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September 30, 2005

Macca Book Signing

On Monday, October 3rd at 8am, Barnes & Noble will give out bracelets to the first 125 people in line. They will get their book signed by Paul. The rest of the people in line will get posters (while supplies last) and be asked to leave. Those inside will not be allowed to take photos of or with Paul. Macca will only sign his book "High in the Clouds."

Penguin is pushing up the date booksellers can put Paul McCartney's first children's book, High in the Clouds, on sale by a day. The cartons, which have a strict on sale label for October 4, can now be opened October 3.

Katrina Weidknecht, director of publicity for Penguin Young Readers, says a couple of unexpected publicity shots, most notably a People interview with McCartney in which the Dutton book is prominently mentioned, prompted the company to change the date. "Even though it's only a day, we didn't want stores to lose out on the publicity hits," Weidknecht says.

The People edition will be in stores Sept. 30, and a Morning Edition interview is scheduled for October 8. Weidknecht says Penguin couldn't authorize an earlier on sale date because it wanted to be sure all shipments had made it to stores.

High in the Clouds , which is co-written by Philip Ardagh and illustrated by Geoff Dunbar, has an announced first printing of 500,000.

Former Beatle Paul McCartney loaded up on healthy foods before his U.S. tour kicked off in Miami Friday night (Sept. 16), sharing a quiet meal with wife Heather Mills 24 hours earlier at Sublime, a fancy vegan restaurant in Fort Lauderdale.

Owner Nanci Alexander of Boca Raton tells Page Two they had cauliflower in a spicy sauce and spinach pizza to start, then a soy steak with an anchovy-orange sauce and a desert sampler. After helping themselves, McCartney and Mills sent the leftovers to two bodyguards at an adjacent table . . .

Nearly 10 years in the making, Paul McCartney's HIGH IN THE CLOUDS was inspired by his love of literature and the animated film "Tropic Island Hum" on which Paul collaborated with animator Geoff Dunbar and features characters from the book. In addition to the award-winning "Tropic Island Hum", he has also worked with Geoff to create the animated award-winning "Rupert And The Frog Song," and "Tuesday", based on the book by David Wiesner.

Forced to leave his woodland home, destroyed by the expansion plans of the evil Gretsch, Wirral the squirrel vows to find the fabled land of Animalia, where all the animals are said to live in freedom and without fear. Aided and abetted by Froggo the hot-air-ballooning frog, Wilhamina the plucky red squirrel, and Ratsy the streetwise rodent, Wirral's personal quest turns into a full-blown plan to save enslaved animals everywhere -- a plan that is fraught with danger.

Please join us for the signing of this grand new adventure by Paul McCartney!

WHAT: Book signing event with Paul McCartney

WHERE: Barnes & Noble
600 Fifth Avenue (48th Street & 5th Ave.)
New York, NY

WHEN: Monday, October 3rd

TIME: 2:00pm ? 3:00pm

September 27, 2005

"Jenny Wren" will be released as the next UK CD single on November 14th.

Sir Paul McCartney is rocking Boston Monday and raising money for music programs at public schools.

McCartney kicks off two sold out concerts at the TD Bank North Garden Monday night. Boston's Fidelity Investments is a co-sponsor of the 11-week tour. The company is partnering with McCartney to raise awareness and funds to keep music alive in schools.

McCartney is the new face of Fidelity Investments national advertising campaign.

McCartney and Fidelity are kicking off "Music Lives," a foundation dedicated to supporting music education in the public schools. Concertgoers can donate $40 at special kiosks and receive a pewter bracelet signed by McCartney. Fidelity will match each $40 donation.

Each donation benefits music education programs in U.S. schools and schools along the tour route will be chosen as recipients.

To make a donation to Music Lives, click here.

PAUL MCCARTNEY, MUSICIAN: Coming out with a tour, particularly after 9/11 and now after Katrina, you do feel like you`re coming in with some sort of healing influence, that people are seeing all of this tragedy on the TV and they're just living that day in and day out, and they need a bit of a release. So often, if we're lucky, we provide a little bit of a release. Hopefully the music will help them through their troubles. That's what it is all about.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Speaking of loss, we are getting close to the anniversary of the death of George Harrison. You still think about him often? One of the interviews that I read said that one of the songs on the new album, you thought of him.

MCCARTNEY: Yes, there is one of the songs that, strangely, you know, I didn`t realize I was thinking of George. I was just writing a song, one of the songs on the new album, called "Friends To Go," and I started with "I'll be waiting on the other side," thinking what am I writing about here. Is it the other side of life or just the other side of the street, you know. And as I went on, I just got a feeling that it was a very George song. It wasn't like I was channeling him. You know, this is the spin that gets put on it, but it wasn`t like that. It was just like, I suddenly thought this could be a George song.

KAGAN: The question I am sure you get asked many times, because you did turn 63, are you singing out there "When I Turn 64"?

MCCARTNEY: No, I'm not singing that yet, but I've got a nasty feeling I might be next year. My kids say to me, dad, you have got to disappear off the face of the planet...

KAGAN: For that one year?

MCCARTNEY: ...next year. Don't be here. And I said, well, it's either that or I'll be right in the middle of it all. So I haven't yet made a decision, but if you don't see me next year, you'll know why.

KAGAN: We heard it here first. Anything left to do? Still many more songs in there?

MCCARTNEY: I don't know. You know, I don`t count how many I`ve done. I just like doing it. I love what I do, and so that`s what is left to do.

Beatlemania is alive and well.

Last night, the sold-out crowd at the first of Sir Paul McCartney's shows at the TD Banknorth Garden were whipped into a face holding, throat shredding, foot stomping frenzy.

What was even more impressive was that McCartney deserved the acclaim. At 63, the good-natured Liverpudlian is still cute and, more importantly, still a solid showman.

In a well-structured, two-hour and 45-minute performance, he managed to give the crowd what they wanted ­ hits, hits and more Beatles hits ­ and sneaked in some of the best tracks from his new album, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.''

Of course, when you have a catalog like his to work with and a setlist that begins with "Magical Mystery Tour'' and concludes with "The End,'' you're already pretty much ahead of the game. Throw in a couple of bandmembers who are as easy on the eyes as they are gifted, the monster drumming and singing of Abe Laboriel Jr., the majestic keyboards of Paul "Wix'' Wickens and a brilliant yet simple stage set made up of multifaceted video screens, and the show practically plays itself.

It's not just the sheer, almost impossible durability of songs such as the exquisite "Eleanor Rigby'' ­ done note perfectly last night ­ or the anything-is-possible jubilance of "Good Day Sunshine'' or the gorgeous anguish of "For No One.'' It's the genuine warmth McCartney still injects into his songs after all these years that make them more than rote exercises in nostalgia. Even without fancy reinvention, they remain living things. (With the notable exception of the charity concert warhorse "Hey Jude'' with its interminable, supposed to be fun but really just endless "na-na-na'' coda.)

Early highs included the cheery cha cha cha of "Till There Was You'' and the autumnal melancholy of "The Long and Winding Road.''

It was "Band on the Run,'' however, that kicked the show up several notches.

Up to that point, every hair of the show had been in place. The sound was good, the set elegant and sleek, the players precise and the crowd responding enthusiastically. But there was just something in the lift of "Band on the Run,'' some magical dust in the symphonic build up that made it feel like the whole of the Garden turned a corner and fell into the sun all together. "Back in the U.S.S.R.'' sizzled with surfer cool. "Penny Lane'' shone with all its baroque charms. "Live and Let Die'' rocked. "Let it Be'' was a study in grace.

Sir Mick and the Rolling Stones may have been cooler, and Sir Elton John may have played longer, but Sir Paul McCartney proved once again that nothing beats a Beatle.

Everything's just evolved a lot in the last 4 1/2 years I've been playing with Paul, says Anderson. It's certainly a huge part of my life, and playing these gigantic concerts and everything is a big perspective. I really enjoy making music, and I feel very blessed to be able to do it with great people like Paul.

Anderson has played on McCartney's last two studio albums, 2001's Driving Rain and the new Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, and on the 2002 live set Back in the U.S. He's also backing McCartney on the ex-Beatle's current North American tour.

McCartney, meanwhile, plays on the track "Hurt Myself" on Anderson's album.

A former member of the band Ednaswap, Anderson has also worked with Elton John, Carole King, Neil Diamond, Ricky Martin, the Wallflowers and Sinead O'Connor.

Sir Paul, who has just released new album 'Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard', says he prefers to write without drugs nowadays. He explained: "Drugs are not that cool. I have quite a liberal view, but I prefer to write 'straight' now. It's just the easiest way to do it. Also, you grow up, you know?

He added to Britain's Big Issue magazine: "But I prefer to keep a little bit off that subject, if you don't mind. I find that a little bit private these days."

His latest album has just been completed and released but Sir Paul McCartney is still none the wiser about where his music comes from.

While the critics wax lyrical about Chaos And Creation In The Back Yard, Macca prefers to focus on what it is that makes him tick as a musician, rather than getting carried away with the almost universally positive response the album is receiving.

For the moment at least, self-congratulation for a job well done is having to make way for a bout of introspection.

And he wouldn't have it any other way. "I actually don't want to know where the music comes from because that's what makes it fascinating," he says.

"To have nothing, to just be sitting there, pick up your guitar and then after an hour or two to have a song and, if it works, some people are going to go 'I love that one'.

"I have no idea where it comes from. I think the starting point is my love for music.

"I think it comes from this love of listening to what you think is great music so it just gets a beautiful sort of feeling going in you.

"Everyone who loves music feels that feeling and that's what is special about it. It's kind of mystical.

"When people say 'Why do you still do it?' I love it. I really love it. I mean, how lucky to be in a job where there is that kind of an element? I feel lucky."

Lucky is a word which Sir Paul uses a lot. Forty years at the top of the music business only goes part way to explaining why the 63-year-old former Beatle feels so blessed.

Scrape away the veneer of a seasoned musician worth untold millions and you find a family man who measures success by his relationship with those closest to him rather than mere hit singles.

Taking this into account it becomes easier to understand why the normally placid Sir Paul gets so riled when the critics turn their attention from his music and focus on his wife, Heather.

Recently, he displayed his displeasure for the treatment his second wife was receiving at the hands of certain tabloids by making personal phone calls to those columnists who he believed were out to get her.

He says: "I don't want to go on about this too much because I really don't want to go head to head with these people.

"But sometimes they've just massively overstepped the mark and they know what they're doing."

There are those who insist that someone who has been at the sharp end of the music industry for almost five decades should be used, if not immune, to the slings and arrows launched by the British media.

But Sir Paul claims it is becoming increasingly difficult to allow "scurrilous" reporting to go unchecked and believes standards in the media have slipped since he first entered the public sphere in the early 60s.

"We used to call them (tabloid journalists) lovable rogues, but I'm not sure how lovable they are now. The word scurrilous is coming to mind," he says..

"I mean, I don't want them to rule my life, and it's their job to a degree, but unfortunately the British press is known worldwide for not being the best.

"You go to LA and the paparazzi are British - they've infested the world with this thing.

"My attitude is it's their problem really. I don't read them as a rule and I try not to let them get to me, but occasionally..."

Being one of the foremost musicians of the 20th century doesn't just bring with it the unwanted attentions of the paparazzi though.

As Sir Paul is well aware, it also places him in an elite group of recording artists who could choose whichever producer they like to work with.

But when it came to working on Chaos And Creation there was only one producer he wanted - but couldn't get - famed Beatles collaborator Sir George Martin.

He says: "I didn't know who to get to produce the album, but I knew I wanted the very best and I wasn't sure who that was.

"So I thought 'Well, I'd like George Martin really' but he doesn't produce anymore.

"I rang him, told him I was thinking of doing a new album and asked 'Who do you think is the best person around?'

"He got back to me a week or so later and said 'Well, the name that seems to keep coming up is Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich'.

"I knew Radiohead and I particularly liked the sounds on it. And Travis, I knew he'd done that album, Invisible Band, and so I liked what he did.

"We spoke to see if we had the same kind of thing in mind and we did. So yeah, it all came through George."

Sir Paul may not be getting carried away with the critical acclaim which has been showered on Chaos And Creation but he does view it as a vindication both of his choice of producer and his own musical direction.

"The new album is deep, but very simple," he says.

"We didn't want to over-produce it.

"I worked with Nigel, who is a very good producer, and together we kept the whole thing very focused.

"It is a very personal album and I am very proud of the songs.

"One difference from my other albums is that I play a lot of the instruments on the album itself - I play piano, guitar, bass and even flugel horn!"

After so long at the very pinnacle of the music business and with a young family to take care of there are those who question whether Sir Paul still retains the energy and hunger for touring.

But Sir Paul insists hanging up his guitar is not on his agenda at the moment.

"Strangely I never think about it", he says. "It's just because I like what I do so much, and for me, the reason to retire would be if I didn't like it and I was fed up, or if the audiences didn't like it.

"And so we put the tickets on sale for a few shows in America and we just watched to see how quickly they sold out or if they do sell out.

"This time they sold out in fifteen minutes - so that's no reason to retire. That is a reason to keep going."

The lengths to which Sir Paul McCartney will go to help his furry friends has been revealed. The veggie ex-Beatle apparently once asked his personal acupuncturist to treat one of his ailing pet sheep.

Gary Trainer visited Macca and his then wife Linda once a week to treat the entire McCartney family. "One day a lamb was born with a crooked neck," he divulges.

"Linda was going to feed it by hand but I had treated a patient for something similar and offered to give it a try. I massaged its neck, found areas of tension and used acupuncture. It worked." Let's hope he gave Macca a reduced, pet-friendly rate.

The 32-year-old fashion designer and her publisher husband Alasdhair Willis are already making plans for their six-month-old baby Miller, to attend a $7,200 (£4,000)-a-year Steiner school, which has a special curriculum drawn up by Australian founder Rudolf Steiner.

She says, "Dad thought sending me to state school would be character-building, but I was bullied.

"I wouldn't do that for my child. I don't want to send him to the local state school."

The fee-paying Steiner schools do not teach reading until pupils are aged seven, but Stella explains, "It's more about a spiritual approach to education rather than drumming dates and figures into a child."

After all, besides being one of the most recognizable faces on the planet, Paul McCartney is a singer, songwriter, painter, classical composer, avant-garde instrumentalist, occasional actor, activist, rich guy, family guy and keeper of one of the greatest musical legacies of the past century.

Oh, and there's that ex-Beatle thing.

At 63, it seems Sir Paul has done it all, but McCartney is hardly slowing down, as he's currently barnstorming around the U.S., touring behind one of his best solo albums in years "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard."

(His sold out tour plays the TD Banknorth Garden - formerly the FleetCenter - in Boston tomorrow and Tuesday).

On a mid-September evening, three nights into the tour, McCartney spoke on a wide variety of subjects during an interview prior to a show at Atlanta's Philips Arena. He'd just completed his soundcheck, warming up while rocking through songs like "San Francisco Bay Blues," "Midnight Special," "C Moon," "Lady Madonna," "Coming Up," Carl Perkins' "Honey Don't" and "Matchbox," and what he termed "a goofy jam about Atlanta."

Pondering his predilection for working almost continuously, McCartney said it really dates back to his family and his roots in England.

"My Liverpool family - I 'spose I saw so many people kind of out of work and I'd be lying on the floor as a kid and hearing parents and relatives talking about how they were getting a pension and how their job was really good and hearing about how somebody was out of work - all that working class stuff just made me think. And then I used to see a lot of people arguing and I figured out, I'm not alone. And what they'd argue about was money. So I tried to take that out of the equation. I just sort of grew up with the idea that working was a good thing. Luckily it translated into my hobby."

That hobby has taken him to amazing heights, first with John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in The Beatles in the 1960s, then on to Wings in the '70s, and now on his own.

Where he once steered clear of performing old Beatles' songs in concert, his recent tours have been loaded with them. Each time he hits the road for a new tour, McCartney digs out a few more Fab Four classics, many that he hasn't played on stage for a long, long time. For example, during the early shows on this tour, he's been doing songs like "Please Please Me," "For No One," "I Will," and "Helter Skelter," alongside the more obvious masterworks such as "Hey Jude," and "Let It Be."

Asked what he remembered most about "Please Please Me," which was released in England in 1962 - two full years before Beatlemania hit the U.S. - McCartney was at ease reminiscing.

"My main memory was coming down in our very early recording days and (Beatles producer) George Martin asking us what songs we had to offer. John offered 'Please Please Me.' It was mainly his song, though I sang it with him. But his original version was quite slow. It was very much like a Roy Orbison song. (McCartney sings a verse in the original style) So it was very sort of Orbison, melodramatic. George Martin said 'Let's try it fast,' and we all went 'No.' He said 'Please let's try it. We can always go back, if you don't think it works.' He was very diplomatic and very clever that way. So we tried it fast and thought, that's pretty cool. And that became our first hit. And when we recorded it and had it in the can, George Martin said 'This is gonna be your first No. 1.' And that was very nice, and it was. He was right."

McCartney recalled writing "For No One" "in a Swiss chalet while I was on a skiing holiday." He wrote it on guitar although it ended up being a keyboard-based song.

He also said that the most memorable thing about that recording was putting the French Horn solo on it during recording sessions in May of 1966. The Beatles were slated to work with one instrumentalist but he died in a car accident a month before the studio session. Then they hired one of England's finest classical players, Alan Civil.

"I wrote out a little solo," McCartney said. "And I had a note that actually was just out of the range of the French horn. And you get these great musicians that give you sort of a look and they go 'Um, surely this is, um, um.' And you give them a little look like 'Can you do it?' And they give you a little look like 'Yes I can.' It's really a great moment. It ruins it for all the other horn players who can't do it, but the greats will always go that little extra."

The Beatles' massive influence on music and culture and fashion has never been in doubt, though McCartney was often considered the one who wrote the softer, more pop-oriented material, whereas Lennon was viewed as the tougher rocker. Yet it was the bass-playing McCartney who wrote what may have been the band's most outrageous hard rock song and blueprint for the entire heavy metal genre, "Helter Skelter." He's doing that song on this tour too, even though the raucous vocal could challenge any singer, never mind someone in their 60s.

"It's pretty hard (to sing) y'know but I kind of enjoy it," McCartney said. "We stick it near the end of the show so it's an all-or-nothing kind of thing. So I just have a good old scream out."

Though he's very comfortable doing Beatles' songs on stage - and the audience loves them - McCartney generally steers clear of doing songs where Lennon sang the lead vocal.

"It makes more sense really," McCartney said. "There are a lot of the records like 'Get Back' which I mainly wrote and I sang. So it makes more sense 'cause I'm bringing the audience the voice that wrote and sang it ... It's OK to hear Harry Connick do 'I Left My Heart in San Francisco,' but it's kind of better to hear Tony Bennett do it. So it's sort of for that reason that I do it."

However, he made an exception several tours back when he went back home to Liverpool and wanted to play something special in memory of his murdered bandmate.

