Sir James Paul McCartney,
MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of
The Beatles (1960–1970) and
Wings (1971–1981), McCartney is the most commercially successful songwriter in the history of
popular music, according to
Guinness World Records.
McCartney gained worldwide fame as a member of
The Beatles, alongside
John Lennon,
George Harrison, and
Ringo Starr. McCartney and Lennon formed one of the most influential and successful
songwriting partnerships and wrote some of the most popular songs in the history of rock music.
After leaving The Beatles, McCartney launched a successful solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife,
Linda Eastman, and singer-songwriter
Denny Laine. McCartney is listed in
Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60
gold discs and sales of 100 million
singles in the United Kingdom.
BBC News Online readers named McCartney the "greatest composer of the millennium", and BBC News cites his Beatles song "
Yesterday" as the most
covered song in the history of recorded music—by over 2,200 artists
—and since its 1965 release, has been played more than 7,000,000 times on American television and radio according to the
BBC.Wings' 1977 single "
Mull of Kintyre" became the first single to sell more than two million copies in the UK, and remains the UK's top selling non-charity single.
Based on the 93 weeks his compositions have spent at the top spot of the UK chart, and 24 number one singles to his credit, McCartney is the most successful songwriter in UK singles chart history.
As a performer or songwriter, McCartney was responsible for 31 number one singles on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States,
RIAA certified albums in the US alone.
McCartney
has composed
film
scores
, classical
and
electronic
music
, released
a large
catalogue of
songs
as a solo artist
, and
has taken
part
in
projects
to
help
international
charities
. He is
an
advocate
for
animal rights, for
vegetarianism
, and
for
music education; he is
active in
campaigns
against
landmines, seal hunting, and
Third World debt. He is
a keen
football fan
, supporting
both
Everton and
Liverpool football
clubs
. His
company
MPL Communications owns
the
copyrights
to
more than
3,000 songs
, including
all
of
the
songs
written
by
Buddy Holly, along
with
the
publishing
rights
to
such
musicals
as Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, and
Grease. McCartney
is
one
of
the
UK's wealthiest
people
, with
an
estimated
fortune
of
£475 million
in
2010.
Childhood
McCartney was born in Walton Hospital in
Liverpool, England, where his mother, Mary (née Mohan), had worked as a nurse in the maternity ward. He has one brother,
Michael, born 7 January 1944.McCartney was baptised Roman Catholic but was raised
non-denominationally: his mother was Roman Catholic and his father James, or "Jim" McCartney, was a
Protestant turned
agnostic.
In 1947, he began attending Stockton Wood Road Primary School. He then attended the Joseph Williams Junior School
and passed the
11-plus exam in 1953 with three others out of the 90 examinees, thus gaining admission to the
Liverpool Institute. In 1954, while taking the bus from his home in the suburb of
Speke to the Institute, he met
George Harrison, who lived nearby.Passing the exam meant that McCartney and Harrison could go to a
grammar school rather than a
secondary modern school, which the majority of pupils attended until they were eligible to work, but as grammar school pupils, they had to find new friends.
In 1955, the McCartney family moved to
20 Forthlin Road in
Allerton.
Mary McCartney rode a bicycle to houses where she was needed as a midwife, and an early McCartney memory is of her leaving when it was snowing heavily.On 31 October 1956, Mary McCartney died of an
embolism after a mastectomy operation to stop the spread of her breast cancer.The early loss of his mother later connected McCartney with
John Lennon, whose mother
Julia died after being struck by a car when Lennon was 17.
McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s and encouraged his two sons to be musical. Jim had an
upright piano in the front room that he had bought from
Epstein's North End Music Stores. McCartney's grandfather, Joe McCartney, played an E-flat
tuba. Jim McCartney used to point out the different instruments in songs on the radio, and often took McCartney to local brass band concerts.McCartney's father gave him a nickel-plated trumpet, but when
skiffle music became popular, McCartney swapped the trumpet for a £15
Framus Zenith (model 17)
acoustic guitar. As he was left-handed, McCartney found right-handed guitars difficult to play, but when he saw a poster advertising a
Slim Whitman concert, he realised that Whitman played left-handed with his guitar strung the opposite way to a right-handed player.McCartney wrote his first song ("
I Lost My Little Girl") on the Zenith, and also played his father's Framus
Spanish guitar when writing early songs with Lennon.
He later learned to play the piano and wrote his second song, "
When I'm Sixty-Four". On his father's advice, he took music lessons, but since he preferred to learn 'by ear' he never paid much attention to them.
McCartney was heavily influenced by American
Rhythm and Blues music. He has stated that
Little Richard was his idol when he was in school and that the first song he ever sang in public was "
Long Tall Sally", at a Butlins holiday camp talent competition.
