay, or Oasis-and think, Oh, please. You guys have no idea?

McCARTNEY: [Laughs] Well, I think they know that themselves. I actually don't think I have to point it out to them. When they started out, Oasis in particular, they said they were going to be bigger than the Beatles. And I felt sorry for them. Because everyone who says that, it's a prediction that doesn't come true. It's a fatal prediction. I sort of sit by and go, Good luck, son.

NW: Many bands have been referred to as Beatle-esque-do you think any of them are particularly good?

McCARTNEY: I don't mean to be mean, but no.

NW: The competition between you and John was the engine that drove the Beatles. Has it been hard, after the Beatles, not having a John to compete with?

McCARTNEY: Yeah, it always was. I've worked with other collaborators. Elvis Costello, for instance, was great to work with, and we did some great work together. But I'm sure Elvis himself would easily acknowledge that John is a hell of an act to follow. And now I realize that. It couldn't have been anyone. For years, I might have thought, Well, there may be someone. John was pretty good and we worked well together ... But you've got to remember, John and I knew each other when we were teenagers. We listened to the same records. We grew up to those records. We wore the same clothes. We admired the same kind of people. We had the same tastes. That informed the whole business. John and I were like twins. To find someone like that is pretty impossible. And hey, we were also damn good. We just got it on. We were hot. You can't replace someone like John, and I don't think he could've replaced someone like me.

NW: There are these caricatures of you and John that have persisted: John is rock, you're pop.

McCARTNEY: The combination of our two personalities produced a personality more than the sum of the parts. There could be times when John was the biggest softy ever, and I would be the hard nut. That might happen more in private than in public. But I think John would've gotten annoyed working with a softy all those years, and I would have gotten annoyed working with a hard man. The fact was that we were actually quite similar. We both had a hard and a soft side.

NW: Is it difficult to feel proud of a new song when you've got stuff like "Maybe I'm Amazed" in the back catalog? To be working in that shadow?

McCARTNEY: I'll tell you one thing that's great. Normally, rehearsing with my band, singing the new songs, they always seem a bit second-rate compared to the other hits I'm doing in the set. These don't. We're doing "Dance Tonight," "Only Mama Knows," "House of Wax" and "That Was Me" at the moment. I must say, they feel as if they match up.

NW: So many people are awed by your music. What songs are you in awe of?

McCARTNEY: It's a wide spectrum. What immediately comes to mind is "Cheek to Cheek," the old Fred Astaire song, which I love-it just has something that blows me away. "Stardust," the old Hoagy Carmichael, which is a masterful piece. Things like "My Funny Valentine." I think some of John's songs. "Imagine," I'd have to put up there. Some of George's songs: "The Inner Light," "Isn't It a Pity." I like Sting's "Fields of Gold." I always like Billy Joel's [sings] "don't go changing." And there are an awful lot from the rock-and-roll era.

NW: You wrote the most-covered song ever: "Yesterday." Do you ever get sick of it?

McCARTNEY: Not really, no. If you'd have written "Yesterday," would you? [Laughs] It's one of those, man. Come on! It's one of the most mystical things that ever happened to me, waking up one morning with that tune in my head. I mean, that's pretty far out. Recently, though, I realized I'd hardly heard any of these 3,000 cover versions. [Laughs] So I had someone make me a CD of the 10 most amazing covers: you know, Frank Sinatra, Elvis [Presley], Marvin Gaye, Ray Charles. The funniest thing was, three or four of them changed the lyric very subtly. Fabulous! In the middle I go, [sings] "I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday." I own up: "I said something wrong." But they don't! They go, [sings] "I must've said something wrong." [Laughs] Like, "I doubt very much whether I did. I must've. 'Cause she's gone." Check 'em out. See if they do "I must've said something wrong." Certainly Elvis does. He's not admitting a thing.

Sir Paul McCartney decided to release his latest album through coffee chain Starbucks' new record company because he was "bored" with the "jaded" attitude of executives at his former label. The 64-year-old, who releases Memory Almost Full on Starbucks' Hear Music label on Tuesday, decided to leave EMI after 43 years with the company, a decision he claims was due to advances in technology.

McCartney says, "I was bored with the old record company's jaded view.

"They're very confused, and they will admit it themselves - that this is a new world, and they're a little bit at a loss as to what to do. "So they've got millions of dollars and X budget for them to come up with boring ways - because they've been at it for so long - to what they call 'market' it. And I find that all a bit disturbing.

"I write it, I play it, I record it, and that's all fun. And you go to the record company, and it gets very boring. You sit around in rooms with people, and you're almost falling asleep and they're almost falling asleep."

The first video from Paul McCartney's new album, "Memory Almost Full," is an otherworldly fantasy, directed by the French filmmaker Michel Gondry, in which a postman brings this former Beatle a box with an old mandolin and, it turns out, an assembly of mischievous ghosts. As Mr. McCartney plays "Dance Tonight," with its simple percussion and bright pop melody, the ghosts - including one played by Natalie Portman - leap around him, throw sparkling fireballs and scare off the postman. Mr. McCartney later follows them into the box, and as the clip ends, he is seen jamming with them, playing the drums.

Surreal as the video is, it says a lot about what Mr. McCartney is up to on "Memory Almost Full," to be released on Tuesday on the Hear Music label, a joint venture between Starbucks and the Concord Music Group. The ghosts may terrify the postman, but Mr. McCartney happily cavorts with them. And while the ghosts don't seem to be from Mr. McCartney's past, his comfort with them suggests the ease with which his history informs many of the songs on the album, including a suite that moves from childhood memories to thoughts of death. He is describing "Memory Almost Full" as a "rather personal" album.

It almost wasn't an album at all. Mr. McCartney began recording it at the end of 2003 with his touring band but abruptly shelved the project. It wasn't that he was dissatisfied with the music, he said in a telephone interview from his recording studio in Sussex, England; but he had wanted to work with Nigel Godrich, Radiohead's longtime producer. When Mr. Godrich became available, Mr. McCartney decided to start fresh and to play all the instruments himself. That collaboration yielded "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard" in 2005.

The tapes for "Memory Almost Full" languished as he moved on to other things, including his divorce from Heather Mills and the latest in his growing series of classical scores, "Ecce Cor Meum," a large work for chorus and orchestra dedicated to the memory of his first wife, Linda, who died in 1998.

Then he remembered the recordings he had filed away.

"I realized that I didn't want to have any unfinished work lying around," he said.

His first move was to summon David Kahne, who produced his "Driving Rain" CD (2001) and the early recordings for the shelved album. It wasn't Mr. McCartney's plan to record the rest of the album without his band, but with a studio at his house it was hard to resist wandering out to finish tracks he was working on whenever the mood took him, and in the end he played all the instruments on about half the tracks.

"Memory Almost Full" is a change for Mr. McCartney, although not primarily in musical ways. It has, after all, hints of everything from the sound of his 1970s band, Wings, to echoes of relatively recent work like "Flaming Pie," from 1997, and Mr. McCartney seems to heave steadfastly avoided hopping on current pop music trends.

Still, he wanted to shake up his approach to releasing an album. The video made its debut on YouTube. And having been an EMI artist since the Beatles signed with the company in 1962 (apart from a series of American releases on Columbia in the 1980s), he moved to Hear Music, hoping to draw on the eagerness and energy of an upstart label.

"Am I feeling like I've left the family home?" Mr. McCartney said, when asked if switching labels was traumatic. "I have left the family home, but it doesn't feel bad. I hate to tell you - the people at EMI sort of understood. The major record labels are having major problems. They're a little puzzled as to what's happening. And I sympathize with them. But as David Kahne said to me about a year ago, the major labels these days are like the dinosaurs sitting around discussing the asteroid."