"It really was a tribute to John and I knew we were gonna go to Liverpool. It was our hometown, our final gig on that particular tour and I knew I wanted to do something of John's. So we cooked up 'Strawberry Fields' and 'Give Peace a Chance.' We did a little medley of some of John's stronger stuff. Of course you couldn't get the Liverpool crowd to stop. It just went into the night 'cause the crowd kept singing."

Since the Beatles breakup in 1970, and especially now with Lennon and Harrison both deceased, McCartney doesn't have the luxury of working alongside the people who knew him best. He's recorded with contemporaries like Brian Wilson, and performed with acclaimed artists such as Neil Young, but when asked if there's any one artist he'd like to record a full album with, he was blunt:

"I doubt it," he said. "I think they'd spring to mind fairly quickly if there was. It's a funny thing. Having worked with The Beatles, having worked with Wings and now working with this band, the idea of working with someone other than your own people is something that appeals to me only on a kind of one at a time basis."

So he recently recorded a duet with George Michael for an album of Michael's due next year, and McCartney also recorded "Too Much Heaven," with Robin Gibb for a forthcoming tribute album to Gibb's late brother and Bee Gees' partner Maurice Gibb.

"It was great to do," McCartney said in reference to "Too Much Heaven." "That's one of the records when I bring it home, it's very popular. It's one of those 'Put it on again, put it on again,' things, so that's a good sign."

Playing different songs is always a treat for McCartney, and sometimes they're even his own. The man who gave away wondrous compositions like "Woman," to Peter & Gordon and "On The Wings of a Nightingale" to the Everly Brothers has recently been heard rehearsing one of his best non-Beatles' songs from the 1960s: "Come and Get It," which became a huge hit for Badfinger. Might that make its way into this tour's set list?

"We were working it up," McCartney said in reference to "Come and Get It." "But suddenly you have like 38 songs, so we couldn't stick it in ...There are nice little things, but some others take precedent over them ... OK, we'll have to leave 'Come and Get It' out. But it's nice to play them and reevaluate them and see if we get a buzz off of them. And anything we get a buzz off goes into the set."

He's mixing the vintage material on tour with several tracks from "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," which has generated predominantly glowing reviews since its release. The disc was produced by Nigel Godrich, who'd been previously best known for his work with Radiohead and Beck. Given McCartney's status, it's sometimes tough for him to get straight opinions on his music. That was not the case when it came to working with Godrich however, and McCartney says he treasured that frankness.

"That's really where it's at," McCartney said. "That mainly used to come from your band members who would just sort of say, 'Aw, let's not do that' or something. But the thing about Nigel, I knew from the minute I met him I could see he was conscious of that element and he wasn't going to do it ... He's a very good producer and he brought honesty, he brought great sound and he brought very definite opinions on what he likes and doesn't like. So that was good to have somebody with that absolute definite opinion."

One of the most uptempo tracks on the new album is the lead single, "Fine Line," which many people have interpreted as being a political song.

"It's funny isn't it? Because it was first inspired just by the idea that some people will jump off a cliff or drive a car off a cliff and think they're courageous. When someone like me will think it's actually just reckless. But I must say I was listening to it a couple of weeks ago and it suddenly struck me that it did have quite a political message. I suddenly realized you could apply it to troops serving abroad. 'C'mon brother, all is forgiven/ We all cried when you were driven away.' It's strange. I hadn't meant that, but that's one of the things I think is very interesting about writing songs. Because you can write one way with one meaning, and suddenly they can become applicable in other ways. But I like that. I want people to be able to draw their own meanings from songs. I would never say 'No it must mean this.'"

The man who seems to never stop working has several other projects that have been on hold, that fans have been waiting years for.

One is the expected DVD release of the Beatles' 1970 film "Let It Be," a documentary that vividly details some of the events that led to their breakup.

"I understand they've been cleaning the film up and it's looking great," McCartney said. "I should think that is coming ... but I haven't asked how long it's going to take."

Then there was the infamous "Hot Hitz and Cold Cutz," an often rumored album of Wings and McCartney solo rarities dating back to the 1970s. It includes some extraordinary unreleased songs including "Tragedy" and "Cage."

"Those songs, I think they appear all on bootlegs," McCartney said. "They're all around, I just never got quite inspired enough. I remember somebody saying 'Why would you call an album 'Cold Cutz'? It sounds like a failure right there. That kind of put me off."

Told that others strongly disagree McCartney quipped, "Well you put it out then."

He added, "I know there are a lot of people interested in that kind of thing. I think someday when I have a little bit of time, I might sort of look around at all that stuff that's been bootlegged or hasn't been released and figure out some way of getting it out."

Finally, he talked about one of the last great mysterious "lost" Beatles' tracks, a psychedelic era romp called "Carnival of Light," that remains locked away in the vaults, heard by only a few insiders for decades.

"Yeah, now that would be interesting. I know we were thinking of trying to get it on the 'Anthology' but it got voted off. It's a little too avant-garde or something. But it was a nice piece to do. I think it's kind of important in the scheme of things."

Though Paul McCartney's 35-year career as a solo performer and songwriter has lasted roughly three times as long as the Beatles, his past never quite seems to leave him.

That's the way we want it, of course. Who would trade the Beatles for Wings, or relinquish "Yesterday," the most recorded song in history, for "Ebony and Ivory"?

So when McCartney begins a four-concert stint Friday at Madison Square Garden as part of his U.S. tour, old favorites will be mixed with songs from "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," his well-received new CD.

But even before he gets to New York - where the Beatles' conquered America with their 1964 appearances on "The Ed Sullivan Show"; where 40 years ago the group played to 55,600 people at Shea Stadium, the biggest rock concert of its time, and where John Lennon was gunned down 25 years ago this Dec. 8 - he seemed to trip over a ghost.

In a recent Time magazine interview, McCartney called up his old writing partner. "There are times," he said, "not always - when I hear John in my head. I'll think, 'OK, what would we do here' and I can hear him gripe or approve."

Then he felt the need to amend the record.

"It's not like I've got the candles out and the seance going with John," he told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "'Good evening, John. I've had a good day at work. What do you think I ought to do tomorrow?' It's not like that."

As much as anyone, McCartney is the embodiment of the idea that who we are is, in large measure, what we were. He knows - and we demand that he never forgets - he was a key component in a band whose music and personality mirrored the '60s, a band that still influences us today.

So he performs a balancing act with every public appearance. It's no surprise that when he was front-and-center after 9/11, helping to organize the "Concert for New York" show at the Garden, he closed the show with something old ("Yesterday"), something new ("Freedom") and something Beatles ("Let It Be").

He's Sir Paul, but he'll always be the Cute One.

"He's the last living link to the greatest pop cultural phenomenon in the last 100 years," cultural critic Steven D. Stark says, notwithstanding the contributions of Ringo Starr, the other surviving Beatle.

"The essence of the Beatles was that they were a group," says Stark, author of the new "Meet the Beatles: A Cultural History of the Band That Shook Youth, Gender, and the World" (Harper Entertainment), "and the joy of that collaboration ... was greater than anything they've done individually since ...

"The whole was greater than the sum of the parts. And that was the message of the '60s."

None of this would have happened, of course, if the music hadn't been so good.

"[McCartney and Lennon] were the best songwriters in the history of rock 'n' roll. They wrote wonderful melodies that had their roots in the classical era of songwriting," says Stark, referring to the Rodgerses and the Hammersteins.

That lyricism was spurred by necessity, he adds: "Since they couldn't read or write music ... the melodies had to be good enough to sing the next day." Simple enough to remember and yet rich in melodic breadth and depth.

"The Beatles changed with every album they released," says Walter Everett, author of the two-volume study "The Beatles as Musicians" (Oxford University Press). "Their musical growth was astonishing. ... McCartney would add classical and avant-garde music. George Harrison would bring in Indian influences. They would listen to everything and incorporate it."

The result: Songs like "I Feel Fine," "Eleanor Rigby," "Norwegian Wood," "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be" - tunes that have become popular standards.

These melodies were like rivers shaped by edgy, twisting lyrics that were clever and complex.

"They had that great line in 'Revolution': 'But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao, you ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow'," says Stephen Talbot, who co-wrote, -directed and -produced the PBS documentary "The Sixties: The Years That Shaped A Generation," airing on WNET/ Channel 13 as part of PBS' '60s Week.

But did the group lead or merely reflect its time?

"The Beatles were never overtly political, although they would later go on as individuals to express the need for social change," says Dennis Elsas, a disc jockey from Rye, who does a Beatles segment (at 9 a.m. weekdays) as part of his morning show on Sirius Satellite Radio's Classic Vinyl (Channel 14). "Even the song 'Revolution' is more ambiguous in its intent. The Beatles were more likely to sing 'All you need is love.' "

In a 1974 interview on WNEW FM, Lennon told Elsas: "We were part of whatever the sixties was. ... We were the ones that were chosen to represent whatever was going on." A generation of screaming fans was more than willing to follow.

"The Beatles respected their audience," says filmmaker David Leaf, who wrote and co-produced "You Can't Do That: The Making of 'A Hard Day's Night,' " about the Fab Four's first movie, and is working on "The U.S. vs. John Lennon," a documentary about Lennon's anti-war activism. "They said, 'Come with us. We're going on a journey.' ... They just made it a joyous experience."

As a result, says Leaf - a former New Rochelle resident - "the Beatles were the people we took our cues from. We did what they had done. I think of the Beatles culturally as our parents."

While musicologist Everett says the Beatles would not have been the same without Harrison and Starr, the songwriting team of Lennon and McCartney was the driving force.

Theirs was an unusual partnership. "They each wrote complete songs to submit to the other for improvement," Stark says. "Paul was much stronger melodically and John much stronger lyrically."

Much has been made of the complementary nature of their relationship. McCartney's first wife, Linda, observed in her photography book "Linda McCartney's Sixties: Portrait of an Era" (Little, Brown and Co.): "I think people have always got it wrong about Paul and John being such opposites. In my opinion, when it came to creativity, they weren't that different. They both had a tough side and a sensitive side."

Nevertheless, filmmaker Talbot says Lennon gave the sometimes sentimental McCartney edge, while McCartney gave the sometimes prickly Lennon beauty: "McCartney had a brilliant pop sensibility and could be sweet. And he was the most handsome of the group."

Lennon and McCartney also were bound by a competitiveness and, Stark says, an attachment to their mothers, who died when the songwriters were young.

"Now we are both in this, both losing our mothers," McCartney is quoted as saying in Bob Spitz's "The Beatles: The Biography" (Little, Brown and Co., Nov. 1). "This was a bond for us, something of ours, a special thing."

"The togetherness, the camaraderie, the chemistry, the charisma: You never saw one of the Beatles by himself," says their former drummer Pete Best, who recalls the early '60s, when the band played Hamburg's red-light district, in "Best of the Beatles" (8 p.m. Wednesday, WNET/Channel 13).

That group identity contrasted with the earlier style, which featured solo acts or bands fronted by one performer, Stark says.

Much has been made, too, of the reasons for the 1970 breakup - financial mismanagement; a struggle between Lennon and McCartney to control the soul of the band; the desire to go their separate artistic ways; the introduction of women into the mix. (Lennon and McCartney fell in love with very different women who were strong, artistic New Yorkers - Yoko Ono attended Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers and Linda Eastman grew up in Scarsdale.)

"A more interesting question is not 'Why did they break up?' but 'Would they have gotten back together?'" says Elsas, who also has an afternoon show on WFUV-90.7 FM. In that now-classic 1974 interview with Elsas, Lennon said: "There's always a chance we'd work together again, but I can't see us touring. I just see us making records."

Six years later, Lennon was dead. "When they ceased to exist," Stark said, "the '60s ceased to exist."

Only now, in his 20th studio album as a solo artist, has McCartney tried to write about his early days.

On "Riding to Vanity Fair," he sings

"There was a time

When every day was young

The sun would always shine

We sang along

When all the songs were sung

Believing every line."

But in that end was a new beginning for both the Beatles and McCartney.

"Paul's had a great career, and he's having a great career," says Best. "And you have to admire him for his courage. He was courageous enough after the Beatles broke up to say, 'I'm going back on the road,' and he formed Wings."

He experimented with poetry, painting, film score ("Live and Let Die," "Vanilla Sky") and classical music ("Liverpool Oratorio"). He helped create The Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts, saving the rundown building in which he went to school, and earned a knighthood.

And perhaps most significantly, McCartney raised four children with Linda, and after mourning her 1998 death from breast cancer, wed activist Heather Mills, with whom he has a 2-year-old, Beatrice.

McCartney created a life of dignity and grace after Beatlemania, which, Elsas says, is one of his greatest accomplishments.

Filmmaker Leaf agrees: "I've been around a lot of celebrities, and I've been fortunate to be around great artists. It's extraordinarily rare that someone is who you want them to be. Paul McCartney is that person. He's the guy we all dreamed of meeting."

ART CRITICS RECONSIDER 'McCARTNEY IS DEAD' MYTH

New York's top art critics are refuelling the rock 'n' roll myth that Paul McCartney died over three decades ago - after taking a rare close-up view of his paintings.

Top Big Apple celebrity art expert Baird Jones staged a one-night exhibition of John Lennon and McCartney art from his own personal collection at New York club Deep earlier this month and was left stunned by the reactions of his "austere" friends.

A fan of McCartney's art for years, Jones admits it took the opinions of his critical pals to make him realise that the 'Paul is dead' rumours that started in the late 1960s could be true.

He explains, "There were lots of questions about why he (McCartney) predominantly uses the color red in ways one would not. It's the color of blood and death.

"The critics were asking questions like, 'Why is there so much red in the garden (painting) and on the beach (painting)? It's macabre.' Call it art psychoanalysis, but the 'Paul is dead' rumour has started to spread.

"These were highbrow, austere people who take their art seriously. Some had never really had the chance to see McCartney's art up close."

Jones now claims there are major clues in McCartney's art that suggest the rocker might not be what he seems to be.

He explains, "It's one more sign that this man is communicating something. Red has been a dominant color of his for some time.

"It might be evidence that the Paul McCartney we think we know is not Paul McCartney; he's an imposter - and here's a signal."

Paul McCartney Almost Quit Music

Paul McCartney has declared that he rediscovered his passion for writing songs after performing in New York to aid victims of 9/11.

The ex-Beatle had considered turning his back on his illustrious career, however the response of people affected by the terrorist attacks "to his music" made him realise that he still had much to offer the world.

He says: "9/11 was really the beginning of it all. Before that I was wondering if I wanted to tour again, dabbling a bit, then 9/11 happened.

"It reawakened something in me. In one way it led to everything that has happened since, the tour of America, Live 8, all that."

Paul McCartney recuperated from his scary fall through a trap door on a Tampa, Fla., stage at Gurney's Inn in Montauk (Long Island), where he soaked in a hot tub and got massaged. The Beatle tripped last Saturday and fell five feet onto a grand piano that was supposed to rise up later in the show. McCartney, whose elbow was slightly injured, told the crowd they got "extra value" for their money and joked, "A word to the stage crew, I want a big fence around here tomorrow."

NOTE: Paul flew back to his hotel in Miami right after the Tampa show.

Worship

One of the things he finds rewarding is that many of today's hot bands worship the music The Beatles created in the Sixties and Seventies. He says: "It pleases me to be around when there's a good little scene coming out of Britain and if they like me it's even better.

"I know a lot of bands refer back to the Beatles. U2 do and Chris Martin watches the anthology a lot. I see that as a huge tribute.

"We did go and do something quite amazing, it's history from the Sixties but it's great for me, I'm well chuffed. Seeing people quoting us and trying to emulate us is good. It's always nice to have a bit of respect."

Paul will play 37 shows across the US before he heads to the UK. I was lucky enough to get my own private gig as I sat in on rehearsals for the tour, which sees Paul including a number of Beatles songs.

It was strange seeing him having to listen to playbacks of some of the Fab Four's tracks so he could learn to play them again.

He says: "I just finally got over my hang-up of playing Beatles stuff. It started when I did Wings. I didn't want people saying, 'Oh he's just carrying on The Beatles.' It was too close to the time, so I completely turned my back on the Beatles stuff.

"Anyway, once I'd proved that point, I just thought, 'It's OK now, I can do Beatles songs.' And then it started to become fun. For me, I get all the memories.

"If I'm doing something from the Beatles, I can almost still see me and John writing it. I get the atmosphere back and I think that might translate to today's audiences."

Paul is relishing the idea of being on the road for the next eight months. He's looking and feeling fitter than ever and has given up smoking the dope he used to love since wife Heather Mills gave birth to their daughter Beatrice, now two.

Paul has never forgotten his working class Liverpool roots, he still has a Scouse accent and goes back regularly to see his family.

Once he visited an old family home in Liverpool. He says: "I knocked on the door and the guy thought it was the cops. He shouted, 'Who is it?' and when I said , 'It's Paul McCartney', he didn't believe me. But in the end he showed me around and it was good to see."

As we chatted after rehearsals, Paul told me: "Do you know the best seats in the house in Miami are the cheapest ones? That's the socialist in me coming out there - my working class roots."

Sir Paul McCartney would like to make one thing perfectly clear.

When the alphabetically latter half of the greatest songwriting duo in pop-music history sits down to write a song, he doesn't feel the need to call in John Lennon to get his former bandmate's approval.

"It's not like I've got the candles out and the seance going with John," the cute, now 63-year-old former Beatle says. " 'Good evening, John, I've had a good day at work. What do you think I ought to do tomorrow?' It's not like that."

There's good reason for McCartney to think people might suppose it's like that. In a recent Time magazine interview, in which he promoted his surprisingly strong new album, "Chaos & Creation in the Backyard" (Capitol), he said:

"There are times -- not always -- when I hear John in my head. I'll think, 'OK, what would we have done here,' and I can hear him gripe or approve."

On the phone from Miami, where he launched his first U.S. tour in three years on Sept. 16, McCartney says: "I actually was just trying to give the guy a good interview. I always want to please people. ... But I don't really 'consult' (Lennon) at all ... (though) I just might think: I wonder what he might have thought of that."

One only can surmise how the often-caustic Lennon, who died in 1980, might have reacted to "Chaos and Creation," an understated collection whose ample melodic charm and sense of invention, at its best, recalls late-period Beatles. Perhaps he would have said, "Not bad, Macca. It's about time."

McCartney stops short of trashing his own solo career, which has been spotty at best. Worthy efforts include his 1971 solo debut, "McCartney" -- as with "Chaos," he played nearly all the instruments -- and 1989's "Flowers in the Dirt," in part a collaboration with Elvis Costello. But he allows that this time, egged on by a new producer, he applied himself fully to the task at hand, for a change.

"I just said: 'You're going to make a good record this time,' " he says. "I kind of put myself on the line, you know?"

McCartney doesn't have an answer for why he was so motivated.

He says it had nothing to do with a sense that his time as a gentleman rocker is running short, though by June he'll be the age at which he once imagined being retired to "a cottage in the Isle of Wight, if it's not too dear." His friend George Harrison -- whom he says he misses for "his humor and honesty" -- followed Lennon to the grave in 2001. His first wife, Linda, died in 1998 -- "a phenomenal, beautiful, funny lady: I miss her like mad." He married Heather Mills in 2002.

