PAUL McCARTNEY REVEALS RECURRING BEATLES NIGHTMARE

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PAUL McCARTNEY REVEALS RECURRING BEATLES NIGHTMARE
MARTIN KIELTY
August 23, 2018


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Paul McCartney revealed he has to deal with a recurring nightmare about the Beatles, in which everything that can go wrong indeed goes wrong.

But he said there was also a positive side to the dream that keeps coming back to him.

“We’re playing a dreadful gig somewhere and the audience are walking out,” he told Mojo in a new interview. “That happens a lot. But I get to meet John [Lennon], and George [Harrison]. So that’s kinda good.”


The Beatles Live Concert The Cow Palace August 31, 1965

On the theme of things going wrong he observed, “Sometimes in your life, you’re not a god on Olympus. You’re a real person walking round the streets. I’m a grandfather, a father, a husband, and in that package there’s no guarantee that every minute’s gonna go right. In fact, quite the opposite.”

Elsewhere in the interview, McCartney recalled the period of heavy drinking he went through in the aftermath of the Beatles’ split in 1970. “I did used to get stoned and wasted,” he said, “most particularly in the period right after the Beatles. I was bummed out and in the middle of this horrendous shit where someone was going to take every penny we’d ever made. That wasn’t easy and led to a very difficult time in my life. I definitely self-medicated there and drank more than I ever had and probably more than I ever have since. But you go through it.”



Those memories, and the experiences of recovering alcoholic friends Ringo Starr and Joe Walsh, inspired a song called “Happy With You” on McCartney’s upcoming album Egypt Station.



“When we were growing up, everyone would be going to the pub and drinking, but mostly it all seemed quite jolly," he recalled. "But when I talk to Ringo about it, he says, ‘No, if you give me vodka, I would have to finish the bottle.' I did used to get a little bit more crazy than I do now. I’ve got eight grandchildren. I haven’t got the time. Granddad can’t just be sitting in his armchair with a great big doobie on and a bottle of tequila.”

McCartney added that he does allow himself a glass of wine each week. “It’s a big glass!” he noted.


Paul McCartney and Keith Richards, drunk as skunks