Although Hear Music has collaborated with other labels on projects ranging from Ray Charles's "Genius Loves Company" to a recent compilation of John Lennon tracks, Mr. McCartney is the first artist signed to it directly. To celebrate his album's release Starbucks is having what it is calling a global listening event: The album will be played around the clock on Tuesday in more than 10,000 Starbucks stores in 29 countries. Based on its high-volume traffic - some 44 million customers a week - the company expects about six million people to hear the music that day. Starbucks' channel on XM satellite radio will also be promoting the record heavily, and XM will devote another channel exclusively to Mr. McCartney's music on the release day.

"We got a call saying that Paul McCartney was interested in talking to us," said Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment, "and after we picked ourselves up off the floor, we met with him in London and had a pretty in-depth conversation about who we are as a company, and about our commitment to music." He added that the company told Mr. McCartney it could "bring more exposure to this album than to other projects he's done."

Hear Music is releasing "Memory Almost Full" simultaneously on CD and as digital downloads, through iTunes. Mr. McCartney has already made several songs available online, both through iTunes (his Live8 performances, for example) and on his own Web site, paulmccartney.com. But this is his first full album available digitally, and iTunes is offering a version with bonus tracks, and, for preorders, the "Dance Tonight" video.

But for all that his defection from EMI is less than it seems: these days, he works album by album and can take any project where he chooses. He also controls his recordings, including his back catalog, so if he returns to EMI, he could take "Memory Almost Full" with him. On the other hand, if his success with Hear Music is such that he decides to stay with the label, he could bring his back catalog to it. For the moment he is leaving the older recordings in the custody of EMI, which has just announced a plan to reissue his complete back catalog through iTunes and on remastered CDs.

Mr. McCartney said The Beatles catalog would make its way to iTunes also, but he would not say when, other than to quote the early Beatles song "It Won't Be Long."

With his past work about to flood into the latest music distribution pipeline, it is probably fitting that his new album has a nostalgic quality. The title, "Memory Almost Full," touches both aspects: a computer term, it also hints at the well of remembered experience that Mr. McCartney draws on here.

"There is quite a bit of retrospective stuff," he acknowledged, "and looking at that, I thought, 'Whoa, I wonder if there's any particular reason?' But then I thought, when I was writing 'Penny Lane,' that was me in my early 20s writing about when I was 15, 16. That's retrospective. It's a natural thing, I think, for a creative artist. Because the past, in a way, is all you have."

"I didn't sit down to write a personal album," he added, "but sometimes you can't help what comes out. I'm a great believer in that."

By personal he means that several of the songs - particularly those in a suite near the end of the 13-song disc - look back at earlier times in his life, starting with his childhood in "That Was Me," a tour of a family photo album. But personal has limits for him. He's not singing about his marital woes, so don't expect "Memory Almost Full" to be Mr. McCartney's version of "Across a Crowded Room," Richard Thompson's searing 1985 divorce album, an example of the genre at its venomous best.

Mr. McCartney's specialty has been the opposite: love songs, of which there are several on the new album. When advance copies leaked on the Internet last month, some listeners interpreted songs that mix love and nostalgia - "Vintage Clothes," "See Your Sunshine" and "Gratitude" - as hymns to Linda, who has attained sainted status in the McCartney myth, much as John Lennon has in the Beatles' legend.

"Funny that, isn't it?" Mr. McCartney said. " 'Gratitude' is just me being grateful for the good stuff in my life, past and present. That's the thing about me, when I talk about love, it's often general, it's not always specific. If people think these songs are specific to Linda, that wouldn't be true. But they're pertaining to Linda, or my children, or other things in life for which I feel grateful. So she's certainly in there.

"I don't really mind how people interpret my songs. But I don't want to have to say, 'Yes, you're right.' I'd more gladly say, 'Yeah, you're partially on the button, but it means a whole bunch of other things.' "

At 64 (he turns 65 on June 18) Mr. McCartney is reportedly a billionaire and could easily settle into retirement at his Sussex estate. If anything, he seems to be expanding his one-man entertainment franchise.

In recent years he has published a poetry book, "Blackbird Singing," and written an illustrated children's book, "High in the Clouds," with Geoff Dunbar and Philip Ardagh. He has mounted shows of his paintings and continued the series of classical works that began with "The Liverpool Oratorio" in 1991. And he is working on a guitar concerto.

Even so, he has been thinking about mortality. In "The End of the End" he imagines his death and sings, "on the day that I die, I'd like jokes to be told, and stories of old to be rolled out like carpets." The idea, he said, came to him after he read a quotation that began, "On the day that I die"; he thought that taking on mortality so directly was brave.

Oddly, given that the album was recorded over four years with a long hiatus, partly with a band and partly by Mr. McCartney on his own, "Memory Almost Full" has a consistent sound and feel. It has a simplicity that gives it a rougher, rockier, more homespun sound than most of his recent albums.

That he overdubbed all the instruments on seven of the songs might have something to do with it; but it doesn't explain why the six songs recorded with his band sound of a piece with them. That was something Mr. McCartney hoped for, but he isn't sure how it worked out that way.

"I'm not that analytical," he said. "I just do what feels right. And there's a lot of crossing fingers: 'I hope this works.' "

What does he mean when he says he hopes it works?

"That it sounds absolutely wonderful, and that I'm thrilled to listen to it. And that the feedback I get is great. Occasionally the feedback isn't great.

"I've worked quite a lot in the past with Richard Rodney Bennett, who's a great composer and orchestrator, and he once said to me that his greatest fear is 'being found out.' So many artists I know have that essential lack of confidence. Perhaps it's what drives them. So for me it's always a pleasant surprise when it works."

British rock royalty Paul McCartney has revealed that Prince Harry fancied his daughter.

The ex-Beatle said the Prince only had eyes for his photographer daughter Mary during a surprise visit to his studio.

And he said there was still time for a union of rock and British royalty.

McCartney made the revelation during an interview with Virgin Radio DJ Geoff Lloyd which will be broadcast today.

He was reminiscing about a surprise visit to his studio by Diana, Princess of Wales, and Princes William and Harry 14 years ago.

McCartney said: "She came in with her two lads, we were rehearsing, we were asked to have lunch with her, like a lot of people I think she was great, a real nice lady.

"What I do remember is I was sitting next to Harry, my daughter Mary came in and sat down and Harry turns to me and said: 'Who's that?' and I said: 'That's my daughter Mary' and he said: 'She's awfully attractive isn't she'."

McCartney added that "there's still a chance" that rock royalty and British royalty could come together.

Prince Harry was just eight - and Sir Paul's oldest daughter Mary was 24 - when he commented on her attractiveness.

He also revealed that music is his lifeblood through good and bad times. McCartney is in the process of divorcing his wife Heather Mills McCartney after a four-year marriage which produced his third daughter Bea.

He said: "Music is really good for me, it's been helping me through the difficult times."

McCartney also demonstrated he is not such a dab hand with the scissors by cutting the DJ's hair, and said his late wife Linda often cut his hair "sometimes with disastrous results".

Paul plays "Be Bop A Lula" on the ukelele! (Copy and paste link into Windows Media Player) http://player.virginradio.co.uk/core/player3/od.php?clip=/od/the_geoff_show/_1180713159_hi.wma

Paul McCartney special, Sunday June 3rd, 7pm (2pm ET) on Virgin Radio (UK) LISTEN LIVE

McCartney frees himself from yesterday and today
By Greg Kot

Paul McCartney is a musical master, but nobody has ever accused him of bleeding for his art. A tortured artist he is not.

McCartney's lot is to be stereotyped as a remarkable craftsman, not a soul-searching artist. From rock songs to classical symphonies, the singer has done it all, without breaking a sweat, which often makes his work appear slighter than it actually is.

Yet at the core of many of his greatest songs is an underappreciated virtue: empathy. From "Eleanor Rigby" and "She's Leaving Home" to "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be," McCartney wrote with compassion about quiet anguish, and his words and music became a balm.

But McCartney's output over the last few decades has been erratic and sometimes downright sloppy. He's written a lot of music, but rarely did he appear motivated to see it through to completion, to take the promising ideas he routinely churned out and turn them into finished songs that rank with his best work.