"I certainly never get that feeling" that time is running out," McCartney says. " 'We've got all the time in the world, man,' as Louis (Armstrong) once sang. I'm a very here-and-now kind of person. So I just said: 'C'mon, get it together. Mush! Write some good songs. Do good, kid!' "

To help him do good, McCartney hired Nigel Godrich, who's best known for his work with Radiohead and Beck -- and who came recommended by Beatles producer George Martin.

Left to his own devices, McCartney's sunniness can be too much to bear. "Silly Love Songs," for instance. But when conflict enters the room, he responds.

That's apparent in conversation, too. When asked a question that he clearly considers stupid -- what would have become of him if the Beatles had never made it out of Liverpool? -- he responds with a deadpan worthy of "A Hard Day's Night": "An underwater salvage man." (And later, he cheerily compliments himself: "That was one of the best answers of my career.")

But seriously, he says: "You know, I was in one of the great collaborations of all time. And the both of us were phenomenally lucky to have found each other. I was a foil for John, and he was a foil for me. ...

"On this new album, Nigel took on that role. He's a very forthright young man, who kind of said to me: 'I know what I like, and what I don't like.' There was something ominous about that but also very encouraging."

Godrich, 37, has said he ruled "'50s rock 'n' roll pastiche numbers" off-limits. "Chaos and Creation" is full of fine McCartney songs that take a subtler approach.

The gently lilting "Jenny Wren," for instance, which is enlivened by a solo on the duduk, an Armenian woodwind instrument. The song was inspired by a character in Charles Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend," and its author has referred to it as "son of 'Blackbird.' "

McCartney points to "Riding to Vanity Fair," one of the most disconsolate songs he's ever penned ("I was open to friendship/But you didn't seem to have any to spare"), as a track that Godrich "wasn't keen on."

"We halved the tempo, took it down to make it much more moody. And I had a complete rethink on the melody. ... It was kind of like what John and I would have done, but we would have been quicker about it, and read each other like books. ... But it kept things nice and fresh. There was plenty of tension in the studio."

The knighted songwriter says he's "quite aware" of the echoes of his former band in newer songs such as "Friends to Go."

"I've realized that I have a style, and that I shouldn't particularly try to resist it," he says. "With (his '70s band) Wings, I tried to put aside all the Beatles tricks, any sort of instrumentation that might have been Beatle-oid. ... But now I'm free of all of those fetters. To just go: Well, you know, I wrote 'Eleanor Rigby.' I wrote 'Blackbird.' Why can't I do a song that has an echo of it? ... I was always a little reluctant to do that. But I can go there twice in my life, instead of once."

"Chaos and Creation" is stronger for McCartney's letting doubt and trouble creep into songs such as the delicate "At the Mercy" and even the outwardly cheery first single, "Fine Line." That song is already being used in a TV commercial by Lexus, which with Fidelity Investments is helping out the hardly hard-up McCartney by co-sponsoring his tour.

Don't think for a minute, however, that the world has got McCartney down. If the soon-to-be senior citizen has an abiding credo, it's a line in "Promise to You Girl," one of the new album's jauntiest love songs: "Every single second of our lives we can use to chase the clouds away."

He says: "I'm always an optimist, always an enthusiast. I think that's the best way in life. But I don't know anyone who doesn't have some sort of sadness. The moment you talk to someone real, you find that sort of thing. And that's a recurring theme to a lot of my stuff.

"You try to chase the clouds away. I think that's what we're all doing."

BACK IN THE U.S. OF A. -- Paul McCartney's current tour is all about the States

WHERE, WHEN: Tonight at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia; Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 4 and 5 at Madison Square Garden, New York City

Paul McCartney, who once wondered if we would still need him when he was 64, turned 63 in June. So he must be heartened that all 37 dates on his new U.S. tour sold out, some in a matter of minutes.

"It's funny, but with me, there's some sort of inverse law of physics happening," McCartney says. "I should be fed up with touring, should get really tired when I do. But I think I enjoy it now more than I ever have."

The tour opened Sept. 16 in Miami following the release of McCartney's 20th post-Beatles album, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," and is scheduled to wrap in Los Angeles on Nov. 30. McCartney will make stops this weekend in Philadelphia before heading for New York's Madison Square Garden.

The tour features songs culled from McCartney's solo catalog and his years with The Beatles and Wings, among them tunes that haven't been performed live.

"That's what happened at Live 8," McCartney says, referring to the London portion of the July 2 mega-concert. He performed The Beatles' classic "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with members of U2.

"I had never done that beginning part of "Sgt. Pepper' live. It's kind of uncanny to be suddenly singing a song like that. It feels new, but you know it can't be, because all the people know it. Something magical starts to happen.

"It will also be interesting to play some of the new songs and see how they translate live. We tried a couple while we were rehearsing for Live 8 and had a lot of fun with them."

(His tour is being co-sponsored by Fidelity Investments, for whom McCartney is appearing in a national advertising campaign.)

Of the songs on "Chaos," McCartney says, "I don't start out with a fixed idea in my mind when I write songs for an album. But a little thread starts to appear, and you think, "Oh, yeah, that's where this is going.' There are a couple of songs on this album that are, hopefully, uplifting. Songs that say, "Hey, life can be tough but try to think about it this way.' "

Some of his writing may have been influenced by current events, including the war in Iraq. "Because I have a mind, and I breathe the air on this planet, I'm affected by these happenings. I was thinking about the song that opens the album, "Fine Line,' which is about making a decision, and I suddenly read it as an anti-war song. You have these lyrics: "Come home brother, all is forgiven/We all cried when you were driven away.' It's almost like I'm talking to the troops.

"It's weird - like going to a psychiatrist and making a drawing and having him tell you, "That's because of this.' And you say, "No, it's just a funny face.' Hidden agendas are discovered. I think that can happen in songwriting. You begin writing about one thing and find you've been writing about something else as well. That's intriguing to me."

So, clearly, are others who share the singer's sense of social conscience - notably his first wife, Linda, who died in 1998 after battling cancer, and his current spouse, Heather, noted for her activism on behalf of abolishing land mines.

"I didn't set out to like strong women," McCartney says. "I'm just attracted to them. Linda was very much against the tide, a New York photographer, a woman with her own opinions who became a very strong supporter of things like animal rights and vegetarianism. And my kids have inherited those kinds of beliefs; they're also strong-minded.

"With Heather, that was also part of the attraction, that she's a woman with definite passions for goodness and fairness, for justice. At the moment, she's campaigning against China exporting dog and cat fur. We both are, but she's the lead campaigner. And I've been very happy to join her in (promoting) land-mine clearance. There's still a lot to be done, but we've managed to do some good work."

When it comes to his tour's collaborators, McCartney speaks with similar pride.

"Let's not forget: I have a great band," he says.

Macca beyond

It's easy to take happily married squillionaire Paul McCartney for granted - there have been times when it seems as if he does just that himself. But his new album is his most searingly honest in decades and, in this brutally candid interview, he tells Sean O'Hagan about the pain of his many losses - and the creative urge that still drives.

'I'm trying to keep it very simple now' ... Paul McCartney

I am sitting in the tiny kitchen that adjoins Paul McCartney's recording studio in deepest Sussex waiting for the man himself to appear. He is running late, and I am growing nervous. Even my mum, who claims to have never heard of most of the people I interview, seemed thrilled when I told her on the phone that I was doing Paul McCartney. 'A Beatle!' she said. 'You're going to meet a Beatle!'

The Beatle in question is nowhere to be seen, but in evidence everywhere. On the wall opposite, there is a framed poster for Liverpool Oratorio, the classical work he co-composed in honour of his native city, and a framed Ordnance Survey map of that same city. On the table, there is a copy of Sound: The Liverpool Pop Quiz Book. I pick it up and open it at a random page. And my first question is: 'Complete these song titles by Liverpool performers (a) 'The Long and ....... Road'. I put it down again.

I am here to talk to McCartney, not about 'The Long and Winding Road', literal or metaphorical, but about the intriguingly titled Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard, his new solo album. It is his 20th studio outing since the Beatles break-up, and the first since his debut, 1970's McCartney, on which he played all the instruments himself. That was an easy-going, home-made affair, very much a reaction to the multilayered perfectionism of the Beatles' best work; a retreat from the very idea of the Beatles. Thirty five years on, Chaos and Creation... is an altogether more polished, and occasionally mannered, album, the first McCartney effort in a long time where you can sense that he is trying to raise the creative stakes, trying, if you will, to get back to where he once belonged - in the highest echelons of songwriting genius.

Throughout, the songs are buoyed up, and occasionally padded out, by Nigel Godrich's rich but restrained production, but this is a long way from the dense, sonic experiments of Radiohead or the boho musings of Beck, the artists with whom Godrich made his name, a long way even from the well-behaved rock-by-numbers of Travis, whose workmanlike songs he lifted up and dusted down in a similar manner. Nevertheless, Chaos and Creation... is a thing of quirky, if occasionally belaboured, charm, often intimate and honest in its delineation of love and loss. The sound of someone really trying after too long a time just cruising.

When McCartney finally breezes into the studio, my journalistic objectivity momentarily evaporates, and I suddenly feel exactly like my mum predicted I would feel. 'A Beatle!' I think, standing up to shake his hand, 'an actual Beatle!'

For his part, he seems both relaxed and eager to please with that almost boyish charm that has somehow survived intact despite all that has happened to him since he and the other three took on the world, and, to his surprise, and our great delight, stood it on its head. 'All right, la,' he says, by way of greeting, and we're off on a guided tour of his intimate little studio complex overlooking the gentle sweep of Sussex pasture that stretches down in the distance to the sky of blue and sea of green.

It's a nice gaff, very McCartney in its cosiness, particularly the big upstairs room to which we convene, which is wood panelled and homely, with gold discs on the wall, and framed magazine covers, and a few paintings, perhaps by him. In a designery white shirt and well-cut blue jeans, he looks fitter than he has in years, and younger. And, though he still sports that generic old rockers' haircut - short at the front, longish at the back - the post- Heather dye job that the tabloids had a field day with has banished those telltale flecks of grey, making him seem almost Beatleish once again. It strikes me suddenly that his speaking voice, like his young singing voice, has become a signature of sorts, as instantly recognisable as the Queen's. Or John's. Like them, he's part of our collective experience: an iconic figure despite all his attempts at debunking his own myth. He bids me sit down on one of the two big sofas, and answers questions though mouthfuls of cheese and salad sandwich.

'I wanted to make a really good record,' he says, when I tell him as diplomatically as I can that he sounds more engaged than he has for a long time. 'I kept telling myself, "I'm gonna make a good record". It's one of those arrogant statements you make when you want to really motivate yourself.' Does he not normally say that before making an album? 'No,' he says, as if it never occurred to him that maybe he should. 'Normally, you just cross your fingers and hope that you do.'

This low-key approach to songwriting has characterised much of McCartney's post-Beatles output, but it still does not fully explain one of pop's great mysteries: how the man who wrote 'Penny Lane' and 'Eleanor Rigby' could come to write the likes of 'Hi Hi Hi' and 'Bip Bop - Hey Diddle'? Godrich, though, seems to have pushed him to prove himself once again, rather than let him coast on his reputation. When I ask him about 'Riding to Vanity Fair', a song that sounds darker and deeper than anything he has written since 'Let It Be', he says: 'Funnily enough, that was one of the stickiest moments on the whole project. I loved it, but when I initially brought it in, Nigel didn't think much of it at all. In fact, he might even have used the word "crap". So, I went away and changed it, then we worked on it together a bit, halved the tempo so it sounded sparse and eerie and dark. And he still didn't like it!'

You can tell by McCartney's animated way of telling this story that this kind of thing doesn't happen very often, may not, in fact, have happened at all since he last worked with the Beatles' producer, George Martin. I ask him if he was happy to change his lyrics, his whole modus operandi, in fact, at the request of a producer who wasn't even born when the Beatles were changing the rulebook of pop.

'Well, we had our moments,' he says, taking another chomp out of his sarnie. 'At one point on that song, it was, like, deep breath, "OK, pal, before I lose it, let's just sit down and work out exactly what you do and don't like". And he'd say: "Well, you could do better. Paul. It's not as good as your best stuff ". I was really getting a bit pissed with the guy, and really having to bite my tongue. I mean, it would have been easy for me to say: "Who are you, mate? Who do you think you are, eh?" But then, why work with the guy in the first place if you're not going to take on his advice? He was just raising the bar a bit.'

It seems to have worked. Here and there, the songs come close to vintage McCartney, some evoking past songs in style and subject matter. 'Jenny Wren' is by far the most Beatle-ish interlude, and has already been described by McCartney as a 'daughter of 'Blackbird", which may have been a clever way of pre-empting the critics saying the same thing, albeit a bit more scathingly. One would have to be truly hard of heart, though, not to be moved by this long overdue glimpse of McCartney the melancholy minstrel of old, with just an acoustic guitar, a heart-tugging melody, and a wonderfully winsome George Martin-style flugelhorn solo for company. Elsewhere, there is genuine sadness ('Too Much Rain') and faux tweeness ('English Tea') in equal measure, which, as McCartney's detractors will no doubt point out, has nearly always been the case.

'I'm trying to keep it very simple now,' he says at one point, 'whereas before you'd go through phases where you'd try to be flavour of the month. I've been very conscious of trying to make a pop record from time to time, and so I've looked at the chart, and what's been around, and I've thought, OK, I can do that. There's quite a few things that make me cringe,' he smiles, 'but I'm not saying.'

Interestingly, 'Fine Line', the opening song, and first single, from the new album, is the one that sounds the most like a Wings song, being both bouncy and insanely catchy. The lyrics, though, suggest that rapprochement might be one of his current preoccupations. 'Come here, brother, all is forgiven', runs the chorus, and because of who he is, and what he's been through, we go looking for possible subjects: his actual bother, Mike?; his lost soul brother, John? Likewise on 'Riding to Vanity Fair', where he sings: 'I was open to friendship, but you didn't seem to have any to spare'. Could this be aimed at Yoko, with whom he has never had the easiest of relationships? Or maybe at the tabloids, with whom he has waged a fitful war of attrition since his betrothal to the younger Heather Mills, whom they continue to view with a suspicion that suggests outright scorn? Are these lyrics directed at anyone in particular, I ask, and, if so, who?

'Nah, I'm not so good if I vent it at an individual,' he replies, shrugging off this line of questioning. 'If you look at my stuff , it's generally not specific. I'm not comfortable with finger-pointing. That said, it's about people who reject friendship, me getting my own back on people like that.'

Does he find that this happens a lot, people rejecting his friendship? I'd have thought most people would love to have an ex-Beatle as a mate. 'Well, if you're a naturally friendly person like I am, you do find that it happens, yeah. That song is about certain instances that were hurtful, where the hand of friendship was rejected, and about certain things that were said that stuck with me. I've had a bunch of that in my life, but never really dealt with it, never talked about it.'

Does he think people are suspicious of his perceived niceness - the thumbs-up, fab Macca image? He shrugs. 'Dunno, mate. Maybe it's a Liverpool thing, or a family trait type of thing. My dad was like that, too, very hospitable, always gave people roses from the garden when they were leaving, that sort of thing. Lovely man, wanting to reach out all the time. Normal, really. But some people don't want that, do they?' he says, sounding, suddenly, witheringly Scouse. 'They don't like yer for it. Simple as that.'

It seems to me, from listening to the album, and reading some of his press cuttings, that McCartney has become more combative of late. Recently, he rang up certain columnists to complain about their constant attacks on his wife, Heather, who has been a tabloid target since they went public with their romance, and now seems to have taken Yoko's place as the Beatle wife they love to hate.

'Well, obviously, I don't want to go on about this too much,' he says, sighing, 'because I really don't want to go head to head with these people, but sometimes they've just massively overstepped the mark. And they know what they're doing.'

Given what he went through with the Beatles, does he think the level of intrusion is worse now than it was then? 'Well, yeah, I do. I really think so. It's, like, we used to call them lovable rogues, but I'm not sure how lovable they are now. The word scurrilous is coming to mind. I mean, I don't want them to rule my life, and it's their job to a degree, but unfortunately the British press is known worldwide for not being the best. You go to LA and the paparazzi are British. They've infested the world with this thing.' He sits back and shakes his head. 'My attitude is, it's their problem, really. I don't read them as a rule, and I try not to let them get to me, but occasionally...'

Spend even a little time with Paul McCartney at the moment, and two things become apparent: that he is a survivor who, unlike many celebrities, has managed to somehow keep his soul - and his sense of self - intact; and that he has become re-energised of late. On 16 September he kicked off a three-month long US tour in the American Airlines Arena in Miami, with European shows sure to follow. Can he pinpoint the moment that this late surge of creativity began - his marriage to Heather, maybe, or the recent birth of baby Beatrice?

'I'll tell you what it is,' he says, leaning forward and looking serious. 'I think it has something to do with 9/11. That was really the beginning of it all. Before that, I was wondering if I wanted to tour again, dabbling a bit. Then 9/11 happened, and we did that concert for New York. There was something healing about that. I'd meet so many people on the street, and it'd be, "Yo Paul, great what you did for the city, man". Well, it was my pleasure and an honour. And it reawakened something in me. In one way, it led to everything that has happened since, the tour of America, Live8, all that.'

At Live8, of course, McCartney topped and tailed the event, beginning with a declamatory 'Sgt Pepper's', in the company of U2, and ending with 'Hey Jude', just himself and the piano, and a chorus of 200,000 raised voices. Even within the tricky context of that philanthropic egofest, the unspoken subtext was that there was only one performer big enough, and mythic enough, to capture in song the drama of this particular pop moment. It wasn't Elton, it wasn't Bono, and it certainly wasn't Bob - it could only be Paul. And, more to the point, Paul the Beatle.

Was he nervous going out there to do 'Sgt Pepper's' with Dublin's Fab Four? 'Not as nervous as I thought I would be. It thought it was a bit of a crack, really, as you guys say. I rehearsed it with my own band, and it sounded good, then U2 came in the night before the gig, and it didn't sound too good to me to tell you the truth. We really had to work on the guitar bit, and I'm trying to think, "Sh*t, did I play it on the album?" I think I did but it's so long ago. We had to get the bloody record out in the end, and have a listen to it through the monitors. It sounded great on the day, though, But just as we're coming off , Edge says to me: "I screwed up the riff , Paul". I told him not to worry, it was a rewrite.'

This December will bring the 25th anniversary of John Lennon's death. I ask Paul if he thinks John would have done Live8 had he still been alive. 'Well, that's one of those hypothetical questions. So, hypothetically, I'd say yes. I'm sure John would have caught hold of an idea like this.' He thinks about this some more. 'The thing is, the actual idea was great, and I think the idea of the big philanthropic gig for a cause goes back to George, actually, and his Concert For Bangladesh. That was the first one. These things need doing, that's my way of looking at it. People were a bit, "Oh, no, not that again" to begin with, but I've had so much good feedback since the show. Unbelievable. I was up in Liverpool last week, and everywhere I went, it was, "You were f*kin' great on Live8, man".'