Musical career
1957–1960
At the age of 15, McCartney met
John Lennon and
The Quarrymen at the St. Peter's Church Hall fête in
Woolton on 6 July 1957. He formed a close working relationship with Lennon and they collaborated writing many songs. Harrison joined the group in early 1958 as lead guitarist, followed in early 1960 by Lennon's art school friend,
Stuart Sutcliffe on bass. By May 1960, they had tried several new names, including "Johnny and the Moondogs" and "The Silver Beetles", playing a tour of Scotland under that name with
Johnny Gentle. They finally changed the name of the group to "The Beatles" in mid-August 1960 and recruited
Pete Best at short-notice to become their drummer for an imminent engagement in Hamburg.
1960–1970: The Beatles
From August 1960, The Beatles were booked by
Allan Williams,
to perform at a club in
Hamburg.During extended stays over the next two years, The Beatles performed as a
resident group in a number of Hamburg clubs. On returns to Liverpool they played at the
Cavern club. Prior to the end of the residency, Sutcliffe left the band, so McCartney, reluctantly, became The Beatles' bass player. The Beatles recorded their first published musical material in Hamburg, performing as the backing group for
Tony Sheridan on the single "
My Bonnie". This recording later brought the Beatles to the attention of a key figure in their subsequent development and commercial success,
Brian Epstein, who became their next manager. Epstein eventually negotiated a record contract for the group with
Parlophone in May 1962. After replacing Best with
Ringo Starr on drums, The Beatles became popular
in the UK in 1963 and
in the US in 1964. In 1965, they were each appointed
Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).
After performing concerts, plays, and tours almost non-stop for a period of nearly four years, and giving more than one thousand four hundred live performances internationally,The Beatles gave their last commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour. They continued to work in the recording studio from 1966 until their break-up in 1970. In the eight years from 1962 to 1970, the group had released twenty-four UK singles and twelve studio albums, often released in different configurations in the USA and other countries (see
discography).
Since 1970
McCartney during a
Wings concert, 1976
After
the break-up of The Beatles, McCartney continued his musical career, in solo work as well as in collaborations with other musicians. After releasing his solo album
McCartney in 1970, he worked with
Linda McCartney to record the album
Ram in 1971. Later the same year, the pair were joined by guitarist
Denny Laine and drummer
Denny Seiwell to form the group
Wings, which was active between 1971 and 1981 and released numerous successful singles and albums (see
discography). McCartney also collaborated with a number of other popular artists including
Stevie Wonder,
Michael Jackson,
Eric Stewart, and
Elvis Costello. In 1985, McCartney played "Let It Be" at the
Live Aid concert in London, backed by
Bob Geldof,
Pete Townshend,
David Bowie, and
Alison Moyet.
He collaborated with
Carl Davis to release
Liverpool Oratorio;
[ involving the opera singers
Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Sally Burgess,
Jerry Hadley and
Willard White, with the
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the choir of
Liverpool Cathedral.
[52] The Prince of Wales later honoured McCartney as a
Fellow of The
Royal College of Music and Honorary Member of the
Royal Academy of Music (2008).
Other forays into classical music included
Standing Stone (1997),
Working Classical (1999), and
Ecce Cor Meum (2006). It was announced in the 1997
New Year Honours that McCartney was to be
knighted for services to music,
becoming Sir Paul McCartney.
In 1999, McCartney was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist and in May 2000, he was awarded a Fellowship by the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. The 1990s also saw McCartney, Harrison, and Starr working together on
Apple's The Beatles Anthology documentary series.
McCartney performing in
Dublin, Ireland, on 10 July 2010
McCartney has continued to work in the realms of popular and classical music, touring the world and performing at a large number of concerts and events; on more than one occasion he has performed again with
Ringo Starr. In 2008, he received a
BRIT award for Outstanding Contribution to Music
and an honorary degree,
Doctor of Music, from
Yale University.
The same year, he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city's year as
European Capital of Culture.
In 2009, he received two nominations for the 51st annual Grammy awards, while in October of the same year he was named songwriter of the year at the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Awards. On 15 July 2009, more than 45 years after The Beatles first appeared on American television on
The Ed Sullivan Show, McCartney returned to the Ed Sullivan Theater and performed atop the marquee of
Late Show with David Letterman.
McCartney was portrayed in the 2009 film
Nowhere Boy, about Lennon's teenage years, by
Thomas Sangster.
Creative outlets
During the 1960s, McCartney was often seen at major cultural events, such as the launch party for the
International Times and at
The Roundhouse (28 January and 4 February 1967 respectively).
He also delved into the visual arts, becoming a close friend of leading art dealers and gallery owners, explored experimental film, and regularly attended movie, theatrical and classical music performances. His first contact with the London avant-garde scene was through
John Dunbar, who introduced him to the art dealer
Robert Fraser, who in turn introduced McCartney to an array of writers and artists. McCartney later became involved in the renovation and publicising of the
Indica Gallery in Mason's Yard, London—John Lennon first met
Yoko Ono at the Indica.The Indica Gallery brought McCartney into contact with
Barry Miles, whose underground newspaper, the
International Times, McCartney helped to start. Miles would become
de facto manager of the Apple's short-lived
Zapple Records label, and wrote McCartney's official biography,
Many Years From Now (1997).