"Chaos and Creation," his 2005 album, was a step in the right direction, and his 21st solo album, "Memory Almost Full," out Tuesday, is even better. McCartney once again sounds engaged with the world. It marks the debut release on the new Starbucks-fueled Hear Music label. And it arrives in the same month as the Beatles' revered album, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," turns 40, and McCartney turns 65. It also follows the messy breakup of the singer's marriage to Heather Mills, a recent "Dancing With the Stars" contestant.

At the same time, McCartney is moving forward in a way that suggests he's much more interested in his future as an artist than in his past. His deal with Hear Music, a joint venture between Starbucks Entertainment and Concord Music Group, breaks his longtime ties with the major-label system that he helped sustain over the last four decades. He also will make his music available by digital download from online retailers for the first time.

An unfamiliar role

What's more, recent events -- the death of his first wife Linda, the divorce from his second, encroaching mortality -- have conspired to cast McCartney in an unfamiliar role as a sympathetic figure. In playing the charming Baby Boomer icon for decades, the singer rarely came off as vulnerable. In the endless facile comparisons to his old songwriting partner, John Lennon, McCartney always was portrayed as the glib, self-effacing one, the Beatle who coveted the fame but not the intimacy with his fans that Lennon so naturally cultivated.

"Memory Almost Full" flies in the face of that perception. It's not confessional, a soul-baring document in which fans can find out the singer's innermost feelings about his failed marriage or his newfound senior citizenship. But it is evocative, deeply personal, and, above all, compassionate.

The songs don't wallow in the potential melodrama that subjects such as death and divorce invite. McCartney's light touch sounds exactly right for the heavier-than-usual subject matter, as he looks back on his childhood, ruminates about love lost and even envisions his funeral.

McCartney sang and played most of the instruments on about half the songs. The rest were performed with his touring band. The arrangements are one of the album's greatest strengths; McCartney's slightest songs are often redeemed by the richness of his musical details, and "Memory Almost Full" brims with ear candy.

Finely tuned narratives

Two songs are among the toughest rockers he's recorded in decades; "Nod Your Head" echoes the proto-metal of the Beatles' "Helter Skelter," and "Only Mama Knows" matches the propulsion of Wings' "Junior's Farm." Only "See Your Sunshine" flops, an unwelcome return to the maudlin tripe that McCartney foisted on his fans in the '70s.

A few of these songs ("Mr. Bellamy," "Only Mama Knows") are finely tuned narratives in the storytelling tradition of "Penny Lane" and "Eleanor Rigby." At least one, "Gratitude," could be interpreted as addressing his relationship with Mills. It's a soul ballad that echoes his '70s hit "Maybe I'm Amazed" both for its wrenching vocal style and spirit of generosity. McCartney doesn't wallow in self-pity or acrimony over a collapsed affair. Instead, he chooses to remember an ex-lover for ending the days when "I was lonely ... living with a memory." It all works because McCartney doesn't get cute with it; he sings the song with all the conviction he can muster, and pushes his voice toward peaks it hasn't scaled in years.

Surreal imagery

Much of the rest finds McCartney reflecting on his past and how it still shapes who he is today, notably in a five-song suite that encompasses some of his strongest writing. With its tolling piano, tempestuous guitar and doomy atmospherics, "House of Wax" stands as one of the darkest songs in the McCartney canon, a glimpse toward the uncertain future. It's set in a thunderstorm that scatters poets and melts monuments to the past.

The suite concludes with "The End of the End," in which McCartney imagines his own wake. "I'd like jokes to be told/And stories of old to be rolled out like carpets," he declares. Even in death, he looks ahead "to a much better place."

The sequencing of the album suggests that "better place" is closer than we think. As "The End of the End" tries to shut the door on a life, "Nod Your Head" comes barging through with drums slamming, guitars barking and a grinning affirmation. "If you like the life you're livin'," McCartney demands, "well, nod your head."

It is McCartney once again doing what he always did best: singing a sad song and making it better.

Macca's "Secret Gigs"

A German newspaper reports that Macca will be doing a 'secret gig' in London on June 6th or 7th. German Tabloid "Bild Zeitung" is running a competition to win 2 tickets and a trip to London to see Paul live in concert for the launch of his new album.

Pop legend Sir Paul McCartney is secretly planning a blockbuster world tour after his astonishing peace deal with wife Heather.

Macca has decided he is ready to rock 'n' roll again - because daughter Bea, three, can now join him on some of his travels.

The ex-Beatle, 64, is set for a spectacular six months of gigs in Europe, USA and Japan next year to promote new album Memory Almost Full.

But it is only happening after the News of the World exclusively revealed Macca and Mucca, 39, had settled their divorce war for Bea's sake.

Share

The shows will start next May, by when the divorce will be finalised.

Heather agreed to share Bea with him next year and he has told pals: "I'm going to tour the world!"

A source close to the star said: "The fact the divorce is settled has paved the way for it."

ALBUM: MEMORY ALMOST FULL

Your memory would be almost full too if you'd lived a life like McCartney's, experiences from which form the foundation of this satisfying new album. The Beatle great plays most of the instruments here, conjuring the simple pleasures of albums like 1989's "Flowers in the Dirt" on the mandolin-flavored "Dance Tonight" and the bubbly pop/rock of "Ever Present Past." Multitracked, high-register vocal harmonies add a Wings-y touch to the melodically sublime "See Your Sunshine," while the orchestral intro to "Only Mama Knows" morphs into a fast, vaguely angry track with a narrator who seems to question why he was born in a "God forsaken town." The calculated nostalgia of the closing five-song medley is a bit much, but is redeemed by "House of Wax," a gloriously overblown slice of moody psychedelia with a gnarly guitar solo and righteous vocal flourishes.

Money can't buy love.

Paul McCartney wasn't buying the groceries.

And Orland Park police didn't buy Philip C. Zielinski's claim that Beatles legend McCartney would foot the bill for soda and bread Zielinski allegedly lifted from a Jewel Food Store.

Zielinski, 56, of Chicago Ridge (IL), was charged with retail theft May 20 after food valued at $9.25 was taken from the store, police said.

Police were called to the store after a man took two 20-ounce soft drinks and bread from store shelves, then sat down to eat.

"He (said) he could provide a receipt that had been faxed to Paul McCartney in London, England," police said. "(He) continued to advise he was a part of singer Paul McCartney's entourage and that the food purchase was 'taken care of.'"

The man told police he could pay if the officer would give him a ride to a gas station, where he left his gift certificate.

Winchelsea, England - HE noticed it when his cellphone, stuffed with too many text messages, voicemails and phone numbers, started flashing at him: "Memory almost full." It was remarkably like his own brain, weighted down with half-written songs, daughter Bea's schedule, the lyrics to old Beatles B-sides, the blurring faces of long-buried loves and friends.

Delete? Re-record? Which parts go, and which - the carpets of bluebells outside Liverpool in spring, sitting on twin beds in a hotel room with John Lennon writing "She Loves You" - stay locked in the hard drive of time?

"Your memory is always almost full these days. There's so much going on, so I thought it was a poetic way to sum up modern life. Just overload, information overload," Paul McCartney says of his 21st solo album, "Memory Almost Full," which explores the persistence of memory, preparing for the settling of scores and a life too full to hold it all.

"It's been pointed out to me that since the album is heavy on retrospective stuff, there's a sort of finality about it. 'Memory almost full,' any second now it will be full, and, 'Goodbye cruel world.' It's not what I meant about it at all, but I can see that meaning, and I like, you know, people to have different interpretations. "Abbey Road" to us was a crossing outside the studio. I'm sure to some people, it meant Monastery Lane, and we liked that sort of quasi-religious feel of it too."

The album (out Tuesday) marks the 64-year-old McCartney's plunge into another kind of digital age. Ending his relationship with Capitol Records/EMI that began in 1962, McCartney has hooked up with Starbucks' new Hear Music Label and unlocks the new album (along with the rest of his solo catalog) for online downloads. McCartney also says the Beatles catalog is on deck for online release near the end of the year, although EMI has not announced a date.