What's it like going back home? 'Oh, I love it. People say you only remember the sunny days when you look back, never all the rainy ones. I'm lucky like that, my brain seems to retain all the good memories. So, I'll be going round the place, and it's "me and John walked down that road. I can see us now". It's great, man, just great.'

McCartney returns to Liverpool regularly to teach songwriting at the Institute of Performing Arts, which is situated in his old school. 'It's where me and George went to school, so I just have to walk in there, and I'm back there with him,' he says fondly. 'It's George smoking behind the shelters, or George nodding one of my mates. We were all chatting this day, and this boy must have said something to annoy him and next minute, it's BOOF! He's nutted him.' McCartney cracks up laughing. 'He was a bit of a terror, young George was. Him and his quaff.'

You obviously miss him, I say, stating the obvious. 'Oh, you know, it's just very sad,' he says, looking away. 'Same with John. It's that feeling of finality, isn't it? Same with any death. For a long time, you just want to ring them up, you know, and you think, "Sh*t, I can't!" Terrible, really.'

He pauses for a moment, perhaps weighing up how much he should say about the past, a past of course that we still cling to, even as he tries not to. 'The thing is, I knew George longer than any of the guys in the Beatles. Doesn't mean I knew him any better, mind, but I knew him longer. He was the kid in the school uniform with the big quiff who got on the bus the stop after mine. And sometimes he'd sit down next to me and we'd start talking rock'n'roll. We shared our records, we learnt chords together, we even tried to make a guitar together. We did the whole teenage bonding thing, trying to pull birds, hitchhiking to Harlech, all the formative stuff.' He falls silent for a moment. 'I can't quite believe it's over. It's just a really sad feeling sometimes. Same with John, except with John's death there was all this anger too. The jerk of all jerks,' he hisses, referring to Mark Chapman, Lennon's murderer, 'to shoot someone like John Lennon.' He shakes his head. 'And now Georgie's gone too,' he says, quietly, 'It's not a nice feeling, really. Not nice. At all.'

On the way back downstairs, he pauses to show me a photograph on the wall, a portrait of George, Ringo and himself, standing under a tree. It was shot for a magazine cover in the grounds of this very studio while they were working on 'Free As a Bird' in 1995, the song, written and sung by Lennon as a demo tape in 1977, that subsequently became the first Beatles single in 25 years. There's something ineffably sad about the photograph, the fact that it is just the three of them, and that since, another one of them has gone. Then McCartney points to a white peacock that seems to have sneaked into the picture, stage left, and is peering directly at the camera. 'That's John,' he says, smiling. The bird, which had strayed from a neighbouring farm, walked into shot just as the photographer pressed the shutter. 'Spooky, eh?' says McCartney. 'It was like John was hanging around. We felt that all through the recording. We even put one of those spoof backwards recordings on the end of the single for a laugh, to give all those Beatles nuts something to do. I think it was a line of a George Formby song. Then we're listening to the finished single in the studio one night, and it gets to the end, and it goes "zzzwrk nggggwaaahh joooohn lennnnnon qwwwwk". I swear to God. We were like, "It's John. He likes it!"'

Spending even a little time with McCartney is a salutary lesson in the art of survival. We tend to forget that, though. We forget that he, too - Fab Macca, forever grinning, thumbs aloft - is a fully qualified survivor. We forget that he survived the whirlwind of the Beatles, and the long years of living in their shadow, and the terrible fallouts and the recriminations. We forget that he has had to deal not just with the loss of John and George, but that he somehow has made it though the capsizing grief of losing his wife, and long-term soul mate, Linda. And, still, the tabloids scoff at his so-called cheeriness, and his choice of new partner. And still, we, the public, want more. We want 'Yesterday' and 'Penny Lane' and 'Hey Jude', as if those songs, and all the others like them, were not more than enough already. We want yesterday.

There's a sense on Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard, though, that Paul McCartney is finally at ease with his legacy, with the weight of myth and history that he has had to carry, and has tried to shrug off, for so long. There's a strange little song on the album called 'How Kind of You', on which he sings: 'How kind of you to stick by me during the final bout / And listen to the referee when I was counted out'. It seems both poignant and pointed, sincere and yet sarcastic. It doesn't seem half-hearted, half-baked, or half-finished.

'Well, it's about all the tragedies,' he elaborates, 'the Beatles' break-up, things going wrong, and people writing me off . There's this sort of therapy aspect in songwriting sometimes, and that's one of the reasons I love it. If I'm feeling really low, I'll take my guitar into the darkest corner I can find in the house, and go there and sit with it, and talk to the guitar, explain it all to the guitar. And it works,' he says, as if he can barely believe it himself. 'You come out of there, and it's magical.' With that, he starts singing another line from the same song: 'I thought my time was up...' And you can tell he really means it, even though, just by singing it, he seems to banish the very thought.

Thumbs up

1. Avant-garde guardian

John Lennon once said: 'Avant-garde is French for bullsh*t', which may have been a dig at McCartney. Though Lennon was seen as the experimental Beatle, it was McCartney who immersed himself in the Sixties' avant-garde. He hung out with art dealer Robert Fraser, helped start the radical Indica gallery and bookshop, and bought paintings by surrealist Rene Magritte. In 1967, while Lennon retreated to his big house in Weybridge, McCartney sought out musical inspiration in the experimentalism of Stockhausen, John Cage and Cornelius Cardew. 'It was a very free, formless time for me', he told his biographer, Barry Miles, later.

2. Up in smoke

Ex-Wings member Denny Laine once said that Macca got through an ounce of cannabis a day. In the mid-Nineties, Noel Gallagher was summoned to a party at McCartney's house by Paul's daughter, Stella. According to Oasis insider Ian Robertson, in his book What's the Story?, the door was opened by Paul, who presented the asthmatic Noel with a spliff.

And thumbs down...

1. No self-control

From The Beatles' 'Ob La Di Ob La Da' to Wings's 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' and 'Mull of Kintyre', to countless abominations like 'Bip Bop - Hey Diddle' and 'Ode to a Koala Bear', it is fair to say the Macca is not a man much given to exercising quality control. Maybe it's the industrial amounts of spiff he has consumed over the years, or the absence of a Lennon-like creative foil, but Macca's long post-Beatles fall from grace has been one of the enduring mysteries of modern pop.

2. ...and complete control

Behind the thumbs aloft, grinning 'Fab Macca' mask, McCartney is a creative control freak. He was the one Beatle opposed to the appointment of Allan Klein as manager, putting forward his father-in-law instead. Having once said: 'We are not in the business of singing jingles. We do not peddle sneakers, pantyhose or anything else', he now claims: 'The magic of music is something which unites all kinds of people - young, old, artistic and corporate.' This month he agreed to star in a TV ad for an investment company.

September 20, 2005 -- Miami Herald

After his performance at the American Airlines Arena on Friday night (September 16), Sir Paul McCartney and his crew threw the official after-party at his fave restaurant, Cantina Beach at the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne. The group of about 40 celebrated the very successful opening concert with a private soiree filled with Mexican culinary favorites. Banditos on the run, we guess.

McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr performed backing music to accompany an old Lennon vocal recording to produce the 1995 single to accompany the release of the Anthology series.

But when the three former Beatles posed outside the recording studio for a photoshoot, a white peacock mysteriously joined them.

McCartney recalls, "That's John. Spooky, eh? It was like John was hanging around. We felt that all through the recording."

Heather Mills McCartney was left limping in agony after reportedly having her false leg knocked off by one of Jennifer Lopez's bodyguards during a fur protest at J Lo's fashion headquarters.

The injury occurred as Heather, who lost her real leg in a motorbike accident in 1993, stormed into the New York office of the Latin diva's fashion label, Sweetface, which uses fur in its clothing range.

The former model, married to Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney, was attempting to show Lopez a video showing racoons being skinned alive in China.

During the protest, Heather clashed with the star's security guards and as they tried to move her out of the building her prosthetic leg reportedly twisted and came loose, leaving Heather writhing in agony.

As the fracas erupted, J Lo's security team were overheard shouting at the blonde: "Get out of here. You have no authority to be here! You are not invited."

After losing her false limb, Heather - who was joined by animal rights campaigners from PETA for her protest - begged security to allow her to use a bathroom so she could re-attach her leg but they refused.

Photographer Richard Corkery, who witnessed the incident, said: "She was obviously in pain but she found a fire exit to hide in and re-adjust her leg. I saw her limp away from the offices as J Lo's men were still shouting at her to get out."

According to 25hoursonline.com, Lopez's guards continued to verbally attack the group ­ screaming: "Call the cops! Call the cops!" - until Mills McCartney recovered her composure and was able to leave the building.

Heather Mills McCartney is now threatening to stalk J Lo over animal rights. She says she will track the fur-wearing film star to her home and confront her on the red carpet at her next movie premiere.

Sir Paul McCartney's accomplishments are legendary. But on the opening night of his US tour, he achieved the unthinkable... and made the Beatles' legacy sound tired.

Macca has long looked like a man desperately trying to hide his age. But this performance exposed weaknesses far greater than mere passing years.

First came a supremely sycophantic film about the life of the great man himself that preceded the show. If proof were still needed, it blew away any pretence that Mister McArtless is a modest, down-to-earth bloke.

And while the 18,000 fans at the American Airlines Stadium, Miami - happy merely to be in the presence of a living Beatle - may have tolerated such a film, surely he won't dare show it when he comes to the UK.

But maybe he will - the movie suggests that Sir Paul is under the illusion he was recently made a saint, rather than a knight.

Yes, McCartney's past achievements are great, so are only worth revisiting with deep commitment and raging conviction - qualities conspicuously absent for much of this show.

The opening Magical Mystery Tour was plodding where it should have been spectacular. On Jet, he sang flat over a dragging tempo. Later, he tarnished pop jewels such as Penny Lane with a grating, cheesy delivery.

Of course, with such a rich songbook to call on, it's impossible to play a complete howler.

But while the excitement level rose for Drive My Car and a solo take on the new Jenny Wren had real passion and beauty, even show-stopping rockers such as Back In The USSR and Helter Skelter failed to soar.

Perhaps sixtysomething fatherhood has sapped Sir Macca's energy reserves. But what excuse did his comparatively young American band have? When Macca did manage to work himself into a frenzy - on I Got A Feeling and Maybe I'm Amazed - the band couldn't stop it sounding forced.

Sadly, compared to last month's "all guns blazing" return of Mick Jagger and the Stones, Macca was an embarrassment - a reminder that he founded the school of bland, nice-guy rock performance.

Small wonder, then, that he's content to be the custodian of a musical museum dedicated to himself, rather than be an artist with something vital to impart.

While keen to appear as a good-natured man of the people, McCartney's cynicism and egotism are also never far from the surface.

Indeed, it was shameful that with over half the set consisting of Beatles songs, no meaningful tribute was paid to John and George.

His former colleagues probably wouldn't be surprised to see Macca raid the collective piggy bank so freely.

But some acknowledgement would have been only fair.

After all, if Paul hadn't met them, the pushy Beatle would probably have ended up as some dreadful Cliff Richard-style cabaret rocker... Come to think of it, that's exactly how he appeared for most of this show.

Time-honoured singalongs Get Back and Hey Jude may have sent the crowd home on a high but the humbling of a musical hero was completed by his final entrance onstage - shamelessly brandishing an American flag.

The show that he'd just given didn't warrant it and with the country still reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, flag-waving hardly seemed appropriate.

It seems there is no one who'll tell Sir Paul when to let it be. And, as George Harrison would say, isn't that a pity?

10 BEATLES SONGS HE MURDERED

FIXING A HOLE: Rare outing for Pepper classic, spoiled by weary delivery.

COUNT 'EM: Macca

GOOD DAY SUNSHINE: An effervescent soul classic from Revolver goes off without a bang.

GOT TO GET YOU INTO MY LIFE: Love song to dope goes to pot.

IN SPITE OF ALL THE DANGER: First recorded with Lennon in 1958 - this version fails to roll back the years.

YESTERDAY: Sadly, it's not half the song it used to be.

HEY JUDE: Nah Nah Nah... a rock proms classic is now a singalong at funeral march tempo.

'TIL THERE WAS YOU: Hotel foyer music with cloying "Can I show you to your table?" Spanish waiter guitar solo.

I GOT A FEELING: Overwrought vocals fail to live up to the song title.

FOR NO ONE: Gorgeous ballad but pale imitation of the 1966 original.

I'LL GET YOU: A wedding band-style approach fails to capture the original's glee and beauty.

Sir Paul McCartney can't stand the music of Madonna and Robbie Williams, despite respecting the artists as nice people.

The former Beatle shared the stage with the Material Girl and ex-Take That hunk at the London Live 8 earlier this year.

After Williams' song Angels was named Best Song of the past 25 years at February's Brit Awards, McCartney says, "I wasn't that convinced by Angels winning the best song of the last 25 years.

"I think for an ex-boy group person, he's done well. He makes pretty good records for his audience. But I'm not a Robbie fan."

Despite admitting he has met Madonna several times, McCartney's is far from enamoured with her music, saying, "I've met her and she's a pretty cool person, but her records have never really turned me on."

Things haven't been quite the same this week at Madison Middle School.

Phil Verpil, Band Director :
"There was a buzz around here that something might be coming my way."

Band Director Phil Verpil found out that something coming his way, was a big check.

Before his concert at the St. Pete Times Forum Saturday night, Paul McCartney and Fidelity Investments donated $5,000 in support of music education at Madison Middle School.

Phil Verpil:
"That is very significant...usually the band budget for middle school is in the few hundreds...so 5-thousand-dollars is above and beyond what most band directors get to work with."

Fidelity Investments says 83 percent of music teachers across the country supplement their allotted classroom budget, with their own money.

Verpil has a good idea how he'll use McCartney's donation.

Phil Verpil:
"Getting good instruments the kids can be proud of when they perform their parents can see the money's been well used."

Verpil's students appreciate McCartney's donation, even though some of them admit, they don't know who he is.

When Fidelity Investments called about donating money, the school district's music supervisor recommended Madison Middle School, as the school most in need.

Music Supervisor Ted Hope says the middle schools' music budget has stayed about the same in Hillsborough schools the past few years.

Hope says the high schools' music budget recently increased by about 25-percent.

Launching his latest concert tour Friday at American Airlines Arena in Miami, McCartney quickly made the all-ages crowd forget the preshow disorder -- fans had been misdirected to closed garages and stranded with $300 tickets as showtime arrived -- and put over songs from nearly every facet of his 40-plus year career with the passion of a kid on his first road trip.

Striking a tone somewhere between college professor and VH1's "Storytellers," McCartney stuck closely to the blueprint of his last go-round in 2002. Again there were illuminating tales of George Harrison, John Lennon, pre-Beatles days as the Quarrymen and graceful asides to late wife Linda. A condensed "Yellow Submarine" served as an upbeat shout-out to Ringo Starr.

It's easy to forget sometimes that McCartney's '70s-era output (both solo and with Wings) holds up about as well as anything in rock 'n' roll, and these songs were given a formidable showcase Friday evening. McCartney might be Super Bowl-safe these days and only distantly related to the pot-smoking hippie who literally changed the world, but the cute Beatle still can rock out when he wants to. Potent versions of "Jet," "Band on the Run," the defiant "Too Many People" and a pyro-fueled "Live and Let Die" were powerful reminders of what's missing on the radio.

With a set list exceeding 30 songs, the two-hour-plus evening was highlighted by a stellar, mostly acoustic midsection that included such gems as "Fixing a Hole," "I'll Follow the Sun," "Eleanor Rigby" and the charming "I Will." Alternating as always among bass, guitar and piano, Sir Paul remains an agile and witty host. When he flubbed a lyric two-thirds of the way through a chills-inducing "Blackbird," he momentarily stopped playing, shrugged his shoulders and asked the crowd: "How long have I been singing this song? Is this the first night or what? Well, at least you know it's not on tape."

On a clean stage, backed by an airtight four-piece band, he also delivered vocally superb versions of "Maybe I'm Amazed," "Till There Was You," "The Long and Winding Road" and "Hey Jude." Songs from his introspective new Capitol album "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard" also were included, but it was the old stuff, inevitably, that made the night. Rounding out the show with "Get Back," "Penny Lane," "Good Day Sunshine," "Back in the USSR," "Yesterday," "Let It Be" and so many others, McCartney simply worked very hard for a man of any age, still taking obvious delight in a catalog unlikely ever to be equaled.

1) Magical Mystery tour (Hofner)
2) Flaming Pie (Hofner)
3) Jet (Hofner)
4) I'll Get You (Hofner)
5) Drive My Car (Hofner)
6) Till There Was You (Hofner)
7) Let Me Roll It /Foxy Lady (Les Paul)
8) Got To Get You Into My Life (Hofner)
9) Fine Line (Grand Piano)
10) Maybe I'm Amazed (Grand Piano)
11) The Long And Winding Road (Grand Piano)

Acoustic Set

12) In Spite Of All The Danger (acoustic solo)
13) I Will (acoustic solo)
14) Jenny Wren (acoustic - Wix)

15) For No One (Grand Piano)
16) Fixing A Hole (Grand Piano)
17) English Tea ( Grand Piano) Paul pantomimes pouring, stirring and drinking tea at beginning

18) Yellow Submarine singalong (acoustic-Miami only)
19) I'll Follow The Sun (acoustic) with reprise twice (band)
20) Follow Me (acoustic) band
21) Blackbird (acoustic solo)
22) Eleanor Rigby (acoustic) - band minus Brian

23) Too Many People (Hofner) band
24) She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (Hofner)
25) Good Day Sunshine (Hofner)
26) Band On The Run (Hofner)
27) Penny Lane (Hofner)

28) I've Got A Feeling (Les Paul)
29) Back In The USSR (Les Paul)

30) Baby Face - fake out (Grand Piano - Tampa only)
31) Hey Jude (Grand Piano) Brian tosses tambourine to audience after finish of first verse
32) Live And Let Die (Grand Piano)

Encore

33) Yesterday (acoustic - solo)
34) Get Back (Hofner)
35) Helter Skelter (Hofner)

Encore

36) Please Please Me (Hofner)
37) Let It Be (Psychedelic upright piano) Paul lights a large candle sitting on the piano before the song
38) Sgt. Pepper Reprise/The End (Les Paul)

Paul autographed an "Unplugged" vinyl album cover at the end of the Miami concert. No autographs in Tampa.

At the Tampa show Paul accidently misstepped when the trap door on the stage floor opened to raise his grand piano before "Fine Line."

In a scary moment, Macca fell 5 feet through the floor landing on the top of the piano. Paul banged his elbow and back as he fell. He managed to right himself after the fall within 15 seconds and was helped by Rusty and John Hammel who handed him a microphone. Paul scrambled around the piano as it rose shaking his finger at it like "bad piano" and walked over to sit on the piano bench when the piano came up. He joked about the fall though he was visibly shaken as was the crowd.

"Ok there's a big hole in the stage and I just fell into it! We've been expecting this to happen and it happened in Tampa. Woo! So the guys [band members] come up to me... 'NO!, NO!, NO! DON'T!' and I was in it man. But I don't care.