Electronic music
After the recording of "
Yesterday" in 1965, McCartney contacted the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop in
Maida Vale, London, to see if they could record an electronic version of the song, but never followed it up.When visiting
John Dunbar's flat in London, McCartney would take along tapes he had compiled at Jane Asher's house.The tapes were mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that he had
Dick James make into a demo record for him.Heavily influenced by
John Cage, he made
tape loops by recording voices, guitars, and bongoes on a
Brenell tape recorder, and splicing the various loops together. He reversed the tapes, sped them up, and slowed them down to create the effects he wanted, some of which were later used on Beatles' recordings, such as "
Tomorrow Never Knows". McCartney referred to the tapes as "electronic symphonies".
In the spring of 1966 McCartney rented a ground floor and basement flat from
Ringo Starr at
34 Montagu Square, to be used as a small demo studio for spoken-word recordings by poets, writers (including
William S. Burroughs) and
avant-garde musicians.The Beatles' Apple Records then launched a sub-label,
Zapple with Miles as its manager, ostensibly to release recordings of a similar aesthetic, although few releases would ultimately result as Apple and The Beatles slid into business and personal difficulties.
In 1995, McCartney recorded a radio series called "
Oobu Joobu"
for the American network
Westwood One, which he described as being "wide-screen radio". During the 1990s, McCartney collaborated with
Youth of
Killing Joke under the name
The Fireman,
and released two
ambient electronic albums:
Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest (1993) and
Rushes (1998). In 2000, he released an album titled
Liverpool Sound Collage with
Super Furry Animals and Youth, utilising the sound collage and
musique concrète techniques that fascinated him in the mid-1960s. In 2005, he worked on a project with
bootleg producer and
remixer Freelance Hellraiser, consisting of remixed versions of songs from throughout his solo career which were released under the title
Twin Freaks.
The Fireman's third album
Electric Arguments was released on 25 November 2008. Unlike the first two Fireman albums, this one was more song-based in its structure. McCartney told
L.A. Weekly in a January 2009, "Fireman is improvisational theatre ... I formalise it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I’m about to do. I usually have a song, and I know the melody and lyrics, and my performance is the only unknown."
Film
McCartney was interested in
animated films as a child, and later had the financial resources to ask Geoff Dunbar to direct a short animated film called
Rupert and the Frog Song, in 1981. McCartney was the producer, he wrote the music and the script, and also added some of the character voices.
McCartney wrote and starred in the 1984 film
Give My Regards to Broad Street. The film and soundtrack featured the popular hit "
No More Lonely Nights", and the album reached No.1 in the UK, but the film did not do well commercially or critically.
Roger Ebert awarded the film a single star and wrote, "You can safely skip the movie and proceed directly to the sound track."
Dunbar worked again with McCartney on an animated film about the work of French artist
Honoré Daumier, in 1992, which won both of them a
Bafta award.
They also worked on
Tropic Island Hum, in 1997.
In 1995, McCartney made a guest appearance in the
Lisa the Vegetarian episode of
The Simpsons, and directed a short documentary about
The Grateful Dead.
In May 2000, McCartney released
Wingspan: An Intimate Portrait, a retrospective documentary that features behind-the-scenes films and photographs that Paul and Linda McCartney (who had died in 1998) took of their family and bands.
Interspersed throughout the 88 minute film is an interview by
Mary McCartney with her father. Mary was the baby photographed inside McCartney's jacket on the back cover of his first solo album,
McCartney, and was one of the producers of the documentary.
Painting
McCartney's love of painting surfaced after watching artist
Willem de Kooning paint, in Kooning's
Long Island studio. McCartney took up painting in 1983. In 1999, he exhibited his paintings (featuring McCartney's portraits of
John Lennon,
Andy Warhol, and
David Bowie) for the first time in
Siegen, Germany, and included photographs by
Linda. He chose the gallery because Wolfgang Suttner (local events organiser) was genuinely interested in his art, and the positive reaction led to McCartney showing his work in UK galleries.
The first UK exhibition of McCartney's work was opened in
Bristol, England with more than 50 paintings on display. McCartney had previously believed that "only people that had been to art school were allowed to paint"—as Lennon had.
In October 2000,
Yoko Ono and McCartney presented art exhibitions in New York and London. McCartney said, "I've been offered an exhibition of my paintings at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool where John and I used to spend many a pleasant afternoon. So I'm really excited about it. I didn't tell anybody I painted for 15 years but now I'm out of the closet."
As an artist, Paul McCartney designed a series of six postage stamps issued by the
Isle of Man Post on 1 July 2002. According to BBC News, McCartney seems to be the first major rock star in the world who is also known as a stamp designer.