The video for "Dance Tonight," the party-tune, mandolin-laced foot-tapper that opens the record, made its world premiere on YouTube, in a bid to charm a third generation with the kind of winsome songs their grandmother should know.

"I was bored with the old record company's jaded view," McCartney says, plopped on a sofa in the large, comfortable farmhouse that doubles as a rehearsal studio here in the rolling, tree-studded hills of rural East Sussex. Outside, there is an old windmill, and in the near distance, the hazy blue carpet of the English Channel.

"They're very confused, and they will admit it themselves: that this is a new world, and they're a little bit at a loss as to what to do. So they've got millions of dollars and X budget for them to come up with boring ways - because they've been at it for so long - to what they call 'market' it. And I find that all a bit disturbing.

"I write it, I play it, I record it, and that's all fun. And you go to the record company, and it gets very boring. You sit around in rooms with people, and you're almost falling asleep" - he rolls his head down midchest -"and they're almost falling asleep.

"My record producer [David Kahne] said the major record labels these days are like dinosaurs sitting around discussing the asteroid. They know it's going to hit. They don't know when, they don't know where it's coming from. But it's sort of hit already. With iTunes, and all of that."

McCartney heard that Starbucks' content development guy, Alan Mintz, loved his music; better, he was a bass player. They arranged to meet in New York, along with Howard Schultz, the chief executive who turned Starbucks from a high-fallutin' bean roaster in Seattle into a multibillion-dollar global purveyor of expensive coffee drinks and cool ambience.

The vision from Starbucks and its Concord Music Group partner in Hear Music: Roll out "Memory Almost Full" across time zones on the in-store music systems at more than 10,000 coffeehouses in 29 countries (copies available as you pay for your latte, and at dinosaur record stores too, of course). That means an estimated 6 million people get a listen on the first day.

"We felt we were in a unique position to really transform the way music is discovered and delivered to the music consumer," said Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment in Los Angeles.

"When we heard the album, we just knew it was really a landmark in a number of ways. Musically, it's the most personal and revealing album that Paul's created in his solo career. Thematically, many of the songs are a reflection of his life, his career, his jobs and the tragedies, a reflection of the remarkable journey his life has been."

McCartney had the same reaction to Apple founder Steve Jobs - with whose company Apple records was locked in trademark litigation for years - as he had to Schultz. "He too is very cool, very passionate, they really care about working with your music.

"I just thought, right, I'm going to put a package together on that side of things that will keep me and my producer excited. And that's what we've done. So we're working with websites, Internet things, young kids. Just people who are hungry. People who come up with ideas rather than people who've been at it too long and are frightened for their jobs."

Contrary to British media reports, he said, longtime Apple Corps chief Neil Aspinall's departure in April had nothing to do with clearing the way to the online music market.

"He wanted to retire. Simple as that. I've known Neil longer than I've known anyone in the music business, including all the Beatles. Neil was at school with me when we were 11, he was in my class. But he just wanted to retire. He's 65. So he did. So we have a new guy now [Jeff Jones], he's very good. Nobody considers he's going to replace Neil, you know, emotionally, because we grew up with Neil. But there are new sorts of things, new openings, the online thing is a huge opening, and so it's a new chapter now."

McCartney and the band are rehearsing for an upcoming trio of "surprise" live gigs in the U.K., New York and Los Angeles, (first mentioned on The MACCA REPORT!!!) and there is a definite bachelor air around the place, now that wife Heather has split in the messiest divorce to hit the London tabloids since Chelsea soccer team owner Roman Abramovich dumped his wife for leggy young "Dasha" Zhukova.

The band is playing with enough volume these days that they're annoying daughter Bea, a frequent visitor. "We play a bit loud, just because we can," McCartney says with a sly smile. "We're allowed to, there's no grown-ups around. We're allowed to turn our amps up, you see?"

The off-limits topic

WHAT he won't talk about are Heather Mills McCartney's allegations about what went on during their four-year marriage: that McCartney slashed her arm with a broken wine glass, ordered her not to breastfeed Beatrice because "I don't want a mouthful of breast milk," and refused to let her keep a chamber pot in the bedroom, forcing her, because she is missing a leg, to crawl to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

"I don't like to talk about it, because we're still in the middle of a divorce," he says. "A somewhat public divorce. And you know we have a 3 1/2 year-old daughter. So I'm trying to make every effort to say as little as possible about it. I'm moving through it, hopefully with some kind of dignity."

It's hard not to find a hint of Heather and the apparent pride McCartney once must have felt in his determined and ambitious young wife in "See Your Sunshine" (WEBMASTER'S NOTE: This song has "Linda's" ghostly signature all over it ) from the new album: "Step out in front of me baby/ They want you in the front line / They want to see your sunshine."

But many of the songs were written even before 2005's Grammy-nominated "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," and the memory files they plumb go deep into a boy's lush and lovely summers (on the exquisite "Tell Me"), McCartney's days as a Boy Scout, beaning his friends on the head with chestnuts. Then, less-ancient files: the Beatles "sweating cobwebs" and playing the Cavern Club in Liverpool. In a final, five-song suite similar in form to the "Abbey Road" medley but progressing through the milestones of a life, McCartney reaches the surreal and unsettling "House of Wax," where "poets spill out on the street / To set alight the incomplete / Remainders of the future."

And there is the "End of the End" - a swan song so McCartney in its essential optimism: "It's the start of a journey to a much better place / And a much better place would have to be special," he reassures. "No reason to cry."

He has buried Linda McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison. By now, he is surely accustomed to partings. Yet he seems to remember, like the bluebell forests of England (that once formed the backdrop to a frolic in "Help"), the tender times, the days when it was easy to bend over a guitar with Lennon on the other rumpled bed and work magic on cue.

"We were writing 'She Loves You' because we'd been told by our manager that we needed a single. And we were just, 'OK.' It was great. We just responded well to direction. They'd say, 'You're going into studio next week, so you'll need to write the album.' And we'd go, 'OK.' Ha! Never once do I remember us going, 'A whole album in a week?' Which, you know, we should've thought.

"But we go, 'Yeah, great, OK.' We were just so innocent and enthusiastic. So yeah, that's what we did all the time. We wrote just under 300 songs, and that was done in about 300 sessions. We never had a dry session."

How could that be?

"Because we were bloody brilliant. Pure genius, that's all. 'We were very good,' he said modestly,' " and he smiles for his failure to conjure up the requisite humility. "The good thing is, now you can say that. People used to say, 'Don't you think you're a bit conceited?' And I'd say, 'I know what you mean, you could say it's conceited, but I really do know we're good. I can feel it every time we write a song.' Because John and I were very good collaborators. We really helped each other massively and admired each other greatly."

He thinks for a moment. "It was a joy," he says.

He trips into the rustic farm kitchen, where the band is swallowing whole a spread of mozzarella sandwiches and samosas before heading back to the studio. He cuts a few roses from the garden and rummages for a glass to put them in water, singing the trippy chorus of "The things I think I did / I di-i-di-i did" from "Ever Present Past" under his breath.

Almost time for the imperious and charming Bea to show up. Time to play "very, very, very quietly," he says.

Sir Paul McCartney has hit out at the current culture which celebrates 'mediocrity', claiming it is the reason he avoids Big Brother.

The eighth series of the Channel 4 show kicked off this week with the usual suspects of wannabe celebs, slightly batty people and attention seekers.

Eight million people may have tuned in to watch the first night, but Sir Paul was certainly not one of them.

Speaking on Xfm, the music legend said that he is against the 'celebration of mediocrity'.

'I'm sorry about that world because I know everyone loves it and loves to watch mediocre people,' he added.

'I studiously avoid Big Brother. I just don't like all that stuff I'm afraid. It's really boring. I'd rather go round and see someone rather than sit in the corner and watch them.'

So what has Sir Paul missed out on so far? Well, there's been blonde female twins jumping from sofa to sofa in short skirts and confessions about hairy habits.

Mediocre? What could he mean?