"OK, word to the stage crew: I want a big fence around here tomorrow. A little picket fence. It will look good."

"It's all extra production value. You know nobody else is going to see me fall in a hole. You never know, I might keep it in every night."

Paul carried on with the rest of the show, but there were times when he grimmaced in pain. His energy level dropped from the night before (Miami), but he put on a great show in spite of his injuries which luckily appeared to be minor.

MORE:

Tampa Tribune

Despite Stage Mishaps, McCartney Delivers

Paul McCartney, 63 and impossibly chipper, took a tumble Saturday night before a sold-out crowd of 18,095 at the St. Pete Times Forum.

A section of the stage floor retracted in order for McCartney's grand piano to rise from below. McCartney stepped back a bit too soon and found himself sprawled a few feet beneath the stage. But Paul survived his fall, high spirits intact.

(If McCartney missed an opportunity all night it was here -- he could have moved up "Fixing a Hole" from its slot later in the set.)

The thing about a show this precise and so guaranteed to please is the little gaffes make it even more memorable.

Like McCartney flubbing a chord change in "I Will" -- "It's a long time since I wrote this," he protested with mock defensiveness.

Needless to say, most of the show was spot-on.

Newer tunes such as "Flaming Pie" and "Fine Line" seemed to benefit from the exalted company of such cherished gems as "Jet" and "Maybe I'm Amazed."

Perhaps the most pleasing element of the show was the less-often-heard treasures from the Beatles catalog.

Opening with "Magical Mystery Tour," McCartney dusted off such back-catalog glories as "I'll Get You," "For No One," "I'll Follow the Sun" and "I've Got a Feeling."

He even broke out "Till There Was You" (from 1963's "With the Beatles," originally from "The King and I") and "In Spite of All the Danger," his, John Lennon and George Harrison's first recording, unheard until "Anthology 1" was released in 1995.

Of course, the word "obscurity" hardly applies to anything McCartney played Saturday night, the second date of his "Us" tour.

"Let Me Roll It" may never have topped the charts, but the rocker had plenty of the crowd singing along.

McCartney's band was excellent. Keyboardist Paul "Wix" Wickens added familiar horn and string parts on synthesizer while Abe Laboriel Jr. provided thunderous drumming and stick-twirling showmanship.

Paul McCartney's opens his US Tour at Miami's AmericanAirlines Arena. With oldies galore, a splendid time was guaranteed for all.

In concert Friday night at Miami's sold-out American Airlines Arena on the opening night of a trek he simply dubs the US Tour ("It's all about us, we're all in this together''), it was classic Paul McCartney fans came to hear and classic Paul McCartney is what they got -- all the way back to the earliest Beatles songs and before.

That meant a lot of good day sunshine songs, heaping doses of silly love songs and plenty of she loves you yeah, yeah, YEAH!.

The man dug out a pre-Beatles song -- the 1958 Quarrymen tune In Spite of All the Danger -- for heaven's sake!

Quite the contrast from McCartney's critically-hailed new CD, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, which came out this week and contains some of his most somber reflections to date. For a man known for, and criticized for, optimistic pop much of the CD has come as a surprise -- and perhaps accounts for the overboard praise it has received.

He performed a smattering of tunes from the disc to, at best, polite reaction. The CD's opening Fine Line, with Paul on piano, proved to be fan's cue to head to the bathroom, window. Acclaimed, though it may be by besotted critics, most of this new music will probably be forgotten by the time his next mega tour rolls around, although the sweet acoustic numbers Jenny Wren and English Tea proved appealing. This was a night when one-quarter of the Beatles, the Cute One, came to reclaim his legend as one of pop music's most popular composers. A point he needn't have made with a self-aggrandizing 10-minute pre-concert videoclip of his history. We paid $250 bucks a pop to see you, Paul, we know you're important.

It wasn't always McCartney's modus operandi, of course. At one point in the '70s McCartney was so gung-ho on establishing an identity post-Fab Four he buried himself in his band Wings and eschewed Beatles material in concert. It wasn't until his successful Wings Over America Tour in 1976 that McCartney finally gave in and folded some Beatles tunes into the mix -- and even then he avoided the most popular anthems he ladled freely Friday: the opening Magical Mystery Tour, a snippet of the Ringo-popularized Yellow Submarine, Penny Lane et al.

Now, it could be argued, he's gone full-tilt crazy on the stuff, stockpiling his show with one Beatles number after another, ignoring most of his solo material at its expense.

Granted, most fans came to hear stuff like Back in the USSR. Not Back to the Egg.

The gimmick, as on his previous tours in 1990 and 2002 was in dusting off favorites he has never performed live and, given that the Beatles retired from touring in 1966, this left plenty of material to unearth. Stuff like I'll Follow the Sun, The Music Man's 'Til There Was You, the late-period Beatles I've Got a Feeling. So much so he could still be out there on the Miami stage playing by the time you read this and someone out there may still gripe, ''Where the hell's Helen Wheels?'' (At 42, weaned on Wings, count me as one.)

No prob, mate. We got Wings' Band on the Run, which brought fans to their feet even more than for some of the Beatles hits, and a punchy Too Many People, which McCartney misidentified as a Wings song. (The 1971 record was credited to Paul and late wife Linda McCartney.) Wings' Jet was done with an arrangement just the way you remember it 31 years ago. McCartney is not big on reinvention.

This, naturally, seemed fine for most fans gone giddy in Paul's presence.

''I'm a big Beatles fan for life,'' said Fort Lauderdale fan Russell Rand, 55, who has a hand-painted, 25-year-old classic of his own: a multi-colored, satin Sgt Pepper coat he was hoping Sir Paul would wear.

It would make up for Rand's big mistake. "As a kid, 40 years ago, I could have seen the Beatles in Hartford, but I thought they were a girl's band. I learned better.''

McCartney's new band is for everyone. Fine musicians, the four-piece, including drummer Abe Laboriel, keyboardist Paul ''Wix'' Wickens and guitarist Rusty Anderson, lent muscle to AM radio hits like Maybe I'm Amazed and Let Me Roll It. McCartney, ever the professional, started this tour off with numbers tailored not to tax his voice, saving rockers like Got to Get You Into My Life for later in the set. The staging was simple and the off-the-cuff flavor was endearing. McCartney flubbed the lyrics to the 1968 Beatles tune, Blackbird, and quipped, "How long have I been singing this? At least you know it's not on tape!''

Will you still need him, will you still feed him at 64, as he asked in song all those years ago? He's nine months short of that milestone and judging by the quicksilver sales of those $252 concert tickets and $37 concert T-shirts and $11 Corona beers, plus the genuine good time he delivers on stage, it's safe to assume we'll be feeding and needing this man even when he's 84.

hcohen@herald.com

It took more than an hour to find a parking space around the American Airlines Arena last night for the first night of Sir Paul's "Us" Tour in Miami, and then another 20 minutes to convince the dedicated but insistent security staff that I had, indeed, been cleared to bring my laptop into the building to file my review and that I was not, in fact, some sort of renegade fan site Web master or eeevil tabloid drone trying to illegally broadcast the fabulousness.

So understand that when I tell you that the two and a half hour concert was worth every traffic snarl-up, wrong turn and frustrated explanation, you know I'm not messing with you. Here are some of the highlights that didn't make it into the review:

- With all of the screens, flashing lights and brilliantly colored plumes of pyro smoke, the most wonderful special effect was what lead guitarist Rusty Anderson called "the magically appearing piano." It would levitate out of the floor, whose twinkling tiles, like something out of Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" video, slid wonderously back.
And oh, the wonderous work Sir Paul made out of that magical instrument. "Maybe I'm Amazed" was so beautiful and obviously heartfelt. I couldn't stop thinking about his late wife Linda, who the song was written for, and about how simply brilliant a love song it is. It admits the tenative nature of vulnerability, the fear of needing someone and the need to give into it. And it always makes me cry. It did last night, too.

- You ever notice, then, how different those grown-up Paul lyrics are from the youthful confidence of his early Beatles lyrics, that are all "I love you forever?" The funny thing is that last night, they sounded just as sincere coming from the mouth of a bright-eyed 63-year-old than the more realistically adult songs did. He did the early Quarrymen song "In Spite of All The Danger" that confirms the singer's loyalty as long "as you are true to me."

Very simple, and very sweet. And it was obvious how much Sir Paul enjoyed tripping through his back pages.

- The "Storytellers" vibe continued through the rat-a-tat-tat middle section. Paul introduced "I'll Follow The Sun" with a story about writing it in his parents' house. He seemed to be having as much fun singing it as the crowd did singing along, because he kept pausing, and then happily repeating, the last refrain of "Tomorrow may rain,so I'll follow the sun." Yay!

- His likability is all-consuming. During "Blackbird," he actually messed up, and then paused.
"How long have I been singing this? Is this the first night, or is this the first night?" he asked. "At least you know it's not on tape."

- "Back In The USSR" was a sing-along high point. I'm sure there were many people who knew all the words, and some people, like me, who were going "La, la, la, la, la, la, la la...BACK IN THE USSR!"

- Speaking of sing-alongs, the Magically Appearing Piano made its triumphant return for "Hey Jude," which was one of those emotionally buoyant moments that everyone was waiting for, and which let all that expectation and happiness and goodwill just flood out all over everyone. Everyone in my section was all smiling and "Na-na"-ing, and trying to make eye contact with their fellow concertgoers, who were, at that moment, not strangers but dedicated members of the Na Na choir. It was beautiful. And it withstood all the easy, cheesy usual Concertisms like "Now, just the guys!" and "Just the ladies!" because it was Sir Paul asking and you loved it, and you didn't want it to end, either.

- Other beauty moments from the first encore: "Live and Let Die," a gloriously over-the-top glam rock moment of huge flames. The lyrics don't make much sense, but which, at the same time, just seems like permission to tear it up; "Yesterday," which as always was lovely; the naughty gender-bendy steadiness of "Get Back;" "Helter Skelter," which Paul said had never been played in America.

-And then, there was the equally beautiful second encore, which began with Sir Paul, wearing a "No More Land Mines" shirt from wife Heather's famous crusade, running onto the stage waving a huge American flag. We tripped back down Memory Lane into "Please Please Me."

Then another piano, this one painted in "Sgt. Pepper"-y bright colors, appeared, and Paul told the lighting folks, who he referred to as "Mr. Lighting Man," that he wanted to do a little experiment. As the lights went down, he lit a white candle, whose image flickered behind him on the screen. Could it be..."Let It Be?" Yes, it could! And it was, at once, serene and powerful.

- He ended with a speeded-up "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," whose telling lyrics explained that it was time to go, even though no one seemed to want to. As he left the stage to a shower of red, white and blue confetti, Paul seemed exhilarated, a little tired but, I guess, confident that this little experiment had worked.

- One more thing: Those girls who always see on the "Ed Sullivan" footage screaming like they're crazy? I get that now.

When former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney wrote the lyrics of the hit song 'When I'm 64' decades ago, he must have thought that 64 would be the age when a lot of things would change in his life with old age approaching, but now on the threshold of his 64th birthday next year, he feels he may have been wrong.

He says that the inspiration behind the rethink came from a lady who plays the piano at an old folks home, who told him that she changed the lyrics to 'When I'm 84', as 64 was too young to be thinking of old age.

"I was on holiday and there was this lady and she said, 'I do one of your songs... When I'm 64. I hope you don't mind, I've had to rewrite it to `When I'm 84` because the people don't think that 64's very old.

"I might be taking a hint from her next year," ratethemusic quoted him, as saying.

(NOTE: The "lady" is WXRT (Chicago) DJ Terri Hemmert's mother!)

Sir Paul backs his brother

Sir Paul McCartney last night made a public statement of support for his brother Mike who is facing charges relating to a sexual assault.

Mike McCartney has been charged with indecently touching a waitress after she complained he had groped her bottom.

But the Beatles legend was last night in no mood to contemplate that his younger brother might be in any way culpable.

Sir Paul said: "I totally support my brother, Mike McCartney, in defending this allegation.

"Mike is a devoted family man, who has respect for people, and equally he has earned respect for himself in both his professional and private life.

"I look forward to his name being cleared and the anxiety caused to him and his family being relieved as soon as possible."

Mike McCartney pleaded not guilty to the indecent touching charge at Chester Magistrates' Court last week and will appear there again next month.

The charge has been hanging over him for more than 12 months but only recently became public.

Mr McCartney has denied the allegation which relates to an incident at a pub in Parkgate, Wirral, in 2004.

The alleged offence took place while the 61-year-old photographer was celebrating a family member's birthday in an upstairs room.

A waitress at the pub said he grabbed her bottom.

Sir Paul was not at the function but has been aware of the allegations for some time.

Mike McCartney, who was made a Wirral cultural ambassador last year, has spoken to the Daily Post about his 12 months of torment as the allegations hung over him.

He said: "I have been a prisoner in my own home, restricted in what I can say in this very delicate matter.

"It was originally me who insisted the police be involved to resolve the matter.

"I have been asking for the truth to be told for over a year.

"All will be revealed when we get to the truth of this ludicrous allegation."

The former member of 60s pop band Scaffold has vowed to clear his name in the courts next month.

He said: "I can say that I have been happily married for 23 years and am the proud father of three boys and three girls.

"It is totally inconceivable that I would act in such a way towards a young lady.

"I have the full support of my family who were there in a very well-lit room where the incident is supposed to have occurred.

"I look forward to clearing my good family name."

Yesterday morning, the attention-grabbing Beatle spouse and anti-fur activist staged a press conference with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), at which she slagged Diddy and other fur-loving celebs inside the Fashion Week tents at Bryant Park.

Then McCartney marched across Sixth Ave. with an army of camera crews and stormed the offices of Sweetface, J.Lo's fur-trimmed clothing line, to present the singer-actress with a grisly PETA video showing innocent mammals being skinned alive. Lopez, whose rep declined to comment yesterday, wasn't there.

"PETA has tried for years to educate her about fur - at first gently and quietly, and now like this," McCartney told me immediately after the invasion - which ended in a melee of zealots, reporters and security personnel shouting threats to call the cops in the fifth-floor reception area of J.Lo's headquarters.

"She keeps saying she wants to be educated. So the next stage is I'll find out where she lives and show up there," McCartney vowed. "And I'll get ahold of her at her premieres."

At Sweetface, McCartney brandished the video, denounced J.Lo and posed in front of a couple of huge posters of her. "Get out of here, you're not invited!" the security folks cried, before McCartney and her entourage finally withdrew.

So what if Lopez takes out a restraining order against her?

In response McCartney laughed scornfully.

"She needs to find some warmth inside her and penetrate that warmth in her heart," she advised, adding: "I talked to Paul today and he's very proud."

Meanwhile, I asked McCartney - who spent two years in the war-torn Balkans working against land mines and who lost a leg in a traffic accident - her response to an off-color joke told by Rod Stewart's daughter Kimberly in the latest issue of Stuff magazine: "What has three legs and lives on a farm? Paul McCartney and his wife."

McCartney said: "Rod Stewart is a long-term friend of Paul's, so I doubt she said it."

Music Fans Have Chance to Win a Lexus Experience at the McCartney concert in Los Angeles; a New Lexus RX 400h and other exciting prizes

Lexus today announced a special promotion as part of Lexus' title sponsorship of Paul McCartney's The 'US' Tour and McCartney's new CD titled "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard." Paul McCartney fans will have a chance to win one of five prizes -- including tickets to the sold-out show in Los Angeles.

"The Paul McCartney US Tour concert is such a hot ticket and sold out so quickly, we just wanted to be able to provide one more chance for fans to see the show... Lexus style," said Deborah Meyer, vice president of marketing for Lexus. "This promotion gives McCartney fans an opportunity to win the hugely popular Lexus RX 400h hybrid SUV, tickets and accommodations to the highly anticipated concert, historic music and other fantastic prizes." The prize offerings include:

* Grand Prize -- a 2006 Lexus RX 400h, the world's first luxury SUV;
* First Prize -- a Mark Levinson(R) home sound system;
* Second Prize -- a "Lexus Experience" for two at The 'US' Tour in Los
Angeles, which includes round trip first class airfare, a chauffeured
Lexus, a two-night stay at the Peninsula Beverly Hills, front row
concert seats at the Staples Center show, an invitation to the Lexus
pre-concert reception, a set of Paul McCartney recordings, a framed
Paul McCartney recording, US Tour merchandise and $500 cash;
* Third Prize -- (9 winners) a set of Paul McCartney recordings,
       including Back In The U.S. Live 2002, Wingspan (Hits and History), Tug
Of War, Flaming Pie, Run Devil Run, Driving Rain, Flowers In The Dirt,
Band On The Run, McCartney and Ram;
* Fourth Prize -- a signed music plaque.

As a special gift from Lexus, fans can also listen to McCartney's "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard," CD via streaming music on the lexus.com/mccartney web site.

The sweepstakes began at 4 p.m. PST on http://www.lexus.com/mccartney on Sept. 12, 2005 and ends at 11.59 p.m. PT on
Dec. 31, 2005. The deadline for the Second Prize winner is Nov. 7, 2005 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Consumers who purchase a "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard" CD will use a special code number included on the CD insert to enter the sweepstakes via the Web site. Consumers can also opt to enter via a postcard.

No purchase is necessary and a purchase will not increase chances of winning. Participants must be legal residents of the 50 United States (D.C.) and 18 years and older (void in Hawaii and where prohibited). For Official Rules, prize descriptions and odds disclosure, visit http://www.lexus.com/mccartney.

* Visit http://www.lexus.com/mccartney for complete sweepstakes rules and forms of entry.

"It's funny, but with me, there's some sort of inverse law of physics happening," McCartney says. "I should be fed up with touring, should get really tired when I do. But I think I enjoy it now more than I ever have."

The tour opens in Miami on Friday following the release of McCartney's 20th post-Beatles album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, and is scheduled to wrap in Los Angeles Nov. 30.

The tour will feature songs culled from McCartney's solo catalog and his years with The Beatles and Wings, among them tunes that haven't been performed live.

"That's what happened at Live 8," McCartney says, referring to the London portion of the July 2 mega-concert. He performed The Beatles' classic Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band with members of U2.

"I had never done that beginning part of Sgt. Pepper live. It's kind of uncanny to be suddenly singing a song like that. It feels new, but you know it can't be, because all the people know it. Something magical starts to happen.

"It will also be interesting to play some of the new songs and see how they translate live. We tried a couple while we were rehearsing for Live 8 and had a lot of fun with them."

(His tour is being co-sponsored by Fidelity Investments, for whom McCartney is appearing in a national advertising campaign.)

Of the songs on Chaos, McCartney says, "I don't start out with a fixed idea in my mind when I write songs for an album. But a little thread starts to appear, and you think, 'Oh, yeah, that's where this is going.' There are a couple of songs on this album that are, hopefully, uplifting. Songs that say, 'Hey, life can be tough but try to think about it this way.' "

Some of his writing may have been influenced by current events, including the war in Iraq. "Because I have a mind, and I breathe the air on this planet, I'm affected by these happenings. I was thinking about the song that opens the album, Fine Line, which is about making a decision, and I suddenly read it as an anti-war song. You have these lyrics: 'Come home brother, all is forgiven/We all cried when you were driven away.' It's almost like I'm talking to the troops.

