Paul McCartney opened up about the end of The Beatles, saying that while it was “very sad” at the time, he can now ‘rationalise’ the decision.
McCartney has just released his 18th solo studio album ‘Egypt Station’. In a 4 star review, NME described the LP as “a record that’s going to delight McCartney’s fans and – importantly – Beatles fans who might sniff at some of his solo work.”
For this week’s Big Read, the former Beatle recently sat down with NME‘s Dan Stubbs to talk about the latest record, his career and the end of the Fab Four.
“I had mixed feelings at the time. Looking back now, you can rationalise it,” he said of the The Beatles’ split. “People I talk to about it say, That’s families. That’s what families do. Brothers argue. Kids argue with their parents. And that’s sort of what we were doing – it was brothers arguing.
“At the time it was very sad. But I can look back on it and go, do you know what, even though it was really sad, and really crazy times, we made bloody good albums,” he continued. “It’s that thing we were talking about before – you work out your problems through music. And the thing about The Beatles is we were always a great little band. I don’t even notice it now, I just listen to the songs and think, That was a good one.”
McCartney was just 28-years-old when The Beatles parted ways. Stubbs asked McCartney what advice he’d give to his younger self during that hectic year.
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“That’s difficult. I really don’t know,” he said. “What I first thought of was: listen to people’s opinions more, particularly within the group. But I did listen to people’s opinions and what would happen was I would feel like I had to give my opinion and not get too nervous, because you’ve got to be strong in those situations.
“There were times when John would bring a song in and I could have just gone, ‘That’s great John, let’s do it like that.’ But the producer in me would think, ‘No, that’s not going to work, why don’t we try it like that.’ So something like ‘Come Together’ would never have been as cool if I’d just been listening to the way John brought it in,” he added. “And there were a few little instances like that where we would insist on it being one way. So I can’t actually think what I’d say to him. I’d say: You’re a good kid, I love you.”