PAUL McCARTNEY: Memory Almost Full (Hear Music)

Maybe it's Macca's highly publicized move away from stodgy EMI, where he had spent most of his entire music career, to Starbucks' record label Hear Music, but there's a caffeinated jolt to his new album we haven't heard on a Paul McCartney set of originals since he folded Wings in 1980.

The funny thing is that his previous CD, the critically overrated and downtempo Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005), would have been the more obvious Starbucks platter. One can only imagine the ubiquitous coffee chain's more senior clientele spewing latte in some poor clerk's face while yelling, ''Turn down that racket'' as tracks like Only Mama Knows or Nod Your Head crash the PA.

Only Mama Knows, with its buzzing electric guitars riding a fat McCartney bass line, is a pop/rocker designed to bring a grin to the faces of Junior's Farm and Jet fans. The closing Nod Your Head pairs a clanging drum intro with the singer's snarling Why Don't We Do It in the Road? voice for a zippy, just-under two-minute Red Bull buzz. Can McCartney still rock as he approaches his 65th birthday in a couple weeks? Can the Pope still practice Catholicism?

There are only two ballads, the midtempo You Tell Me, and The End of the End. On the latter McCartney, who lost his mother at age 14, suffered the death of his soul mate Linda and band mates John and George, affectingly ponders his past and mortality. ''The day that I die I'd like jokes to be told'' he sings in that remarkable sweet boyish tenor that is showing very little wear after all this time.

This is not, as some may have hoped, McCartney's Divorce Album, coming on the heels of his bitter split with Heather Mills, but it is autobiographical. The still popular Beatle began work on Memory Almost Full solo, a la the homegrown McCartney (1970) and McCartney II (1980), in 2003 but set it aside when Chaos producer Nigel Godrich pushed his quieter, somber side to the forefront. Picking Memory up again and playing all the parts (WEBMASTER'S NOTE: Wix Abe, Rusty and Brian, play and sing on the album), save the strings, McCartney reportedly told returning producer David Kahne (Driving Rain) he wanted to record an album that could ''compare to everything'' he'd previously done.

Unlike Chaos, where you could hear the songwriter recycling old melodies, Memory may be retro but melodically nothing is an exact rehash of a previous tune. ''Don't live in the past / Don't hold on to something that's changing fast,'' he cautions on Vintage Clothes.

Memory (out Tuesday) is not instantly accessible, however. None of the individual songs will become true McCartney classics in the vein of, oh, Band on the Run, Yesterday, Let It Be. Instead, Memory works best as a whole, a feat in this singles-oriented era, but McCartney the craftsman wisely keeps things moving along briskly and throws in hooks or a musical passage -- his bass playing is second to none -- to keep us engaged.

If one has to find an antecedent, try Ram. As on that 1971 joint effort with Linda McCartney, Memory cobbles seemingly tossed-off ideas and demos as opposed to fleshed-out mainstream pop songs. Somehow, it gels into a likable, if not essential, whole.

Even so, when McCartney stumbles he falls hard. The sing-songy chorus of the otherwise catchy American single Ever Present Past (WEBMASTER's NOTE: The song is a hit!) is irritating; his falsetto on You Tell Me is one sign he's not in his 20s anymore, and the gospel love song Gratitude -- for Heather? for Linda? -- fails entirely. Shockingly, the harmonies of Linda are missed; (WEBMASTER'S NOTE: Cohen needs to listen to "See Your Sunshine" again) some songs could use a second voice in the background.

Still some others will become growers, like the barn-stomping country-tinged Dance Tonight, one of those silly love song trifles that nevertheless lodge in our memory banks.

Ultimately, consider Memory Almost Full to be a kick not unlike a Mocha Caramel Frappuccino but without the post-consumption guilt.

Pod Picks:Only Mama Knows, House of Wax, Mr. Bellamy.

The break-up is everything they said it would not be - public, rancorous and extended. And now, from the ashes of the spectacularly imploded Paul McCartney-Heather Mills marriage, comes the most staggering twist yet: a year after they split, it is suggested they might - just might - get back together.

According to a Sunday newspaper, Heather poured her heart out to a friend at a hotel in Los Angeles earlier this month.

"She said she'd been devastated by the divorce and has become an emotional wreck," the friend was reported as saying. "Heather doesn't care about the huge load of money coming her way.

"She said she would gladly give back every penny for another shot at happiness with Paul."

Can this really be true? Surely Heather, who filed those bombshell allegations last October about Sir Paul drinking heavily, beating and bullying her, calling her a b**** and forbidding her from breast-feeding, cannot want to revive the relationship?

What "shot at happiness" could she be thinking of with a man who she complains was a towering egotist who failed to support and love her?

She has, to be fair, spoken recently in public about "mourning" the end of the romance and attempted to sound dignified and grown-up on American TV last month.

"I just don't want to speak badly about Paul, you know? I still love him and he's the father of my child." She added that she missed being married.

But when the cameras aren't running, it is a different story. Friends of Heather's say that although she still claims to be friends with him, and will talk about having a lot of "love" for him (and, incidentally, intends to buy him a present for his 65th birthday on June 18), she does not regret the end of the marriage.

Heather is quite clear in private that she had to leave Paul, even though she knew she would be entering a massive legal tangle. She certainly doesn't want him back.

Instead, friends suggest that the one who wants to revive the union is Paul himself, painted as a sad figure filled with anger and lonely regrets.

Heather's friends say that, at times, he pesters his estranged wife with phone calls "morning, noon and night". He supposedly seems keener than is appropriate to spend time with her.

Apparently, she feels he has been testing the water to see if she would like to get back together with him.

The view, offered by Heather herself, is that he is the sort of man who needs a woman, and he still believes she is "amazing" and is in awe of her abilities as a mother.

One Heather confidante summed up: "It's preposterous to suggest that Heather wants to get back with Paul. If anything, it's the other way around.

"There is no way that she would go back to him in 100 years."

It's a touchy subject, but Paul's side feel that the idea of him begging to be taken back can be filed away safely as one of "Heather's delusions".

One McCartney confidante said that Paul regards Heather as a "rattlesnake" and is merely maintaining civilities for the sake of their three-year-old daughter, Beatrice.

She is, said another friend, "just the kind of woman who cannot believe that any man would not fancy her. That's pure Heather".

Officially, Paul's spokesman Stuart Bell refuses to comment. Unofficially, sources strongly indicate that the former Beatle has no designs on his estranged wife.

Intriguingly, though, it is true to say they are maintaining a closer relationship than has been suspected.

A fuss was made when they were pictured two weeks ago having a ten-minute meeting at a North London restaurant, where Heather handed over Beatrice to her father.

That, though, was the tip of the iceberg, according to both sides. Since the split in May 2006, they have been sharing joint custody of Beatrice. For at least the past six months, the weekly hand-overs have been friendly, and sometimes quite lengthy.

Phil Hall, who represents Heather, said: "They are getting on really well. Sometimes the hand-overs have been quick, but that will only be because she has come in a helicopter or because they know there's a photographer watching.

"In reality, they get on far better than people imagine. They have always put on a front for Beatrice's sake, but it's not as basic as exchanging pleasantries. At times it's awkward, but Paul says 'If it gets a bit rough, it's the lawyers, not me - you have to leave them to get on with it' and that's what happens."

Hall said that Paul can spend a long time at Heather's beach-front home in Hove, just enjoying family time with mother and daughter.

One of Paul's friends says: "It's not hanging out, exactly, but it is true that for a few months they have been getting on much better."

This is a rather unexpected turn, as the split has been extremely bitter. After the initial separation, Heather took to living in a cottage on Paul's Peasmarsh estate, the idea being that Beatrice would live there all the time, with her parents taking turns to stay.

This fell apart quite quickly because of the hostility between the pair - Sean Ghent, a bodyguard who left McCartney's employment during the separation, recently said that at first Paul tried to win back Heather and, when this failed, he began to hate her.

Heather found her credit at local shops had been stopped. She was prevented from gaining access to their home in London's St John's Wood, and Paul even complained she had been using cleaning materials without permission.