"It's weird - like going to a psychiatrist and making a drawing and having him tell you, 'That's because of this.' And you say, 'No, it's just a funny face.' Hidden agendas are discovered. I think that can happen in songwriting. You begin writing about one thing and find you've been writing about something else as well. That's intriguing to me."

So, clearly, are others who share the singer's sense of social conscience - notably his first wife, Linda, who died in 1998 after battling cancer, and his current spouse, Heather, noted for her activism on behalf of abolishing land mines and aiding survivors.

"I didn't set out to like strong women," McCartney says. "I'm just attracted to them. Linda was very much against the tide, a New York photographer, a woman with her own opinions who became a very strong supporter of things like animal rights and vegetarianism. And my kids have inherited those kinds of beliefs; they're also strong-minded people.

"With Heather, that was also part of the attraction, that she's a woman with definite passions for goodness and fairness, for justice. At the moment, she's campaigning against China exporting dog and cat fur. We both are, but she's the lead campaigner. And I've been very happy to join her in (promoting) land-mine clearance. There's still a lot to be done, but we've managed to do some good work."

When it comes to his tour's collaborators, McCartney speaks with similar pride.

"Let's not forget: I have a great band," he says. "We've played together a long time, and we're getting better. That's a nice, unexpected little bonus, you know?"

McCartney, Mills enjoying The Ritz

Sir Paul McCartney and wife Heather Mills are happily holed up at The Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne, where they've been for the past month or so. We hear the McCartneys are huge fans of the hotel's beachfront Mexican joint, Cantina Beach, where the drinks are stiff thanks to the restaurant's full time Tequilier -- a sommelier who deals only in tequila. Olé!

A shorts-sporting Sir Paul was also spotted at the Winn-Dixie on the Key Monday morning, although the store manager told us he wasn't aware of it. Perhaps he just didn't recognize a member of rock royalty wearing shorts!

Now Heather does a Linda

Feisty Heather Mills gets active as she protests against a store selling fur - echoing protests by hubby Sir Paul McCartney's late first wife Linda.

Heather, 37, put on her sandwich board on the streets of New York to demonstrate against the store J Crew for selling furs from China, where she said animals were skinned alive.

Linda, who died of cancer in 1998 aged 56, frequently protested about the ill-treatment of animals and was a passionate vegetarian.

Heather, who wed 63-year-old Sir Paul in 2002, said: "Buying anything with fur supports one of the most gruesome industries on the planet."

Animal-loving amputee Heather Mills McCartney was booted out of J.Crew's Madison Avenue store by police yesterday after she walked in wearing a flat-screen TV showing images of little critters being skinned alive.

The wife of Paul McCartney is snarling mad that J.Crew has quietly begun selling coats, scarves, hats and jackets made from mink, rabbit and coyote fur. Mills and 15 other PETA activists left the store after cops showed up and threatened to arrest them. PETA mouthpiece Michael McGraw said his group has launched JCruel.com after pleading with the clothier to drop its furry fashion.

The animal-loving activist, who is married to rocker Sir Paul McCartney received her award from Jamie Lee Curtis at the Hollywood party, held to mark PETA's accomplishments and honour the organisation's celebrity friends.

And she wasted no time showing why she was up for the award in the first place.

Backstage, she named names of the people she despised for promoting fur.

She said, "Jennifer Lopez, Puff Daddy, give up your fur line.

"The worst thing is I heard Penelope Cruz might be heading P Diddy . I hope it's just a rumour 'cos she's a pretty cool lady."

The "All I Wanna Do" hitmaker, 43, is always disappointed when the ex-Beatle insists he has no recollection of the surreal situation, even though it was conjured in her own vivid imagination.

She says, "I used to have a dream that I was sitting in a tree with Paul McCartney, and that he and I wrote a song together.

"Whenever I see him, I always say, 'Do you remember the time we wrote that song on top of a tree?'"

Hosted by comedian Fred Willard and longtime PETA pal Pamela Anderson, the gala paid tribute to outstanding activists and celebrities who have worked hard to promote the rights of animals through PETA campaigns. PETA Humanitarian Awards were presented to Casey Affleck (his award was accepted by Joaquin Phoenix), Marc Bouwer, Lauren Shuler Donner and Richard Donner, John Feldmann, Heather Mills McCartney, Moby, Martina Navratilova, Ravi Shankar, P!nk, and Persia White.

Special honorees Alec Baldwin and Morrissey received the Linda McCartney Memorial Award, which was established in 1999 in honor of Linda McCartney, who was a longtime animal rights activist and supporter of PETA.

Also in attendance were PETA friends Jamie Lee Curtis, Roselyn Sanchez, Sean Astin, Alyssa Milano, Swoosie Kurtz, Jillian Barbarie, and Esai Morales.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, items from Pamela Anderson, John McEnroe, Stella McCartney, and others were sold in a silent auction to benefit PETA's Animal Emergency Fund, which supports PETA's aggressive work with local media outlets to advise residents not to abandon their animals during natural disasters and to provide them with vital information to keep their companion animals safe during storms. Among the items auctioned off for the Fund were a walk-on part on Anderson's TV show, Stacked, autographed tennis rackets from McEnroe and Martina Navratilova, and cruelty-free items from McCartney's fashion collection.

During the show, guests were treated to a special performance by the band Polyphonic Spree, which got the party moving with its hit "Light & Day."

There's a struggle on Paul McCartney's new album, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," and it's one that pays off. On one side is Sir Paul's gift for easy, bubbly melody - tunes that are so shapely that in the past he has often settled for finishing them as harmless little ditties. On the other side is his urge to experiment with sounds and structures and to recognize some darker thoughts - a smaller, but still significant part of his song catalog. For this album, on Capitol, Sir Paul chose a producer who favored the experimental side: Nigel Godrich, who has worked with Radiohead and Beck. Sir Paul also lined up his best backup band since the Beatles: himself.

Except for some string-section arrangements, he plays nearly every instrument on the album. That's something he hasn't done to this extent since he made his first solo album, "McCartney," back in 1970, and it makes the songs more intimate and less conventional. In talking about the album, Sir Paul has said that Mr. Godrich pushed him to deepen the songs, and he followed the advice. "How Kind of You" could have been a simple thank-you note, but the music transforms it. Sir Paul sets it to keyboards - reedy harmonium chords and overlapping stereo piano ripples - that make it eerie and insecure, bringing out lines like "I thought that I was lost."

At 63 he no longer has the voice of a young man, or the unalloyed optimism. "This Never Happened Before" pulls vows of love out of negations like the title. "Riding to Vanity Fair" is one of the most pensive songs he has ever recorded: a wounded response to a rejected friendship, with strings tugging downward as an undertow.

"At the Mercy" uses its harmonies to seesaw between uncertainty and determination; the melody starts by leaping down a tritone, an unusual choice, and the chords keep turning minor and diminished while the lyrics confess, "Sometimes I'd rather run and hide/ Than stay and face the fear inside." Sir Paul has always been an instinctive songwriter, and he sounds as surprised by these songs as his listeners may be.

There are unabashed echoes of the Beatles all over the album, like the "Lady Madonna" piano bounce of "Fine Line," the "Blackbird" acoustic guitars of "Jenny Wren," or the "Golden Slumbers" expansiveness of "Anyway," which begs for a simple phone call. Yet if anyone is entitled to draw on the Beatles, Sir Paul is. On "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," he doesn't use the Beatles touches for easy nostalgia. They're the foundation of a musical identity that's not content, this time, with silly love songs.

Sir Paul McCartney's new album marks a return to his roots - but he makes no apologies for borrowing The Beatles style that made him famous.

"Chaos And Creation In The Backyard" is already being described as the best of McCartney's 20 post-Beatles albums.

He admits there is a similarity between many of the tracks and those he recorded with the pop legends - but he insists its OK to steal his own sound.

The 62-year-old says, "It's true, some of the songs could have been recorded with The Beatles.

"I have arrived at a point in my life where I can say to myself: 'OK, that's my style. I invented it with The Beatles. A lot of groups refer to that particular sound, so why shouldn't I have the right to do the same thing?'

"I made the decision not to be ashamed of my roots."

Waitress: I was groped

Sir Paul McCartney's brother has been charged with sexual assault after allegedly groping a waitress.

Mike McCartney, 61, was arrested when police were called to a party held by his family in the upstairs room of a pub.

Dad-of-six McCartney, who is two years younger than his famous brother, was with wife Rowena and his mother-in-law when the waitress claimed he fondled her bottom.

Sir Paul, who missed the party, was told by his brother of the charge. Last night writer Mike, who starred in 60s pop band Scaffold, denied the offence

He said: "I have been waiting for this to come up in court for a year and I want to clear my name. It is all very upsetting."

Last week Chester magistrates heard Mike, from Heswall on The Wirral, Cheshire, plead not guilty to indecent touching. He is due back in court next month.

Paul was also on BBC London with Gary Crowley Saturday, September 10th for one full hour.

The second hour of this interview plus live music will be aired Saturday, Sep.17th

The show is currently posted at this link.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/

Paul is on the second hour of the show.

MCCARTNEY REFLECTS ON LIFE, LOVE AND YESTERDAY

Preparing to launch his US Tour in Miami this week, rock legend Paul McCartney talked candidly with The Herald about embracing his past while looking forward.

Surrounded by potted palms and Indian tapestries in an AmericanAirlines Arena dressing room that has temporarily been converted into a mini Taj Mahal, Paul McCartney looks like the rock royalty he is. Tanned, fit, elegant and preternaturally youthful at 63, he's relaxed as he eats a salad and chocolate dessert -- even though he has just a week to finish rehearsing his band before their US Tour launches here Friday.

It's been four decades since McCartney conquered the world with the biggest band of all time. Artistically speaking, the honorary knight could rest as comfortably as he is in this traveling lounge and just stroke his laurels. But he's not.

On Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, which comes out Tuesday, the universe's most famous bassist teamed with a young, edgy producer who challenged him musically and pushed him emotionally. McCartney uses his 20th studio record since The Beatles disbanded to vent feelings he spent decades burying.

''When The Beatles broke up, there was a lot of rejection and stuff, for all of us,'' he says. 'I normally didn't deal with it. . . . But this time I thought `No, it's a good source of material.' So a couple of the songs I decided to write about that kind of thing. It was quite a release really.''

On a mournful tune called Riding to Vanity Fair, McCartney sings, "There was a time/ When every day was young/ The sun would always shine/ We sang along/ When all the songs were sung/ Believing every line.''

OPENING UP

In a sit-down with The Herald, Sir Paul (as Queen Elizabeth anointed him in '97) talked candidly about the past, old songs and new songs, Charles Dickens and love. That openness ''seems to have become a feature now of how I live,'' he said. "If I'm sad about something I won't want to just hold it in. I'll want to talk to someone about it, I'll want to show it, I'll want to get it out some way.''

For living legends like McCartney, albums have become secondary to tours. Concerts are where the big money's at (tickets for Friday's show cost as much as $250). But in the case of Chaos, McCartney postponed the tour in order to get the album right.

''I said I wanted to make a good album,'' he says. "I put myself on the line a little bit.''

At the suggestion of Beatles producer George Martin, McCartney hired acclaimed producer Nigel Godrich. Godrich helped make modern rock history with Radiohead's '97 masterpiece OK Computer. McCartney was also a fan of his work with singer-songwriter Beck and British band Travis.

''I liked the sound of those records,'' McCartney says. 'Some people said, 'Oh, does it mean you're going to make an album like Radiohead, it's going to be a bit electronic?' I said no, Travis didn't, Beck didn't. . . . Nigel makes an album like you, whoever you are.''

One of the first things Godrich did was tell McCartney to get rid of his band. Paul plays most of the instruments, including drums, harmonium and flugelhorn, on Chaos himself. The producer also told McCartney which songs he thought were crap, including Vanity Fair. The singer fought for that track but says it is the "most reworked song I've ever done in my life.''

''It was quite a good exercise, after I got over the shock of someone telling me they didn't like it,'' McCartney says. "Which has happened to me plenty of times, but not recently.''

Over the years, the man who penned such somber Beatles classics as Yesterday and Hey Jude has been derided for wasting his talents on ''silly love songs,'' as McCartney himself has called them. Several of the strongest new tracks -- At the Mercy, Anyway -- are melancholy.

''I generally tend towards the optimistic,'' McCartney says. 'But sometimes when you're looking around for something to write about, you say, 'I've just done a few optimistic songs. Now, is there anything else going on in my life, or has there ever been anything else other than optimism?' And you cast around and you think, yeah of course there has, there's been rejected friendships, there's been times when you're not getting on with people, things like that. I've had plenty of those in my life.''

THE GIFT OF MELODY

McCartney grew up in working-class Liverpool. His father was a musician; his mother died when he was a teen. He was 17 when he and John Lennon first played together. McCartney brought his schoolmate George Harrison to the group. By '64 The Beatles' genius for rock 'n' roll melodies was making global history. But the band splintered unamicably in '70. McCartney went on to a solid career as a solo artist and with his band Wings. In '98, Linda Eastman McCartney, his wife of almost 30 years, died of cancer. In 2002 he married 34-year-old landmine-victims activist and model Heather Mills.

McCartney says personal tragedies and world events inspired his new candor. 'Something like George passing, it makes you think, 'God things are so impermanent: suddenly there's this little friend of mine, he used to get on the bus, and now he's passed away.' There's that whole lifetime of a friendship [that] physically has ended, not emotionally.''

McCartney says his increased emotional openness is also a result of maturity. And it reflects the zeitgeist.

''When you're about 18 and particularly you're a boy, you're not allowed to cry,'' McCartney says. 'All your friends go, 'You're a big sissy,' so you really hold it. But after 9/11, things like that, you'd just be stupid if you didn't allow yourself to cry.''

Referring several times to psychology, McCartney sounds more like a therapy-obsessed Californian than a Brit.

'Most of the stuff I do you can analyze. . . . I'll write a song, like Yesterday, 'Why she had to go,' and I look back on it and try to analyze it, and of course I realize it probably had to do with the death of my mother. I didn't realize it at the time. I thought I was just writing a sad song.''

And then on new songs like English Tea and Jenny Wren, McCartney relishes a thoroughly British appreciation of posh dialect and Dickens heroines. "That idea of this very Englishness, this parody thing, is something I've been doing for a long time. . . . I like reading Dickens. One of the reasons is because of the language, the way people talk to each other.''

McCartney may be baring his soul a little more than usual these days. But Chaos is not some emotional confessional; its revelations are cloaked in artistry. And it's not all minor-chord moods. Alongside the sad songs are Mills-inspired silly love songs, such as A Certain Softness and This Never Happened Before.

"I like love so I like love songs. I like romance. I like to listen to songs that talk about that and that contain those kinds of feelings. I'm a great Nat King Cole fan . . . I like to think of myself a bit in that tradition.''

At Shaq's Shack on Wednesday, McCartney and his band brushed off some golden oldies, including the early Beatles tune Please Please Me and the '70 McCartney-penned Badfinger hit Come and Get It. He says that on this tour, they will play maybe a half-dozen new songs and some ''new old ones, some stuff we've never done before.'' He understands that his fans come to relive the sunny days ``when all the songs were sung.''

THE BACKYARD

The new CD's title combines lyrics from two songs. ''There is a long way/ Between chaos and creation,'' McCartney sings on Fine Line. On Promise to You Girl, he writes about ''looking through the backyard of my life.'' But although the cover features a 1962 photo of the singer, he downplays the notion he's recalling his past.

'The interesting thing is if you look at my songs when I was 24, like Yesterday: 'I'm not half the man I used to be.' Well I was 24, half the man would make me 12,'' McCartney laughs. ' 'The long and winding road that leads to your door': it sounds like someone who's about 80. 'Looking through the backyard of your life,' I could have written that lyric when I was 24. It just would have meant my days in Liverpool or my days in school. Now it's got more significance because it's a bigger backyard.''

September 11, 2005 -- Yahoo.news
Heather Mills McCartney, poses for photographers as she arrives at the PETA 25th anniversary gala at Paramount studios in Hollywood Saturday, September 10.

Mills McCartney received the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals 2005 Humanitarian Award at the gala.

Phobee Henry will be getting the chance of a lifetime at only age 15. The Shaker High student will be performing at McCartney's concert on September 17th in (Tampa) Florida.

She couldn't believe her ears when her dad broke the good news.

"It was tremendous. I was just hyperventilating. There's supposed to be 25,000 people there so it's a big crowd and it should be very fun. I'm excited," she said.

Phobee, with a style similar to singer/songwriter Jewel, has been playing guitar and writing songs for two years.

The "Fine Line" 7" UK vinyl single is available now CLICK HERE

Thirty-five years into his solo career, Paul McCartney continues to surprise, opening this set with four of his best songs in ages. The single "Fine Line" is top-notch piano pop à la "Lady Madonna"; "How Kind of You" is at once moody, sentimental and cliché-free; "Jenny Wren" is a lovely acoustic ballad with shades of "Blackbird"; and "At the Mercy" brims with melodic delights.

The rest of "Chaos" cannot compete with that introductory salvo, but even the least entertaining material (the stuffy "English Tea," the "just be happy" ditty "Too Much Rain") is mercifully brief.

Elsewhere, McCartney dabbles in Latin lilt ("A Certain Softness"), nods to "Because"-style layered harmonies (the peppy "Promise to You Girl") and, on the unnamed hidden track, plugs in for three short garage-y jams.

Macca's not getting any younger, but on "Chaos," he proves he still has a few tricks up his sleeve.

Pete and Geoff showed Paul some items on ebay that related to him and had him guess bids on them. Afterwards Paul feigned distress from looking at the ebay items.

To listen to the entire interview CLICK HERE

Starting Thursday through Sept. 11, Clear Channel is giving fans a sneek preview of the album. Fans will be able to hear the entire album online free during the promotional period.

This is McCartney's 20th studio album since The Beatles.

Sneak Peek "Chaos and Creation"

Hear Paul's entire album before September 12/13th at these "sneak peek" Websites.

http://www.q1043.com/cc-common/sneakpeek/mccartney/indexpreview.html

http://www.cities97.com/main.html

http://www.kkrw.com/cc-common/sneakpeek/mccartney/indexpreview.html

NEED MACCA REPORT TOUR REPORTERS!!!

If you are going to ANY of McCartney's shows, the Macca Report is looking for detailed reports of the concerts.

Setlists are not needed unless Paul does something 'different' from the posted setlist.

No need to write a 'story' for the report - notes are fine. Details from reports received will be put into one comprehensive report of the show. Individual stories will not be posted.