Writing and poetry
When McCartney was young, his mother read him poems and encouraged him to read books. McCartney's father was interested in
crosswords and invited the two young McCartneys (Paul and his brother Michael) to solve them with him, so as to increase their "word power". McCartney was later inspired—in his school years—by
Alan Durband, who was McCartney's English literature teacher at the Liverpool Institute.Durband was a co-founder and fund-raiser at the
Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, where
Willy Russell also worked, and introduced McCartney to
Geoffrey Chaucer's works. McCartney later took his
A-level exams, but passed only one subject—Art.
In 2001 McCartney published 'Blackbird Singing', a volume of poems, some of which were lyrics to his songs, and gave readings in Liverpool and New York City.
Some of them were serious: "Here Today" (about Lennon) and some humorous ("
Maxwell's Silver Hammer").
In the foreword of the book, McCartney explained that when he was a teenager, he had "an overwhelming desire" to have a poem of his published in the school magazine. He wrote something "deep and meaningful", but it was rejected, and he feels that he has been trying to get some kind of revenge ever since. His first "real poem" was about the death of his childhood friend,
Ivan Vaughan.
In October 2005, McCartney released a children's book called
High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail. In a press release publicising the book, McCartney said, "I have loved reading for as long as I can remember", singling out
Treasure Island as a childhood favourite.
McCartney collaborated with author
Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar to write the book.
Contact with fellow ex-Beatles
John Lennon
Although McCartney's post-Beatles relationship with
John Lennon was troubled, they became close again briefly in 1974 and even played together for the only time since The Beatles split (see
A Toot and a Snore in '74). In later years, the two grew apart again. McCartney would often call Lennon, but was never sure of what sort of reception he would get, such as when McCartney once called Lennon and was told, "You're all pizza and fairytales!" McCartney understood that he could not just phone Lennon and only talk about business, so they often talked about cats, baking bread, or babies. According to
May Pang, during Lennon's "Lost Weekend" with her they planned to visit McCartney in New Orleans, where McCartney was recording the
Venus and Mars album, but Lennon went back to Ono the day before the planned visit after Ono said she had a new cure for Lennon's smoking habit.
In a 1980 interview, Lennon said that the last time he had seen McCartney was when they had watched the episode of
Saturday Night Live (May 1976) in which
Lorne Michaels had made his $3,000 cash offer
to get Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr to reunite on the show.
McCartney and Lennon had seriously considered going to the studio, but were too tired.This event was fictionalised in the 2000 television film
Two of Us. His last telephone call to Lennon, which was just before Lennon and Ono released
Double Fantasy, was friendly. During the call, Lennon said (laughing) to McCartney, "This housewife wants a career!"
which referred to Lennon's househusband years, while looking after
Sean Lennon.In 1984, McCartney said this about the phone call: "Yes. That is a nice thing, a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out. But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn't have any kind of blow-up."
Linda McCartney, speaking in the same 1984 interview stated: "I know that Paul was desperate to write with John again. And I know John was desperate to write. Desperate. People thought, well, he's taking care of Sean, he's a househusband and all that, but he wasn't happy. He couldn't write and it drove him crazy. And Paul could have helped him... easily."
- Reaction to Lennon's murder
On the morning of 9 December 1980, McCartney awoke to the news that Lennon had been murdered outside his home in
the Dakota building in
New York.
Lennon's death created a
media frenzy around the surviving members of The Beatles.
On the evening of 9 December, as McCartney was leaving an
Oxford Street recording studio, he was surrounded by reporters and asked for his reaction to Lennon's death.
He was later criticised for what appeared, when published, to be an utterly superficial response: "It's a drag". McCartney explained, "When John was killed somebody stuck a microphone at me and said: 'What do you think about it?' I said, 'It's a dra-a-ag' and meant it with every inch of melancholy I could muster. When you put that in print it says, 'McCartney in London today when asked for a comment on his dead friend said, "It's a drag."' It seemed a very flippant comment to make."McCartney was also to recall:
| “ | I talked to Yoko the day after he was killed and the first thing she said was, "John was really fond of you." The last telephone conversation I had with him we were still the best of mates. He was always a very warm guy, John. His bluff was all on the surface. He used to take his glasses down, those granny glasses, and say, "It's only me." They were like a wall, you know? A shield. Those are the moments I treasure. | ” |
In 1983, McCartney said:
| “ | I would not have been as typically human and standoffish as I was if I knew John was going to die. I would have made more of an effort to try and get behind his "mask" and have a better relationship with him.' | ” |
In a
Playboy interview in 1984, McCartney said that he went home that night and watched the news on television—while sitting with all his children—and cried all evening.
McCartney carried on recording after the death of Lennon but did not play any live concerts for some time. He explained that this was because he was nervous that he would be "the next" to be murdered. This led to a disagreement with
Denny Laine, who wanted to continue touring and subsequently left Wings, which McCartney disbanded in 1981.Also in June 1981, six months after Lennon's death, McCartney sang backup on George Harrison's tribute to Lennon, "
All Those Years Ago", which also featured
Ringo Starr on drums. McCartney would go on to record "Here Today", a tribute song to Lennon.