Heather quickly became seriously short of money, and let it be known that she was particularly appalled that her husband did not want to pay for her security. They communicated only through lawyers, and levels of animosity were extremely high.

However, an interim payment, believed to be around £1 million ($2 million), was made and since then they have been on a more even keel.

The position on the divorce - despite various reported settlements - is that no deal has been formally offered yet, and so none has been accepted.

There was a time, say Heather's coterie, when she would have walked away for £10 million ($20 million); now she wants more like £25 million ($50 million), which still seems pretty reasonable given that Paul is worth around £725million ($1.4 million).

Accountants hired by Heather's legal team are trying to measure his fortune, and it looks unlikely there will be a resolution until the matter comes to court next year.

So what is on the cards for Paul and Heather in the meantime?

He has just released a new album, Memory Almost Full. He looks a lot thinner than he used to, and it is notable that a lot of the new songs are suffused with nostalgia for his first wife, Linda.

"I'm going through great struggles, but I'm feeling pretty good," he said in a recent interview.

A couple of dinner dates with socialite Sabrina Guinness came to nothing, and a story about him taking a shine to a blonde opera singer seems to have been so much PR puff.

He is single, and enjoying his time with Beatrice and his grandchildren. He would like to tour with the album, but not until the divorce has been settled, and with it the issue of custody.

By contrast, Heather is planning a retreat from the spotlight. Since being ejected from America's version of Strictly Come Dancing, she has returned home and is refusing all offers of TV work.

Heather lives with constant pain from her amputation; it can take her almost two hours to get up and dressed, and she has to exercise to maintain the muscles supporting her prosthetic leg.

The only project she has is a nutrition course at UCL; she sits her exams for a diploma this summer. What she will do with it is a mystery. She was going to launch a range of foods or a café, now she talks about it just as helping her to argue for more people to embrace a vegetarian lifestyle.

In fact, she sounds uncharacteristically down, and has renounced all her charity work - which up to now has embraced landmine charities, animal rights issues, anti-fur campaigns, vegetarianism and a UN goodwill ambassadorship.

Her view is that everything she does is turned into an episode of the Paul-and-Heather soap opera, and she no longer wishes to be involved. Phil Hall says: "She is just interested in looking after Beatrice and making sure that she is in a stable situation. The divorce is none of anyone's business."

Despite the tranquil surface, there is much anger on both sides. The marriage brought together two ruthless, egotistical, controlling people, each capable of desperately unreasonable behaviour.

Every now and then, the anger from one side will erupt into plain view. This is surely the only explanation for Heather's suggestion last month that Sir Paul lost his temper with Beatrice.

It is, as is often the case with Heather, almost impossible to believe - but she made jaw-dropping comparisons between her estranged husband and the actor Alec Baldwin (who called his 11-year-old daughter a "rude, thoughtless little pig") on American radio last month.

She said: "I know a lot of fathers who have spoken to their daughters like that, and I won't get specific but they do get upset. Alec is a close friend of Paul's and they have a lot in common. If I wanted to put stuff like that out, oh my God, you would have a heart attack."

No wonder Sir Paul's advisers still think of her as the enemy. For, no matter how much social energy is expended, and how much decent behaviour is played out in public, they are still very much on opposite sides. Neither is likely to forget that.

In a fortnight, Heather will help Beatrice make her father a birthday card, will make sure their daughter has a gift to give him and will drop her off at a family celebration. Apparently, Heather also plans to give Sir Paul her own gift.

But no one can really pretend that what they have amounts to a friendship. There is not a shred of trust between the former Beatle and the woman he thinks of as a rattlesnake.

She has already bitten him far too hard for any friendship to exist.

The theme runs through the record. "I know I'm not a square as long as they're not around," he sings in Feet in the Clouds, presumably referring to his late bandmates. If McCartney has spent years trying to comprehend his own role in creating the world we inhabit, then at least he seems comfortable with himself. Ever Present Past, musically an extremely catchy revival of McCartney's 1980s experiments with light electro-pop, alludes to fading memories, while the gently rocking That Was Meis like a man perusing old photos of himself, in McCartney's case surely a Sisyphean task.

Macca's last album, 2005's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, was widely acclaimed, yet for all the plaudits this cleverly titled set seems to be a more honest collection of songs. On that album the producer Nigel Godrich seemed to take his task too seriously, sometimes turning McCartney into his own pasticheur.

This time round David Kahne gives him free rein. Again McCartney plays most of the instruments, but the results are less predictable or tasteful. See Your Sunshine, slight at first, reveals a gorgeous melody after a few plays. Only Mama Knows belts along like ELO at their peak, or perhaps more recent Macca acolytes Wilco and Super Furry Animals. (It also shares a tune with Abba's Super Trouper.)The inexplicable psychedelia of Mr Bellamy (David? Matt? Craig?) makes sense only to its creator, yet charms for all that. Less fogged is Gratitude, easily interpreted as a paean to McCartney's estranged wife.

The timing is perfect too. Macca's rancorous marriage break-up really did set the public back on his side. As the sanest and wealthiest man in pop music appeared vulnerable, a nation remembered why they cared for him in the first place.

He reciprocated, stopped dyeing his hair crimson and has made a record appropriate to his age that never resorts to musical nostalgia. The possibly mawkish revelation that the album's title is an anagram of "For my soul-mate LLM" - Linda Louise McCartney - seems to have redeemed him only farther. Ironically, as the last baby-boomer hero confronts his own mortality, hippy capitalism has snapped him up. This is McCartney's first release on Starbucks's own imprint. This means that this surprisingly magnanimous record will be the strongest item on the menu.

But anyone expecting an embittered break-up record along the lines of Marvin Gaye's classic Here, My Dear or Fleetwood Mac's tangled Rumours is in for a let-down.

Memory Almost Full, out on Monday, is certainly personal, but any references to Mills are veiled and minimal.

What McCartney has decided to give us instead are the reminiscences of a veteran superstar looking back fondly on every aspect of a life lived to the full.

Reflective, upbeat and imbued with moments of pop magic, this is what Macca sounds like when he's 64.

Sir Paul's new album 'Memory Almost Full' is 'reflective, upbeat and imbued with moments of pop magic, this is what Macca sounds like when he's 64'

"I know that people are going to look at some of these songs and interpret them in different ways," he says, in an obvious pointer to his ongoing divorce.

"But that has always been the case. I never start thinking I'm going to write about specific subjects. Inevitably, though, what I'm thinking does find its way into the songs."

The two that seem likely to attract the most attention in relation to his plight are Mr Bellamy and Gratitude, sequenced back to back around the album's halfway mark.

The first, whimsical and psychedelic, is a quirky "character song" in which the protagonist, Mr Bellamy, maintains that he wishes to stay on the roof of his house, despite efforts to entice him back to earth: "I'm not coming down, no matter what you do/I like it up here - without you."

McCartney, however, denies that the song refers to his state of mind, pointing out that most of the tracks were written as long ago as 2003, when he and Heather were still happily married.

The following number, Gratitude, despite its gruff, angry vocal tone, is another that will fascinate Millswatchers.

With its references to a new love helping to overcome the loss of an old one, it certainly appears to recall more tranquil times: "I was lonely, I was living with a memory/But my golden lonely nights ended when you sheltered me/By you, I was loved by you."

Elsewhere, the personal themes are reflected more in a series of soulsearching songs recalling everything from a Liverpool childhood to The Beatles.

Towards the close, there is even a candid track, The End Of The End, in which the singer ponders his own mortality.

Album highlights of Sir Paul's 'Memory Almost Full'

On a musical level, Memory Almost Full is a significant departure from his last pop album, 2005's Chaos And Creation In The Backyard.

A brave collaboration with Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, that album harked back to early solo offerings, but also found McCartney slightly cowed by Godrich's own powerful artistic instincts.

Here, there is a sense that Paul is fully in control once more. Crisp, tuneful and often stunningly crafted, Memory Almost Full could almost be a mid-Seventies Wings album.