The Macca Report is looking for :

What Paul says at the shows (dialog accuracy is important)
What he wears
Stories he tells before songs (different from 'scripted story')
Any interesting signs in the audience - especially ones he points out (what he says)
Funny stuff Paul does or says
Nicknames for the city he's in
Autographs at the end (what he signs) -- If Paul signs for you -- EMAIL SCAN OF AUTOGRAPH
Fan interaction
Interaction with the band during the show and at the end of the show, silly dances, etc.
If you see the limo coming in, give details, (wink/wave? etc.)
Songs heard at the soundcheck
If you meet Paul, tell your story!

We are looking for unusual stuff - unique to the show you are at.

Send your report with the subject line "PAUL CONCERT REPORT" to the Macca Report

EMAIL PHOTOS - ONLY if they are close, not blurred and show good detail and lighting. 150 dpi resolution (4 x 6 jpeg-medium). All photos will be credited.

EMAIL scanned CLEAR photos of untorn tickets, VIP Passes and laminates.

Everyone who participates will receive credit.

Check "BAND NEWS" for dates and times.

A spot with McCartney breaks on Thursday during the first half of ABC's coverage of the game between the New England Patriots and the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League.

"Generations have grown up with Paul McCartney," said Robert Reynolds, vice chairman and CEO of Boston-based Fidelity, in a statement. "People continue to be inspired by how he approaches life with confidence, innovation and a long-term view. He's the perfect partner for Fidelity to help investors transition to the next chapter in their lives."

The 30-second spot, titled "This Is Paul," features a chronological tour of McCartney's life and notable accomplishments. The spot carries Fidelity's familiar "Smart move" tagline. McCartney will also appear in print executions.

Boston-based Arnold has handled the account for nearly five years.

"At Fidelity, we are all about enabling people to do what they want to do and do it in a smart way," said Claire Huang, executive vice president of marketing at the company. "[And] we want to do it in an uplifting way. ... Which is why our ads are positive and uplifting."

"I'm really pleased to be working with Fidelity," said McCartney, 63, in a statement. "We have a lot in common: a commitment to helping people, a dedication to the arts and a belief that you should never stop doing what you love."

Fidelity is sponsoring McCartney's 11-week tour, which launches Sept. 16 in Miami.

Celebrity animal activists Stella McCartney and Pamela Anderson have teamed up to donate personal memorabilia items to an upcoming auction to raise cash for the pets caught up in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Thousands of dogs, cats and other pets perished in last month's storm, which devastated Louisiana, Alabama and surrounding areas, and now animal charity People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is doing all it can to save stranded creatures.

And McCartney and Anderson have pledged their support by offering up items that will be sold off at PETA's 25th Anniversary Gala and Humanitarian Awards in Hollywood on September 10.

Anderson is offering a walk-on part in her hit TV show STACKED, while McCartney is donating cruelty-free items from her fashion collection.

The upcoming PETA auction will raise cash for the charity's Animal Emergency Fund.

A four disc DVD featuring extensive coverage of all of the Live 8 concerts is set to be released on November 7.

Footage of the Anti-Poverty gigs which took place on July 2 all around the world will be included in the box set featuring the appearances of REM, Madonna, Coldplay, Dido, U2, Scissor Sisters and Paul McCartney.

Bob Geldof said of the release: "I hope this will be the biggest selling DVD of all time. It deserves to be. More importantly perhaps, it should be, for it will help us achieve our goal of changing the lives of the extreme poor for the better and making our generation the one that helped end the disgrace of poverty."

Three of discs will involve the footage of the concerts with every artist from the London and Philadelphia events appearing plus extensive highlights of the seven other gigs.

The fourth disc will feature exclusive extras including behind the scenes footage from Hyde Park, coverage of Pink Floyd's reunion rehearsal plus coverage of the concert at Edinburgh's Murrayfield Stadium.

Royalties from the release will go towards the relief of hunger and poverty in Africa.

Heather Mills who, like her hubby, is a staunch animal rights supporter, is preparing to launch a protest of the fashion chain outside its corporate headquarters in Manhattan next week, according a source, who says that Heather will be calling for a boycott of the preppy clothing chain.

"J. Crew has reneged on its promise not to use fur," says a source, who says that the former model will screen a video exposé of the places J. Crew gets its fur. "They're using fur from China, where no animal protection laws exist and the Beijing Times reports animals are literally skinned alive."

Mills will be in the U.S. to be honored by animal rights group PETA at a star-studded bash in Hollywood on Saturday, and in a statement Paul McCartney gushes about his activist wife: "I could have been attracted to women who didn't think like that, who just like to have steak all the time, but I've been very lucky. Heather is a strong woman, she's unstoppable against cruelty."

Paul McCartney says he sometimes hears John Lennon when writing songs

Paul McCartney sometimes gets a little help from a friend.

"When I write, there are times - not always - when I hear John (Lennon) in my head," McCartney told the latest issue of Time magazine. "I'll think, OK, what would we have done here?, and I can hear him gripe or approve."

The former Beatles' newest work will be released Sept. 13 on his 20th solo album, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard." Three days later, he starts a U.S. tour in Miami.

"Since the Beatles, I've approached making records every which way. A lot of times it's a really casual thing. Do a few tracks a day, have a bit of fun," McCartney said. "Normally I kind of say, 'I'd like to make a good album.' This time there was motivation, determination. 'I'm going to make a good album. I'm going to, and that's that."'

The album took two years to record, with McCartney playing many of the instruments himself.

I'm very sure
This never happened to me before
I met you and now I'm sure
This never happened before

Now I see
This is the way it's supposed to be
I met you and now I see
This is the way it should be

This is the way it should be for lovers
They shouldn't go it alone
It's not so good when you're on your own

So come to me
Now we can be what we want to be
I love you and now I see
This is the way it should be
This is the way it should be

This is the way it should be for lovers
They shouldn't go it alone
It's not so good when you're on your own

I'm very sure
This never happened to me before
I met you and now I'm sure
This never happened before this never happened
This never happened before this never happened
This never happened before this never happened before

A Certain Softness (Paul McCartney)

A certain softness in her eyes
Fascinates me
More than I ever thought it would a certain softness
More than I ever thought it could
A certain softness in her eyes
Got me hooked, got me hooked

A kind of sadness in her smile
Captivates me
Surer than anything that's sure a kind of sadness
Surer than anything before
A kind of sadness in her smile
Got me hooked, got me hooked, got me hooked

If I could even find the words to tell her
I wouldn't want to anyway
'Cos that would only break the spell
And you know very well
I couldn't betray her

A touch of wildness in her style
Haunts my memory
More than I ever thought it would a touch of wildness
More than I ever thought it could
A touch of wildness in her style
Got me hooked, got me hooked, got me hooked

A certain softness in her eyes
Fascinates me
More than I ever thought it would a certain softness
More than I ever thought it could
A certain softness in her eyes
Got me hooked, got me hooked

Promise To You Girl (Paul McCartney)

Looking through the backyard of my life
Time to sweep the fallen leaves away

Like the sun that rises every day
We can chase the dark clouds from the sky

I gave my promise to you girl
I don't want to take it back
You and me, side by side
We know how to change the world
That is why I gave my promise to you girl

Hey why wait another day
That won't get us anywhere
All the time that it takes
To repair this brave old world will be ours
I gave my promise to you girl

Every single second of our lives
We can use to chase the clouds away

Well there's no more barking up a tree
No more howling at the moon
They won't see, you and I
Diving for the deepest pearl
That is why I gave my promise to you girl

Looking through the backyard of my life
Time to sweep the fallen leaves away

Jenny Wren (Paul McCartney)

Like so many girls
Jenny Wren could sing
But a broken heart
Took her song away

Like the other girls
Jenny Wren took wing
She could see the world
And its foolish ways

How we spend our days
Casting love aside
Losing sight of life day by day

She saw poverty
Breaking up a home
Wounded warriors
Took her song away

But the day will come
Jenny Wren will sing
When this broken world
Mends its foolish ways

Then we'll spend our days
Catching up on life
All because of you Jenny Wren
You saw who we are Jenny Wren

Friends To Go (Paul McCartney)

I've been waiting on the other side
For your friends to leave so I don't have to hide
I'd prefer they didn't know
So I've been waiting on the other side
For your friends to go

I've been sliding down a slippy slope
I've been climbing up a slowly burning rope
But the flame is getting low
I've been waiting on the other side
For your friends to go

You never need to worry about me
I'll be fine on my own
Someone else can worry about me
I've spent a lot of time on my own
I've spent a lot of time on my own

I've been waiting till the danger passed
I don't know how long the storm is going to last
If we're going to carry on
I'll be waiting on the other side
'till your friends have gone

So tell me what I want to know
I'll be waiting on the other side
For your friends to go

Someone else can worry about me
I've spent a lot of time on my own
I've spent a lot of time on my own

I've been waiting on the other side
For your friends to leave so I don't have to hide
I'd prefer they didn't know
So I've been waiting on the other side
For your friends to go

I've been waiting on the other side
I've been waiting on the other side
For your friends to go

Anyway (Paul McCartney)

If you love me, won't you call me
I've been waiting, waiting too long
In my soul is constant yearning
Always singing, singing this song

Only love is strong enough
To take it on the chin
When did I begin, to fall

Anyway, anyway
You can make, that call
You feel free, to make yourself at home

If we could be, closer longer
That would help me, help me so much
We can cure each others sorrow
Won't you please, please, please get in touch

If a love is strong enough, it may never end
Why would I pretend to fall

Anyway, anyway
You can make, that call
You feel free, to make yourself at home

Anyway, anyway
Anyway at all
Anyway that you can make that call

Riding to Vanity Fair (Paul McCartney)

I bit my tongue
I never talked too much
I tried to be so strong
I did my best
I used the gentle touch
I've done it for so long

You put me down
But I can laugh it off
And act like nothing's wrong
But why pretend
I think I've heard enough
Of your familiar song

I tell you what I'm going to do
I'll try to take my mind of you
And now that you don't need my help
I'll use the time to think about myself

You're not aware
Of what you put me through
But now the feeling's gone
But I don't mind
Do what you have to do
You don't fool anyone

I'll tell you what I'm going to do
I'll take a different point of view
And now that you don't need my help
I'll use the time to think about myself

The definition of friendship
Apparently ought to be
Showing support for the
One that you love
And I was open to friendship
But you didn't seem to have any to spare
While you were riding to Vanity Fair

There was a time
When every day was young
The sun would always shine
We sang along
When all the songs were sung
Believing every line

That's the trouble with friendship
For someone to feel it
It has to be real
Or it wouldn't be right
And I keep hoping for friendship
But I wouldn't dare
To presume it was there
While you were riding to Vanity Fair

While you were riding to Vanity Fair
While you were riding to Vanity Fair
While you were riding to Vanity Fair

Fine Line (Paul McCartney)

There is a fine line
Between recklessness and courage
It's about time
You understood which road to take
It's a fine line
And your decision makes a difference
Get it wrong you'll be making a big mistake

Come home brother all is forgiven
We all cried when you were driven away
Come home brother everything is better
Everything is better when you come home to stay

Whatever's more important to you
You've gotta choose what you want to do
Whatever's more important to be
Well that's the view that you got to see

There is a long way
Between chaos and creation
If you don't say
Which one of these you're going to choose
It's a long way
And if every contradiction seems the same
It's a game that your bound to lose

Come home brother all is forgiven
We all cried when you were driven away
Come home brother everything is better
Everything is better when you come home to stay

Come on back, Come on back, Come on back to me

It's a fine line, It's a fine line

Whatever's more important to you
You've gotta choose what you want to do
Whatever's more important to be
Well that's the view that you got to see

It's a fine line

Repeat

The thoughtfulness you showed has made
a difference in my life
I won't forget how unafraid
you were that long dark night.

I thought that all was lost
I thought i'd never find
a someone quite as kind, as you.

I thought my faith had gone
I thought there couldn't be
a someone who was there, for me.

How kind of you to stick with me
during the final bout
and listened to the referee
as I was counted out.

I thought my time was up
I thought i'd never find
a someone quite as kind, as you.

I thought my faith had gone
I thought there couldn't be
a someone who was there for me.

How kind of you to think of me
how kind of you...

Too Much Rain (Paul McCartney)

Laugh when your eyes are burning
smile when your heart is filled with pain
sigh as you brush away your sorrows
make a vow that it's not gonna happen again
it's not right
in one life
too much rain.

You know the wheels keep turning
why do the tears run down your face
we used to hide away our feelings
but for now, tell yourself it won't happen again
it's not right
in one life
too much rain.

It's too much for anyone
too hard for anyone
who wants a happy and peaceful life
you've gotta learn to laugh.

Smile when you're spinning round and round
sigh as you think about tomorrow
make a vow, that you're gonna be happy again
it's alright
in your life
no more rain.

It's too much for anyone
too hard for anyone
who wants a happy and peaceful life
you've gotta lean to laugh.

Paul McCartney To Release 'Chaos And Creation In The Backyard' Special Edition CD and Bonus DVD Featuring An Intimate Behind The Scenes Look Into The Making Of New Studio Album

In-Stores September 12th (September 13th for US)

Paul McCartney will release a Special Edition CD/DVD of his soon to be released new studio album 'Chaos And Creation In The Backyard'. The Special Edition, due in-stores on Monday, September 12th, will include a bonus DVD packed with exclusive, never-before-seen behind the scenes footage, as well as special intimate performances of music from the new album.

Filmed in Los Angeles and London, the special DVD gives a rare and unprecedented look inside the mind of one of the world's most prolific and renown songwriters. It captures McCartney working alongside producer Nigel Godrich in a way that has never been seen, as they collaborate to make McCartney's 20th studio album.

The main feature, 'Between Chaos And Creation,' is a 30-minute documentary style film that tracks McCartney's creative journey making of the new album. It takes the viewer song by song, through the album, and demonstrates his unparalleled song-writing skills and musical versatility.

DVD extras also include special performances of album tracks, the new single, 'Fine Line,' as well as 'How Kind Of You.' In addition, there is an art feature entitled 'Line Art,' with fine artist Brian Clarke. It's a series of sketches put to music from the new album.

'Chaos And Creation In The Back Yard' is a return to the basics for McCartney. The album successfully fuses his undeniable song writing talents with his unparalleled musicianship. In fact, McCartney is credited with playing the majority of the instruments on the album, which is somewhat reminiscent of "McCartney" (1970) when he was credited with playing all of the instruments. They include the drums, guitar, bass, keyboards, as well as many of the less traditional instruments such as block flute, harmonium and flugelhorn.

'Chaos And Creation In The Back Yard' is a mix of up-tempo piano driven McCartney instant classics such as 'Fine Line' and 'Promise To You Girl' and more introspective darker tracks such as 'At The Mercy,' 'Too Much Rain' and 'Riding To Vanity Fair.' One of the many highlights is a track entitled, 'Jenny Wren,' which Paul describes as "daughter of Blackbird," as well as 'Follow Me,' which McCartney debuted at The Glastonbury Festival, while on his '04 Summer European Tour.

Paul McCartney is currently preparing for his sold out 'US' tour of North America, which kicks off on September 16th in Miami.

The niece of a celebrated senior aid worker who was killed in the Asian tsunami has convinced more than 300 artists and musicians, including Sir Paul McCartney, David Hockney and Charlotte Church, to donate their artwork for a charity auction.

Each has responded to a letter from Daisy Bell, a 20-year-old psychology student, asking for them to fill a blank postcard with their art, or where that was beyond them, their doodlings.

Miss Bell, who is a student at Edinburgh University, lost her uncle, Robin Needham, in the wave of destruction that rolled across South-East Asia last year.

He was head of Care-Nepal, an Aids charity, and had spent his life working to help the third world.

The last time he was seen alive, he was helping people move to higher ground on Koh Phra Thong, a coastal archipelago off Southern Thailand where he was on holiday with his wife and four children.

"It was the most terrible feeling when [my uncle] died," Miss Bell said.

"He was amazing, he spent his life helping people. Everyone has someone in their life who is the most incredible person. He was my person."

She decided to raise £10,000 ($18,700) for Care International in memory of her uncle, who would have been involved in the subsequent aid effort had he not lost his life.

Three months later, she is in possession of one of the more extraordinary postcard collections in the country. The framed cards, which include unique works by Mario Tesstino, the photographer, the artists Bernard Dunstan, Felim Egan and Margaret Hockney, the DJ Chris Moyles and Melanie C, the former Spice Girl, can be viewed online at www.artofcare.co.uk.

Bernard Williams, the director of Christie's Scotland, who will be auctioning 65 of the postcards at the opening night of the exhibition, said: "We are potentially looking at tens of thousands of pounds. The Hirst and the McCartney are star lots."

He said the fact that the collection included artists who were difficult to buy, including Hockney, could push the overall money raised up to £40,000.

The process began in March when Miss Bell recruited the help of two university friends, Marianna Chidley and Mary Ramsden. They wanted to hold a student art exhibition but Miss Bell hit on the blank postcard idea.

"I wanted to get Norman Ackroyd, Damien Hirst and David Hockney, and people said it wouldn't happen. But all of them responded - I couldn't believe it."

She wrote five letters to Hirst, to be told by his personal assistant politely to go away. Then she discovered a link in her sister's school and a next-door neighbour and it finally worked.

The first 65 works will be auctioned in Edinburgh at the Ocean Terminal shopping centre on Sept 30. The rest will be auctioned online, but interested early bids can be registered via artofcare.co.uk.September 4, 2005 -- BBC

Macca's "Fine Line" enters in the top 20 UK singles

"Fine Line" debuts at #20 this week on the BBC Radio 1's Official Singles Chart.

Luckily, the 20th Paul McCartney album, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," out Sept. 13, makes matters easy. It took two years to record, in part because McCartney plays almost all the instruments on it (including drums, harmonium and flugelhorn) and in part because he actually cared. "Chaos and Creation" is adventurous, melodic and emotionally complicated-the first album in his post-Fab Four catalog that really matters. If it is not as dark or as brilliant as TIME Out of Mind, Bob Dylan's "Hey, I can still do this!" album, it belongs on a shelf nearby. "Since the Beatles, I've approached making records every which way," says McCartney. "A lot of times it's a real casual thing. Do a few tracks a day, have a bit of fun. Normally I kind of say, 'I'd like to make a good album.' This time there was motivation, determination. 'I'm going to make a good album. I'm going to, and that's that.'"

The urgency behind McCartney's renewed ambition is not hard to figure out. Sitting in the Manhattan townhouse that serves as his office, he praises an "old black drummer," then stops mid-sentence. "I say 'old black drummer,' and it's terrifying, actually. He's about my age [James Gadson, 64]. Excuse me. I'm still coming to grips with the fact that I'm an old white cat." McCartney is 63. With his hair dyed forest-floor brown, he looks younger, "but numbers don't lie, man."

He has already buried a wife of almost 30 years and a songwriting partner, and George Harrison's 2001 death from cancer shook him again. "George and I met as kids on the school bus," says McCartney.

"It's surprising when one of your friends who you've known that long just ups and goes--'No, no, we hadn't said it all yet. I need more time.' It's a very weird feeling, and it spills over to all aspects of your life. You want to get moving, to say things that haven't been said."