George Harrison
In 1977, Harrison had this to say about working with McCartney: "There were a lot of tracks though where I played bass...because what Paul would do, if he's written a song, he'd learn all the parts for Paul and then come in the studio and say, 'Do this.' He'd never give you the opportunity to come out with something. Paul would always help along when you'd done his ten songs—then when he got 'round to doing one of my songs, he would help. It was silly. It was very selfish, actually."
While being interviewed circa 1988, Harrison said McCartney had recently mentioned the possibility of the two of them writing together, to which Harrison laughed, "I've only been there about 30 years in Paul's life and it's like now he wants to write with me.
In September 1980, Lennon said of Harrison and McCartney's working relationship: "I remember the day [Harrison] called to ask for help on "Taxman", one of his bigger songs. I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along, because that's what he asked for. He came to me because he could not go to Paul, because Paul would not have helped him at that period."
Despite this statement, McCartney did contribute to the song, playing the track's guitar solo.
In late 2001, McCartney learned that Harrison was losing his battle with cancer. Upon Harrison's death on 29 November 2001, McCartney told
Entertainment Tonight,
Access Hollywood,
Extra,
Good Morning America,
The Early Show,
MTV,
VH1 and
Today that George was like his "baby brother". Harrison spent his last days in a Hollywood Hills mansion that was once leased by McCartney.
On the day Harrison died, McCartney said, "George was a fantastic guy...still laughing and joking...a very brave man...and I love him like...he's my brother."
While guesting on
Larry King Live alongside Ringo Starr, McCartney said of the last time he saw Harrison, "We just sat there stroking hands. And this is a guy, and, you know, you don't stroke hands with guys, like that, you know it was just beautiful. We just spent a couple of hours and it was really lovely it was like...a favourite memory of mine."
On the first anniversary of Harrison's death, McCartney played Harrison's "
Something" on a
ukulele at the
Concert for George.
Personal relationships
One of McCartney's first girlfriends, in 1959, was called Layla, a name he remembers being unusual in Liverpool at the time. Layla was slightly older than McCartney and used to ask him to
baby-sit with her. Julie Arthur, another girlfriend, was
Ted Ray's niece.
Dot Rhone
McCartney's first serious girlfriend in Liverpool was Dot Rhone, whom he met at the
Casbah club in 1959. McCartney chose clothes and make-up for Rhone, and he paid for her to have her hair styled like
Brigitte Bardot's.When McCartney first went to Hamburg with The Beatles, he wrote to Rhone regularly, and she accompanied
Cynthia Lennon to Hamburg when The Beatles played there again in 1962. The couple had a three-year relationship, and were due to marry until Rhone's miscarriage.
Jane Asher
McCartney first met the British actress
Jane Asher on 18 April 1963, when a photographer asked them to pose together at a Beatles performance at the
Royal Albert Hall in London. The two began a relationship and McCartney took up residence with Asher at her parents' house at 57 Wimpole Street London, where he lived for nearly three years before the couple moved to McCartney's own house in
St. John's Wood. McCartney wrote several songs while at the Ashers', including "
Yesterday" and several inspired by Asher, among them "
And I Love Her", "
You Won't See Me", and "
I'm Looking Through You". McCartney and Asher had a five-year relationship, and they planned to marry, but Asher broke off the engagement when she discovered McCartney had become involved with another woman,
Francie Schwartz. However, Schwartz stated that McCartney and Asher had already broken up before the incident.
Linda McCartney
McCartney performing with wife Linda in 1976
In 1969, McCartney married American photographer
Linda Eastman, whom he described as the woman who gave him "the strength and courage to work again" after the break-up of The Beatles. The pair had met previously at a 1967
Georgie Fame concert at
The Bag O'Nails club,
[95][150] during her UK assignment to take photographs of "Swinging Sixties" musicians in London. Paul and Linda were both vegetarian and supported the animal rights organisation
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals They had four children—Linda's daughter
Heather (who was adopted by Paul),
Mary,
Stella and
James—and remained married until Linda's death from breast cancer in 1998.
Heather Mills
In 2002, McCartney married
Heather Mills, a former model and anti-
landmines campaigner. The couple had a child, Beatrice, in 2003. They separated in May 2006 and were divorced in May 2008.
Widespread animosity towards McCartney's wives was reported in 2004. "They [the British public] didn't like me giving up on Jane Asher", McCartney said. "I married a New York divorcee with a child, and at the time they didn't like that."
[153]Nancy Shevell
Lifestyle
Drugs
McCartney's introduction to drugs started in
Hamburg, Germany.
The Beatles had to play for hours, and they were often given "Prellies" (
Preludin) by German customers or by
Astrid Kirchherr (whose mother bought them). McCartney would usually take one, but Lennon would often take four or five.