And, with modern acts such as The Feeling, Mika and the Scissor Sisters taking so much of their inspiration from the "guilty pleasures" pop of that particular period, why shouldn't one of the era's originals get in on the act, too?

There are some moments when McCartney's desire to show how clever and versatile he is gets the better of him.

Certain songs are bedevilled by complicated arrangements that are too self-regarding.

On the whole, though, the 13 new tracks here succeed brilliantly on account of their simple, yet effective musical charm.

An upbeat, jaunty tone is set by the opening two songs. Forthcoming single Dance Tonight is a stark acoustic tune, adorned by a bass drum, mandolin and whistling while the more electrified Ever Present Past is jaunty enough to be The Feeling.

The Wings references are even more apparent on upbeat rocker Only Mama Knows.

The song is powered by Eleanor Rigby-style strings and a guitar sound lifted straight from old Wings singles such as Band On The Run and Listen To What The Man Said.

The more wistful You Tell Me finds Paul looking back ruefully at 1967's Summer of Love, its pastoral imagery reflecting the vivid colours of flower-power.

Vintage Clothes, the album's most direct pop song, is his wry comment on the retro-loving tendencies of today's musicians and fashion designers.

Many of the album's most startling moments, however, occur during a fivetrack closing suite.

Beginning with the shuffling, acoustic That Was Me and ending with the discordant Nod Your Head, these songs trace the singer's journey from the "scout camp and school play" of his childhood to a poignant vision of his own death.

The latter, he argues, is not something to be feared or marked with any great outpouring of grief: "On the day that I die, I'd like jokes to be told/And stories of old to be rolled out like carpets."

Not that Macca seems ready to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet.

In fact, while the majority of these songs will sound reassuringly familiar to his fans, the manner in which Memory Almost Full is being marketed shows a healthy willingness to embrace the latest technology and selling techniques.

The first record on a new Starbucks-sponsored label (Hear Music), it is also the first McCartney album to be released simultaneously in the shops and online.

And the video for Dance Tonight, featuring Hollywood sweetheart Natalie Portman, received its world premiere last week on YouTube.

All things considered, it is a beguiling blend of the old and the new.

Today (June 1) marks the 40th anniversary of The Beatles classic 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', and what better way for NME to celebrate then by getting Kaiser Chiefs to quiz Paul McCartney for us.

Speaking about his renewed enthusiasm for his time spent in The Beatles, especially around the time of the record's release in 1967, McCartney told Ricky Wilson and Nick Hodgson: "Back then I was really trying to get away from the band, but now I love it because it was just great memories. With John and George gone you try and bring them back with memories."

Summing up the groundbreaking thirst for invention that The Beatles encapsulated on 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' he explained "anyone with any taste or boredom threshold doesn't want to make the same album again".

"In The Beatles it was amazing," he continued, "because we got bored song-by-song - poor Ringo had to change the drum sound on every track."

Passing his wisdom onto the Kaiser Chiefs he explained: "You have to not chase it [success] too. If you chase something it tends to recede, but if you enjoy doing something for the sake of doing it it's more successful."

ONWARD AND UPWARD WITH THE ARTS about Paul McCartney.

Paul McCartney's music-publishing business, M.P.L. Communications, occupies three stories in an 18th-century building on Soho Square, in London. Besides being the surviving member of The Beatles, McCartney is a music impresario whose company owns rights to over three thousand songs and Broadway shows-all part of a show-business empire that, along with the royalty he earns on every Beatles record sold, has made him one of the richest men in England.

In May, McCartney was overseeing various creative projects, including a DVD compilation of his videos; a DVD of "Ecce Cor Meum"; and his latest pop album, "Memory Almost Full," a suite of deeply personal songs that reflect his awareness of aging and loss as he approaches his sixty-fourth (sic) birthday, on June 18th.

In his office were his project manager, Paddy Spinks; a female assistant; and five young men-employees of a Web-design company that is helping to promote his new album.

Last year, McCartney decided not to renew his contract with E.M.I. Records, which had been his label since 1962, when the Beatles were signed. His new album will be the debut release from Hear Music, a record label co-founded by Starbucks, and will be sold at the company's coffee shops, as well as record stores and on iTunes.

McCartney has recently suffered a series of tragedies, beginning with the death, from breast cancer, of his wife Linda, in 1998. George Harrison died of cancer in 2001, and, last year, McCartney separated from his second wife, Heather Mills, in an ugly split. There's an unmistakable sadness in McCartney's gaze and muted manner, and even the up-tempo songs on his new album are tinged with melancholy. Describes McCartney's encounters with fans seeking photos and autographs. Tells about his recording studio session in Sussex with guitarist Carlos Bonell and recording engineer Keith Smith.

McCartney's father, Jim, was a cotton salesman and jazz trumpeter; his mother, Mary, was a midwife, who died of breast cancer when he was fourteen. In 1957, he met John Lennon and began playing with Lennon's band, the Quarry Men. Describes how the Beatles came about.

The writer visited McCartney at his Edwardian house, on a secluded street in St. John's Wood, in London. When McCartney was sixteen, he wrote the song "When I'm Sixty-four" on his father's piano. He said that Lennon would often ask him about songs he played on the piano. As the Beatles matured, Lennon and McCartney collaborated less directly on songs, but continued to trade ideas. Mentions the songs "Michelle," "Paperback Writer," and "Yesterday." Between 1963 and 1965, the Beatles recorded six albums and starred in two movies.

Mentions George Harrison and Ringo Starr. McCartney expressed amazement at the life he's led, but he also noted that the Beatles' legacy could be a burden.

The writer's last meeting with McCartney took place at a café in Regent's Park, where they discussed the Beatles' breakup. Mentions manager Allen Klein and Yoko Ono. The movie "Let It Be" documents the group's dissolution. In late 1969, the band broke up, and McCartney suffered a depression and breakdown. He eventually had to sue his bandmates in order to disempower Klein. In the mid-1970s, McCartney and Lennon got together in New York. By the time of Lennon's murder, in 1980, they were friends again. "Which is something that I'm eternally grateful for," McCartney said. "That would have been really difficult if we hadn't."

READ THE ENTIRE 12-PAGE ARTICLE IN THE JUNE 4TH EDITION OF THE NEW YORKER ON NEWSSTANDS NOW.

Meeting a Beatle
New Yorker (June 4, 2007 Issue)

This week in the magazine, John Colapinto writes about Paul McCartney's life, his new album, and how the Beatles' songs were written. Here Colapinto talks about what it was like to interview McCartney. Produced by Alexandra Schmidt.

Listen to the mp3 (6:40), or right-click to download.
s repeating on the 5th. In this song, it repeats on the octave or the 5th, and sometimes both. Paul has pedal tones on other songs too, but it's very loud in getting better. That song feels more centered around the 5th chord, whereas this one is a little more centered around the one chord.

Q: It works very well as a single in my opinion. However, I wonder why "Ever Present Past" wasn't picked as the international track? I heard the choice for the UK and international market was "Dance Tonight".

Kahne: I have no idea how they picked the singles. I hope they did! It's really up to them...

Q: The following song is "See Your Sunshine", also in my opinion one of the most "regular" McCartney tracks on the album.

Kahne: I see...but listen to the bass playing. Every possible inversion of every chord. True counter-melody playing that Paul is the best at.

Q: Next we have one of my favourites, "Only Mama Knows", the big rocker on the album.

Kahne: It's great indeed. And it's straight up rock, with a great story. You can hear the Abbey Road room sound. A big room with a close feel.

Q: I really was intrigued by the orchestral intro and ending on the track. How did you come up with this arrangement?

Kahne: We just had an idea and put it on there, to hear the theme in a different setting. It fitted very well, the results were great.

Q: "You Tell Me", the ballad, sounds like an old Brazilian tune to me.

Kahne: It's such a sweet yet sad song. The vocal tone throughout still baffles me; I have no idea how he can make high tones hang in the sky forever.