When McCartney sorted through his emotions and decided that he wanted to say some of those unsaid things on a new record, he did what he always does-call George Martin. Martin has retired from producing, but he remains the artistic Svengali in McCartney's life, and in a shrewd bit of psychology, he suggested Nigel Godrich as a possible producer. Godrich is almost 30 years younger than McCartney, and his work with Radiohead (OK Computer) and Beck (Sea Change) has earned him a reputation as the most innovative producer in rock. He is also known for expressing his opinions with the sweetness of barbed wire.

"I met with him and said I'd do it," recalls Godrich. "But I said I didn't love a lot of his solo stuff and that we'd have to do this my way. I was absolutely s_______ myself as I said this-it is Paul McCartney. But I think the penny dropped there and then to him that he wanted to get out of his comfort zone." Says McCartney: "It appealed to me. When you've done as much as I've done, it's nice that people are impressed, but it can work against you. You want real hard opinions."

Almost immediately, Godrich started dispensing them. McCartney brought in a sprawling series of demos he had recorded at home; Godrich listened and announced that he would work only on the songs that interested him. "No '50s rock-'n'-roll pastiche numbers," says Godrich. "He's a jolly old soul, but I thought maybe just for once we could steer him away from those things." After a week of recording, Godrich told McCartney that his regular band had to sit this one out.

"In any tense moment, he'd look over at those guys and say, 'What do you think?' It was too easy for him to deflect getting put on the spot. I could only cope with it by isolating him."

McCartney understood that Godrich was trying to play the role of iconoclast to the complacent icon, and he was willing to go along with it, to a point. "There were a few times I thought, I could sack this guy," says McCartney. "I've produced more records than he's even looked at in a shop." Instead he convinced Godrich that he didn't need to be confrontational to get his point across, and gradually a positive form of creative tension emerged. "When I write, there are times-not always-when I hear John [Lennon] in my head," says McCartney. "I'll think, O.K., what would we have done here?, and I can hear him gripe or approve. And one of the good things about working with Nigel is that he became more of a co-worker rather than a grownup producer. His opinion mattered to me in a way that made me want to impress him."

Chaos and Creation is full of the melodies that have always been McCartney's trademark-the single, "Fine Line," grabs you by the ear in four bars-but for the most part, they've been stripped of cuteness and nostalgia. What strikes you first is that the sad songs are really sad. At the Mercy gets past the sentimental and into the startling fact that genuine love can leave you powerless and insecure. "Riding to Vanity Fair," a trippy ballad about rejected friendship, is the most misanthropic thing the composer of "Ob-La-Di" has ever recorded. He insists it's not directed at anyone in particular, and the lyrics--"You're not aware/ Of what you put me through/ But now the feeling's gone"-don't offer up any autobiographical clues, but it seethes with bitterness. The trick to these very tough tunes is that they're essentially untethered from anything like a formal chorus. They don't try to resolve themselves; they just drift into provocative emotional territory and linger for a while. "Chaos and Creation" has its share of bright moments too-the arena-ready Follow Me, the joyously goofy Promise to You Girl-but the album feels like a catalog of all McCartney's emotions, not just the easy ones.

McCartney knows that he didn't rise to his place in the pop firmament by pushing the envelope. "I'm not a rebel," he says. "In actual fact, I'm pretty straight, and I don't mind at all that people see me that way." Still, he seems to have turned a musical corner. When he thinks about the U.S. tour he will launch Sept. 16 in Miami, he says, "It'll be great not to be out there with a crap album, singing songs I don't care much about." And if audiences still mostly pine for another roundelay of 'Hey Jude?' "They'll get that too, but you have to move forward as well as go back. As they say, the show must go on!" And now there's a compelling reason to tune in.

Spotted in East Hampton: "An overzealous fan squealed, 'Oh my God, Paul McCartney!' when she saw the former Beatle and his wife, Heather Mills McCartney, strolling down the street. He looked at the fan with a smile, put his finger to his lips and said, 'Shhh!'" ...

Heather Mills comforts 7/7 bomb victims

Heather Mills-McCartney has been visiting traumatized victims who lost limbs in the 7/7 terror bomb blasts offering advice, comfort and inspiration.

Macca's wife, who herself lost part of her left leg when she was mowed down by a police motorcycle in 1993, has been counselling both the victims and their families giving them her personal mobile phone number so that they may contact her any time of the day or night for support.

Thirty-seven year-old Heather's aim was to give the victims hope that there is life after an amputation and urged them to become role models for others in their position during her low key visits, her spokeswoman Anya Noakes said.

Noakes said: "She has made a number of private visits. I believe she has been in contact with about five victims of the bombings and their families.

"It happens often, where there are a large number of casualties, that people will contact her for her support and advice.

"Sometimes it is the hospitals that will make contact with her knowing she offers her advice and experience to help people after such a tragedy.

"She has been counselling both the patients who have had amputations and their families.

"She has been speaking to them on the phone whenever they need to talk and offering them advice.

"She will give the amputee and their family her mobile phone number so that they can contact her any time when they need support."

She added: "She wants to encourage patients and make them feel that there is a future after an amputation, that there is life after amputation.

"She knows that it is also the families that need support."

Heather, who is patron of the Adopt A Minefield charity, has made a career out of voluntarily counselling people from around the globe who have lost limbs in accidents, through illness, natural disasters and terrorist atrocities.

On her website she said she lets amputees know personally, in daily correspondence, that they can make a difference.

Noakes added: "This is just something she has always done since she lost her leg 12 years ago."

Noakes, who has been a personal friend of Heather for eight years said she was "amazed" at her friend's ability to spread happiness adding: "I am amazed in particular in her endless support of people who have lost limbs through illness, accident, natural disaster or a terrible terrorist atrocity.

"Again and again I heard her advising them, their family and friends, always on the end of a phone, such an extraordinary role model for so many people who, until then, might have thought that their lives were ruined for ever. It is so easy to forget that Heather is disabled."

'ReAct Now: Music & Relief' will air September 10 on MTV, VH1, elsewhere.

Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones are among several artists who have been added to MTV, VH1 and CMT's Hurricane Katrina relief special.

Airing September 10th from 8 to 11 p.m. ET/PT, "ReAct Now: Music & Relief" will feature a mix of live and taped performances and messages from more than 30 artists.

"ReAct Now: Music & Relief" will be broadcast commercial-free from New York, Los Angeles, Nashville and Atlanta and will air simultaneously on MTV, VH1, CMT, MTV2, VH1 Classic and mtvU, as well as on the broadband online channels MTV Overdrive and VSpot.

The special will raise funds for the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army, America's Second Harvest and similar organizations. Additional details will be announced in the coming days.

MTV News will air a special directly preceding "ReAct Now" on MTV.

The show has Paul performing solo with a variety of instruments including glasses of water, a mellotron, a stand-up bass (that belonged to Elvis' bass player), drums, acoustic guitar and piano. He is also accompanied by producer Nigel Godrich when recording tracks of drums, bass, guitar and audience percussion and handclaps to produce a 'Jammed Track' based around 'Blue Suede Shoes'.

Paul also talks to Mark Radcliffe about his songwriting techniques, his writing partnership with John Lennon, his work with the Beatles and his solo career, before giving the live performance.

Some of the songs that Paul performs include In Spite Of All The Danger, Things We Said Today, Band On The Run, Lady Madonna and Blackbird.

Hear it LIVE online BBC Radio 2

In Paul McCartney's song "English Tea" from his new album "Chaos & Creation in the Back Yard" McCartney invites us to an imaginary tea with good conversation and "fairy cakes" baked by the nanny.

English Tea (Paul McCartney)

Would you care to sit with me
for a cup of English tea?
very twee, very me,
any sunny morning.

What a pleasure it would be
chatting so delightfully,
nanny bakes
fairy cakes,
every Sunday morning...

Some recipe classics never go out of fashion and fairy cakes top the list (from ivillage.co.uk)

They are the stuff of childhood memories: just one nibble can transport you back in time and even today, no self-respecting children's birthday party would be without them. That said, why should the kids have all the fun? With just a little tweaking, fairy cakes can be turned into grown-up fare as well, perfect for a mid-morning coffee break, tea in the afternoon or packed lunch treats. The basic recipe is oh-so-simple so you can keep it plain or indulge yourself with extravagant toppings. Some die-hard purists may omit the vanilla extract but I think fairy cakes are better with it.

Fairy Cakes

Makes 24 mini cakes or 12 larger ones.

For mini cakes you will need a 12 hole tartlet tin (these are 5cm at the rim and 1 1/2 cm deep) and you will need to use it twice. For larger cakes use a 12-hole bun tin (these are 6 1/2 cm at the rim and 2cm deep). You can use the little paper cases according to the size tin you have. If not, butter the base and sides of the holes before filling with the mixture.

125g / 4 1/2 oz softened butter
125g / 4 1/2 oz caster sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
125g / 4 1/2 oz self-raising flour
2 tbsp milk

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas mark 5. Either butter the tin or place the paper cases in the holes (see above). In a mixing bowl beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. You can use an electric whisk or a wooden spoon.
2. Add the beaten egg, a little at a time, whisking to incorporate, then beat in the vanilla.
3. Sift in half of the flour and fold into the mixture. Add the milk and the rest of the flour and fold until well combined.
4. Spoon into the tin and bake for 12 minutes or until risen and golden on top. Allow to cool for ten minutes on a rack before removing from the tin.

Ideas for Toppings

Lemon or Orange Glacé Icing with Cherries

100g / 4 oz icing sugar
2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon or orange juice
12 glacé cherries, cut in half (these work best when making the mini cakes)

Mix the juice into the icing sugar and stir until well blended. Drizzle over the cakes when cooled. Top with the cherries, cut side down, while the icing is still soft.

Chocolate Ganache Glaze

150g / 5 1/2 oz good quality dark chocolate
150ml / 5 fl oz double cream

Break the chocolate into pieces and heat gently with the cream in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until the chocolate is melted and the mixture well blended. Allow to cool slightly to thicken then pour over the cakes. It will harden on cooling.

Paul McCartney's "Fine Line" CD single enters the UK Future Chart at #2 this week!

In the battle of the knights - Sir Paul vs Sir Mick - McCartney's depth of feeling wins hands down against Jagger's ageing lothario in denial

Lest we forget that new albums by Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones are still big news, the press copies bear no sign of their creators' identities. Curious postmen opening the relevant packages would have found CDs ostensibly by Pete Mitchell and the Little Wonders.

If Jagger has the preening, priapic air of a man in denial of his 62 years, McCartney's lustrous auburn barnet tells a similar story. These days, he surrounds himself with young American session musicians who get to live out their Beatle-dream in the packed hangars of the world. That works perfectly well live, but doesn't necessarily result in good albums. (Driving Rain in 2001 spent one week in the UK Top 75.) It's a problem that the producer Nigel Godrich was swift to address on McCartney's 12th solo album. He didn't go as far as to hide the hair products, but hats off for persuading Paul to sack the band. Before you even hear Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard, that fact alone is enough to fill you with optimism.

As with previous high-water marks in the post-Fabs canon (McCartney, McCartney II, Ram), it's Macca himself who plays most of the instruments here. Blokes-together camaraderie has been replaced by minor chords on Steinways. Bad lyrics have been rewritten, often prompting arguments between artist and producer.

But with McCartney's commercial stock at such a low, it's probably a good time to listen to a few outside opinions. One track, Vanity Fair, even underwent nine months of nipping and tucking before Godrich countenanced its inclusion. The version here works a treat - electric piano and undulating cello offer a poignantly lugubrious setting for a tirade against an ex-friend. Indeed, one of the first things you notice about Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard is the absence of that customary blitheness. From the man who wrote Silly Love Songs, At the Mercy seems doubly stark for its depiction of love as the only source of heat in an unforgiving world. When was the last time its creator wrote a couplet like "sometimes I'd rather run and hide/ than stay and face the fear inside"? That it hangs together so well might reflect Godrich's determination to put McCartney in touch with his old self, reducing the gap between singer and listener by stripping vocals of reverb and reminding him what a soulful pianist he is.

Much of the fun here is spotting the past glories Godrich has used as sonic templates. Jenny Wren is a cinch - a return to the small-hours ambience of Blackbird. A Certain Softness sounds like Wings' A Little Luck with one red rose in its mouth and Django Reinhardt on lead guitar. The pastoral chamber pop of English Tea strives for the Noël Cowardness of the middle eight in I Am the Walrus , but veers closer to the loving pastiche Neil Innes perfected with the Rutles.

Whether all this is enough depends on what you expect from McCartney in 2005. If he's never to write another Eleanor Rigby or Penny Lane, is there no point in bothering?Certainly, there's no single song on this album that deserves the term "genius". But I've heard far more impressive records that, for whatever reason, I never went on to play again. Chaos and Creation . . . has a fireside glow to which you'll find yourself returning.

Ex-Beatle Sir Paul McCartney is concerned the London bombings on July 7 have detracted from the importance of Live 8 (July 2), and is urging people to focus on the musical celebration than the horrors which followed.

The shocking terrorist attacks rocked the city just days after the charity spectacular, but McCartney urges the public not to allow the disaster to override the positivity of Sir Bob Geldof's mammoth rock benefit show.

He says, "You just have to be philosophical and think they won't defeat us.

"I choose to remember the greatness of the (Live 8) day and that we all came together for the right reasons to help some brothers and sisters."

The album is Sir Paul's 20th studio recording since he left The Beatles, and was produced by Nigel Godrich, known as Radiohead's "invisible sixth member" and who has also worked with REM Travis and Beck.

The musician told Radio Four's Frontrow that Godrich had made a massive difference to the sound of the album.

"The good thing about working with Nigel in this case was that I would bring in something - a song, a certain idea of how it might be treated - and he would say, 'look, that's a little bit ordinary - let's look at it a bit differently'," he said.

"There's one song, called 'How Kind of You' - the second song on the album - and I brought it in as a strummy sound, but Nigel said, 'you can do that - but let's look at putting a kind of ocean down, a sort of bed.

"So we got drones going, and a harmonium and piano loop. It removed it from the ordinary."

Blackbird companion

Lyrically, Chaos And Creation In The Back Yard addresses just one person, in a way similar to some concept albums.

However, Sir Paul insisted that it was never possible to work out how an album would turn out.

"You never know quite what you're doing, because you never step back and go, 'ah, I see the concept'," he said.

"You just write a few songs, and the mood you're in, and the time and space you're in, governs that."

He said that, for example, one song, "Jenny Wren" - which McCartney describes as the "little sister" of the Beatles song "Blackbird" - was inspired by him seeing a flute player with Ravi Shankar at the Royal Albert Hall.

"I saw this guy on this low, mournful Indian flute. I traced him down through Ravi, because he had a sound that I wanted for the album, and found he was actually a Venezuelan guy called Pedro Eustace and that the flute itself was an Armenian instrument."

He also explained how the musical relationship of the song to "Blackbird" came about.

"In 'Blackbird', it's a particular style, it's almost like a folky style - but I can't actually do the proper fingerpicking style that real fingerpickers will do, so I've invented my own fudge of it," he said.

"That style of playing originally came from me and George [Harrison] having a party piece when we were kids, which was a piece by Bach.

"I thought that I loved doing that Bach thing - George did it better than me, he could do the real thing - but that was my goof of it."

Memorable songs

Sir Paul's way of playing the Bach gave him a melody and a bassline together, which was the origin of Blackbird.

But he never revisited this style until the new album, when he worked on the song "Jenny Wren" sitting in his car in Los Angeles.

"It was just the finger-style thing - I just thought I fancy doing something in that style," he added.

He also said that he still has songs which wander through his mind, or he wakes up with the opening line in his head.

He is able now to record them on tape at the time - but said that when he was with the Beatles, this was not possible, and this was how he and John Lennon would know if they had a good song.

"The great thing about John and I in the old days was that we didn't have tapes - but that was great because it focused us," he said.

"We used to say to each other, 'if we can't remember it tomorrow, it's no good.'

"How memorable is a song that you wrote last night and you can't remember this morning? It's not good."

But he added that he felt analysing his songs too much "spoils it".

"It's magic to me," he said.

"This whole process is completely magic, and I always feel like someone is going to catch me and stop me doing it for a living.

"There's always that feeling that this is too good to be true. So I don't want to tempt fate."

Sir Paul McCartney is glad wife Heather forced him to quit smoking marijuana - because he makes more sense since he's stopped taking the drug.

The rocker took up the habit after sharing a joint with Bob Dylan in the early 1960s, and only recently weaned himself off it when new wife Heather Mills protested.

And he says, "I've talked to people who've said, 'You're conversation is so clear these days. It all used to be a little hazy.' And you thought you were having a good time.

"I have quite a liberal view (on drugs) but I find that I prefer to be straight."

Following the performance, Paul will announce a number. The person wearing the wristband with this number on, will win 2 tickets to see Paul McCartney sound-check and perform a whole show at Madison Square Gardens in New York on (either 30 Sept, 1/4/5 Oct), flights and accommodation included.

If you enter and are not lucky enough to win a wristband to the screening, you will get access to watch the 3 tracks online as a stream for a limited period of 12 hours only via an emailed digital ticket with a link to watch in both Windows Media and RealTime from 9pm on Thursday 15 September.

Although he performed a triumphant headlining slot at the 2004 Glastonbury Festival and various appearances throughout the world, including a truly spectacular set at Live8 this summer, it has been an excrutiating four-year wait since Paul McCartney's last studio album. The wait is now over as the living legend returns to basics with brand new album 'Chaos and Creation In The Backyard'. He successfully fuses his undeniable songwriting talents with his unparalleled musicianship, enlisting the contemporary production skills of Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Travis and Beck) to conjure up a mix of up-tempo piano driven instant classics such as the single 'Fine Line' and more introspective darker tracks like 'At The Mercy'.

McCartney added, "It comes in handy in situations like that. People always expect you to be riding around in stretch limousines all the time, but I will sometimes take public transportation if it's convenient, and it does surprise people, you see the heads turn."

He went on to recall a recent fan encounter: "I was in New York and I needed to get uptown, so I took one of the uptown buses. This lady said, 'Hey, are you Paul McCartney?,' and started getting quite loud. I said, 'If you're going to talk to me, come over here, sit by me.'" He added that, "So she did, and I heard her entire history, how she was going to visit her sister and all this stuff."

McCartney, who recently took a break in tour rehearsals by spending a few weeks at his house in East Hampton, Long Island, told us that he still gets excited before hitting the road: "I just like doing it, and whenever I go out on tour it's exciting to stick a few things in that I haven't done before, just 'cause then it's sort of like...There's sort of a nervous edge to it, which is quite cool."

His upcoming tour will be mixing songs from the new Chaos And Creation In The Backyard CD with his '70s Wings hits, such as "Band On The Run" and "Live And Let Die," along with Beatles favorites, such as "We Can Work It Out," "I Saw Her Standing There," "Let It Be," "Lady Madonna" and "Hey Jude."

While on the road last summer in Europe, McCartney premiered several Beatles tunes that he's never performed live including -- "You Won't See Me," "I'll Follow The Sun," "Helter Skelter," and "I've Got A Feeling," which was the last song he ever wrote with John Lennon, the group's Let It Be album.

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