McCartney remembered getting "very high" and giggling when The Beatles were introduced to cannabis by
Bob Dylan in New York, in 1964. McCartney's use of cannabis became regular, and he was quoted as saying that any future Beatles' lyrics containing the words "high", or "grass" were written specifically as a reference to cannabis, as was the phrase "another kind of mind" in "
Got to Get You into My Life".
John Dunbar's flat at 29 Lennox Gardens, in London, became a regular hang-out for McCartney, where he talked to musicians, writers and artists, and smoked cannabis. In 1965,
Barry Miles introduced McCartney to
hash brownies by using a recipe for
hash fudge he found in the
Alice B. Toklas Cookbook. During the filming of
Help!, he occasionally smoked a
spliff in the car on the way to the studio during filming, which often made him forget his lines.
Help! director
Dick Lester said that he overheard "two beautiful women" trying to cajole McCartney into taking heroin, but he refused.
McCartney's attitude about cannabis was made public in the 1960s, when he added his name to an advertisement in
The Times, on 24 July 1967, which asked for the legalisation of cannabis, the release of all prisoners imprisoned because of possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses. The advertisement was sponsored by a group called Soma and was signed by 65 people, including The Beatles, Epstein,
RD Laing, 15 doctors, and two
MPs.
[164]McCartney was introduced to cocaine by
Robert Fraser, and it was available during the recording of
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.He admitted that he used the drug multiple times for about a year but stopped because of the unpleasant comedown.
In 1967, on a sailing trip to Greece(with the idea of buying an island for the whole group)
McCartney said everybody sat around and took
LSD, although McCartney had first taken it with
Tara Browne, in 1966. He took his second "
acid trip" with Lennon on 21 March 1967 after a studio session. McCartney was the first British pop star to openly admit using LSD, in an interview in the now-defunct "Queen" magazine.His admission was followed by a TV interview in the UK on
ITN on 19 June 1967, and when McCartney was asked about his admission of LSD use, he said:
| “ | I was asked a question by a newspaper, and the decision was whether to tell a lie or tell him the truth. I decided to tell him the truth ... but I really didn't want to say anything, you know, because if I had my way I wouldn't have told anyone. I'm not trying to spread the word about this. But the man from the newspaper is the man from the mass medium. I'll keep it a personal thing if he does too, you know ... if he keeps it quiet. But he wanted to spread it so it's his responsibility, you know, for spreading it, not mine. | ” |
On 16 January 1980, Wings went to Tokyo for 11 concerts in Japan.As McCartney was going through customs, officials found 7.7 ounces (218.3 g) of cannabis in his luggage. He was arrested and taken to a Tokyo prison while the Japanese government decided what to do. McCartney had been previously denied a visa to Japan (in 1975) because he had been convicted twice in Europe for possession of cannabis.
Public figures called for McCartney to be put on
trial for drug-smuggling. Had he been convicted, he would have faced up to seven years in prison. The Wings Japanese tour was cancelled and the other members of Wings left Japan. After ten days in jail, McCartney was released and deported. He was told that he would not be welcome in Japan again, although a decade later he played a concert in Tokyo. In 1984, Paul and Linda McCartney were both arrested for possession of cannabis.
[176][177]In an interview in 2004 he stated the he no longer smoked
marijuana, He also admitted to taking
Heroin,
LSD and
Cocaine but said his drug use was never excessive.
Meditation
On 24 August 1967, McCartney met the
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the
London Hilton, and later went to
Bangor, in North Wales, to attend a weekend 'initiation' conference, at which time he and the other Beatles learned Transcendental Meditation (TM).
"The whole meditation experience was very good and I still use the mantra. . . I find it soothing and I can imagine that the more you were to get into it, the more interesting it would get." The time McCartney later spent
in India at the Maharishi's ashram was highly productive, as practically all of the songs that would later be recorded for
The White Album and
Abbey Road were composed there by McCartney, Lennon, or both together. Although McCartney was told that he was never to repeat the mantra to anyone else, he did tell Linda McCartney, and said he meditated a lot while he was in jail in Japan. In 2009, McCartney, along with
Ringo Starr, headlined a benefit concert at
Radio City Music Hall, raising three million dollars for the
David Lynch Foundation to fund instruction in
Transcendental Meditation for at-risk youth.
[183][184][185]Activism
Paul and Linda McCartney became outspoken vegetarians and animal-rights activists. They said that their vegetarianism was realised when they happened to see lambs in a field as they ate a meal of lamb.
McCartney has also credited the 1942
Disney film
Bambi—in which the young deer's mother is shot by a hunter—as the original inspiration for him to take an interest in
animal rights.
[187] In his first interview after Linda's death, he promised to continue working for animal rights.
[188][189] 
McCartney's campaign against landmines
In 1999, McCartney spent £3,000,000 to make sure Linda McCartney's food range remained free of
GM ingredients.