Q: What about the backwards tape sound placed in the intro. Any particular idea behind this arrangement?

Kahne: No particular idea. There's some backwards stuff and some forwards stuff. It just fitted nice on the song.

Q: Now we have "Mr. Bellamy", another outstanding track on the album in my opinion.

Kahne: Storytelling at it's best. You know, it was really fun doing the flugelhorn parts. The second bridge counterpoint is a classical composition.

Q: It sounds as something he's never really done before. How did you achieve that on the studio? I mean, was it deliberate?

Kahne: We had the song there, and Paul wrote a counter melody. His melodies are always strong, and the two melodies worked together the way some classical pieces do, so we put them together. It was nothing like "let's put a pop song and a classical arrangement together" going on, you know.

Q: "Gratitude" is next, a very bluesy and soulful track with outstanding vocals...how did you work on the recording of that?

Kahne: As we worked on the vocals more and more Paul took more and more chances, and it kept getting better and better. It was like watching a flower bloom, actually. You know, I'm so grateful for getting to work on this album.

Q: Next is "Vintage Clothes".

Kahne: Beginning of the medley. The low mellotron notes that distort through the mellotron speaker are so great sounding.

Q: The Mellotron sound is very upfront on the mix. Any particular reference to use the instrument in the arrangement? Also was it done using Paul's Hog Hill mellotron, if I'm not mistaken?

Kahne: Yes, Paul's mellotron at the Mill. But no, not really. No references. Other than the fact that the mellotron has been used before by Paul, you know.

Q: True. And on one particulary famous song... ("Strawberry Fields Forever") The second track in the medley is the cool rockabilly-like, "That Was Me".

Kahne: We were talking about needing a lift for the third verse, after the vocal/guitar solo riffs. Paul said maybe he'd sing it up an octave. What's on the track is the second take. My hair was standing on end. It was like a rocket took off.

Q: What about the distorted piano riffs? I know you don't use references, but...

Kahne: I know you'd like to find some references, but there aren't any. Wix (Paul Wickens, the keyboard player) was goofing around on the piano, and he hit that chord and I thought it sounded great because it's so dissonant. Paul liked it, so we put it in. Later, I thought it was kind of like the guitar chops Steve Cropper plays on Green Onions (Booker T. and the MG's).

Q: Paul's then got his "Feet In The Clouds". What about this next track?

Kahne: There are several very personal moments in this song that might escape some listeners at first. And the chorale sections were really fun (and very painstaking) to work on. The Handel robots.

Q: What sounds amazing for me on this track at first listen is the crispy acoustic guitar sound.

Kahne: We worked quite awhile to get that particular acoustic sound. It had to have an immediate feel to pick up from "That Was Me". Also, there's no drums for awhile, so size was important. I wanted it to feel like it was holding the voice in it's hand, to make it extremely close and personal because of lyric in the chorus.

Q: As I told you, some of the tracks have become quickly personal favourites, but "House Of Wax" really stunned me. It's a track hard to define, also different than Paul's past recordings.

Kahne: I agree. I've never heard a song like this, about this, with a vocal like this. Aside from the truly poetic lyrics, one of my favorite things in the track are the guitar solos. The sections were open for a long time, and I suggested to Paul that he play guitar solos in each one, maybe changing each solo feel-wise to build the song. Half hour later, these were done. I've never heard him play guitar like this!

Q: Yes, the song is one hard to describe. The orchestration has got a very "dark approach", by the way.

Kahne: As far as the orchestration goes, t's a dark song, so we followed the logic of the composition. There's three drum kits, one of them slowed down to half speed. The thunder at the beginning and end are actually tom fills.

Q: Amazing recording, I can tell. We're close to the "End of The End" now... Was it recorded at Abbey Road by the way?

Kahne: Yes Abbey Road on the "Lady Madonna" piano. Think about what this song is about, and what effort it takes to be direct and open about this topic. I don't know of a song about this, like this, from anyone in pop music. An artist can only write one song about this as far as I'm concerned. Think too about the connection he makes between stories and songs, children and lovers.

Q: Any particular story of this session?

Kahne: On "End of the End", Paul was singing and playing live, and he had on headphones. After a few takes, he stopped and said he didn't need the headphones since he was just singing and playing, so he took them off and was sitting in the middle of the room at Abbey Road 2 playing and singing his song, as bare and purely musical as could be. About three takes later, he did the take you hear on the album.

The high part at the end was so pure, like a blimp hanging in the air indefinitely. I was holding my breath as he finished, wondering if it was all going to fall apart because it was so delicate, but it stood up like iron. He came upstairs and we listened, and it was done. Boom, just like that. A lifetime in a moment.

Q: I loved the feel of the last track, "Nod Your Head". It seems like an improvisation similar to what Paul did at the end of the "Chaos And Creation At Abbey Road" TV special with "That's All For Now". Did Paul ad-lib the lyrics and then record it?

Kahne: No, the lyrics weren't ad-libs. He wrote out a lyric and sang it, worked on it more, and kept singing it until it was right. I don't think verse two sounds anything but composed, with the great word-play and tense changing going on in there. There was some talk of this being an instrumental. When Paul finally put a vocal on it, I was stunned. He reached down and pulled magic out. He's the only singer ever to sound like this, and here he is pounding it out for us all to hear.

Q: We now are aware that there'll be three bonus tracks included on the album's special edition. They are "222", "In Private" and "Why So Blue", which makes only 16 tracks available to the public. Can you comment on these three leftovers and if there's a chance for other songs to surface?

Kahne: OK. "222" is a groove track in an odd meter. Very moody, very cool and inside.
"In Private" is an instrumental with a slight Indian flavor, although played on acoustic guitar. "Why So Blue" was on the album for awhile, and came off near the end. It's a great story song, and I always described it as being very kind. The other songs weren't finished.

Q: To wrap this up, what would be your final comments be about the album? Did you enjoy the questions or some of them were off-base?

Kahne: No, they were cool. One thing that interests me about the questions you ask (and many other people ask me too) is that in trying to find references for new songs in old ones, you're making a memory game out of listening. (I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It just interests me.)

A lot of this album is about memory, and Paul of all the people I've worked with - someone who has absolutely unique and voluminous experiences to remember- doesn't use his past work to inspire him. He has kept going, doing new things.

You may recognize someone by their walk or their face, but you're not seeing them in the same place you saw them before because everything has moved on, including the planet. Paul's instinct is to find a new chord, a new sound, a new way to hit a note, a melody he's never thought of before.

It's still Paul's voice, and it's still an electric guitar, but it's Paul on his own frontier, not looking back musically. Even though on this album the memory feeling is so strong. I think that's a great double feeling, a very rich contrasting landscape. Paul may not realize something as completely as he'd hoped to, but he's never - in the absence of knowing exactly what to do next - gone back and copied himself. That's the history of all great artists.

Exclusive Macca Report news may not be used, copied or paraphrased, without crediting The Macca Report!!!

---

---

Macca Report Archived News Index

---

RECOMMENDED NEW PAUL BOOKS CD'S AND DVDS (Support this page by buying from these links)

---

Go to Beatles News!!!
Go to the Macca Report and current Paul News!!!

---

---

Home Page | Wings Tour (photos) | 1989-90 Tour (photos) | 1993 Tour (photos) | Back in the US 2002 (reviews) | 2002 USA Tour (photos) | Driving USA 2002 (reviews) | 2003 Tour (reviews) | 2004 Tour (reviews) | 2005 US Tour (reviews) | Meet Paul (photos) | Standing Stone (photos) | Macca Report (Paul News) | Archived News Index | Paul Photo Book| Back in the World CD/DVD Detailed info | McCartney Animation DVD | Fab Buys Shop | Beatles News | Ringo News | John News | George News | Bill Bernstein (interview) | Rusty Anderson (interview) | Brian Ray (interview) | Geoff Dunbar (interview)| Macca-Chat (Internet chat room) | Fan Close Encounter Page | Paul Shop | Message Board | Links | Paul Concert Tickets | Blog |

Jorie Gracen