In 2002, McCartney gave his support to a campaign against a proposed ban on the sale of certain vitamins, herbs, and mineral products in the European Union.
[191] Following his marriage to Heather Mills, McCartney joined with her to campaign against
landmines;
[192][193] both McCartney and Mills are patrons of
Adopt-A-Minefield. In 2003, he played a personal concert for the wife of a wealthy banker and donated his one million dollar fee to the charity.
He also wore an anti-landmines t-shirt on the
Back in the World tour.
In 2006, the McCartneys travelled to
Prince Edward Island to bring international attention to the
seal hunt (their final public appearance together). Their arrival sparked attention in
Newfoundland and Labrador where the hunt is of economic significance.
The couple also debated with Newfoundland's Premier
Danny Williams on the CNN show
Larry King Live. They further stated that the fishermen should quit hunting seals and begin a seal watching business.
McCartney has also criticised China's fur trade
and supports the
Make Poverty History campaign.
In a December 2008 interview with
Prospect Magazine, McCartney mentioned that he tried to convince the
Dalai Lama to become a vegetarian. In a letter to the Dalai Lama, McCartney took issue with Buddhism and meat-eating being considered compatible, saying, "Forgive me for pointing this out, but if you eat animals then there is some suffering somewhere along the line." The Dalai Lama replied to McCartney by saying his doctors advised him to eat meat for health reasons. In the interview McCartney said, "I wrote back saying they were wrong."
[203]The Beatles were advised by Epstein to make no comments about the football clubs they supported because it could alienate some fans, though it was well known that McCartney was a supporter of
Everton Football Club, and that his father and relatives used to take him to matches.
His allegiance later shifted to
Liverpool F.C.,
as on 28 July 1968, The Beatles were photographed in a photographer's studio at 192–212 Gray's Inn Road, with McCartney wearing a Liverpool F.C.
rosette.
[209] Linda McCartney later said: "We spent last night listening to Liverpool football team on the radio, wanting them to win so badly. Paul supports Liverpool. He was for Everton for a while because of his family — but it's all Liverpool now."
[206][211]At the end of the live version of "
Coming Up" recorded in Glasgow in 1979 (later to become a US number one single) the crowd begins to sing "Paul McCartney!" until McCartney takes over and changes the chant to "
Kenny Dalglish!", referring to the current Liverpool and Scotland striker. At the same concert,
Gordon Smith, former
football player who played for
Rangers and
Brighton & Hove Albion, met the McCartneys, and later accepted an invitation to visit their home in East Sussex in 1980. Smith later said that McCartney was "thrilled I knew
Kenny Dalglish", to which Linda added: "I like
Gordon McQueen of Man United", and Smith replied, "I know him too."
In an interview in 2008, McCartney ended speculation about his allegiance when he said:
"Here's the deal: my father was born in Everton, my family are officially Evertonians, so if it comes down to a derby match or an FA Cup final between the two, I would have to support Everton. But after a concert at Wembley Arena I got a bit of a friendship with Kenny Dalglish, who had been to the gig and I thought 'You know what? I am just going to support them both because it's all Liverpool and I don't have that Catholic-Protestant thing.' So I did have to get special dispensation from the Pope to do this but that's it, too bad. I support them both. They are both great teams, but if it comes to the crunch, I'm Evertonian."
In 2010, there was heavy speculation surrounding McCartney that he was to head up a consortium launching a take-over bid for struggling
Charlton Athletic. Links between the club and the famous musician go a long way back with Charlton's famous supporters anthem – Valley, Floyd Road – using the tune and a number of lyrics from the Wings song "
Mull of Kintyre".
Business
McCartney is one of Britain's wealthiest musicians, with an estimated fortune of £750 million ($1.2 billion) in 2009,
although Justice Bennett, in his judgement on McCartney's divorce case found no evidence that McCartney was worth more than £400 million.
In December 1998, he was approached to purchase a stake in
Everton Football Club by former school friend
Bill Kenwright who wished to put a consortium together but McCartney chose to decline the offer.
In addition to his interest in
Apple Corps, McCartney's
MPL Communications owns a significant
music publishing catalogue, with access to over 25,000 copyrights.
] McCartney earned £40 million in 2003, making him Britain's highest media earner.
This rose to £48.5 million by 2005.
In the same year he joined the top American talent agency Grabow Associates, who arrange private performances for their richest clients.
Northern Songs was established in 1963, by
Dick James, to publish the songs of Lennon/McCartney.
The Beatles' partnership was replaced in 1968 by a jointly held company,
Apple Corps, which continues to control Apple's commercial interests.
Northern Songs was purchased by
Associated Television (ATV) in 1969, and was sold in 1985 to
Michael Jackson. For many years McCartney was unhappy about Jackson's purchase and handling of Northern Songs.
In April 2009, it was revealed that McCartney, in common with other wealthy musicians, had seen a significant decline in his net worth over the preceding year. It was estimated that his fortune had fallen by some £60m, from £238m to £175m.
The losses were attributed to the ongoing
global recession, and the resultant decline in value of property and
stock market holdings.
Critique, recognition and achievements
McCartney performing in
Prague, 6 June 2004
McCartney is listed in
The Guinness Book Of Records as the most successful musician and composer in popular music history with sales of 100 million singles and 60 gold discs, "Sir Paul McCartney became the Most Successful Songwriter who has written/co written 188 charted records, of which 91 reached the Top 10 and 33 made it to No.1 totalling 1,662 weeks on the chart (up to the beginning of 2008)."
In the US, McCartney has achieved thirty-two number-one singles on the
Billboard Hot 100, including twenty-one with The Beatles,
one as a co-writer on Elton John's cover of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds",
nine solo, with Wings or other collaborators,
and one as the composer of "
A World Without Love", a number one single for
Peter and Gordon.
In the UK, McCartney has been involved in more number-one singles than any other artist under a variety of credits, although
Elvis Presley has achieved more as a solo artist. McCartney has twenty four number-one singles in the UK, including seventeen with the Beatles, one solo, and one each with Wings,
Stevie Wonder,
Ferry Aid,
Band Aid,
Band Aid 20 and one with "The Christians et all".
McCartney is the only artist to reach the UK number one as a
soloist ("Pipes of Peace"), duo ("Ebony and Ivory" with Stevie Wonder),
trio ("Mull of Kintyre", Wings), quartet ("She Loves You", The Beatles), quintet ("Get Back", The Beatles with
Billy Preston), and as part of a musical ensemble for charity (
Ferry Aid).
McCartney was voted the "Greatest Composer of the Millennium" by BBC News Online readers and McCartney's song "
Yesterday" is thought to be the most covered song in history with more than 2,200 recorded versions
and according to the BBC, "The track is the only one by a UK writer to have been aired more than seven million times on American TV and radio and is third in the all-time list. Sir Paul McCartney's Yesterday is the most played song by a British writer this century in the US."
After its 1977 release, the Wings single "Mull of Kintyre" became the highest-selling record in British chart history, and remained so until 1984.
[241] (Three charity singles have since surpassed it in sales; the first to do so, in 1984, was
Band Aid's "
Do They Know It's Christmas?" in which McCartney was a participant.)
On 2 July 2005, he was involved with the fastest-released single in history. His performance of "
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" with
U2 at
Live 8 was released only 45 minutes after it was performed, before the end of the concert.
The single reached number six on the
Billboard charts, just hours after the single's release, and hit number one on numerous online download charts across the world.
McCartney played for the largest stadium audience in history when 184,000 people paid to see him perform at
Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 21 April 1990.
McCartney's scheduled concert in
St Petersburg, Russia was his 3,000th concert and took place in front of 60,000 fans in Russia, on 20 June 2004.
Over his career, McCartney has played 2,523 gigs with The Beatles, 140 with Wings, and 325 as a solo artist.
Only his second concert in Russia, with the first just the year before on Moscow's
Red Square as the former Communist
U.S.S.R. had previously banned music from The Beatles as a "corrupting influence", McCartney hired 3
jets, at a reported cost of $36,000 (€29,800) (£28,000), to spray
dry ice in the clouds above Saint Petersburg's
Winter Palace Square in a successful attempt to prevent rain.
The day McCartney flew into the former Soviet country, he celebrated his 62nd birthday, and after the concert, according to
RIA Novosti news agency, he received a phone call from a fan; then-President
Vladimir Putin, who telephoned him after the concert to wish him a happy birthday.
In the concert programme for his 1989 world tour, McCartney wrote that Lennon received all the credit for being the
avant-garde Beatle,and McCartney was known as "baby-faced", which he disagreed with. People also assumed that Lennon was the "hard-edged one", and McCartney was the "soft-edged" Beatle, although McCartney admitted to "bossing Lennon around." Linda McCartney said that McCartney had a "hard-edge"—and not just on the surface—which she knew about after all the years she had spent living with him.
McCartney seemed to confirm this edge when he commented that he sometimes meditates, which he said is better than "sleeping, eating, or shouting at someone".
The minor planet
4148, discovered in 1983, was named "McCartney" in his honour.
On 18 June 2006, McCartney celebrated his 64th birthday, a milestone that was the subject of one of the first songs he ever wrote, at the age of sixteen, The Beatles' song "
When I'm Sixty-Four".
Paul Vallely noted in
The Independent:
Arms
| Arms of Paul McCartney |
|
| Notes | |  |
|
| Crest | On a Wreath of the Colours A Liver Bird calling Sable supporting with the dexter claws a Guitar Or stringed Sable. |
|
| Escutcheon | Or between two Flaunches fracted fesswise two Roundels Sable over all six Guitar Strings palewise throughout counterchanged. |
|
| Motto | ECCE COR MEUM (Behold my heart) |
|
