Peter Ames Carlin - Paul McCartney: A Life

O THER TITLES BY P ETER A MES C ARLIN
Catch a Wave: The Rise, Fall and Redemption
of the Beach Boys Brian Wilson

Beyond the Limits

Brave New Bride

A Life

P ETER A MES C ARLIN

A T OUCHSTONE B OOK
Published by Simon & Schuster
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Copyright 2009 by Peter Ames Carlin

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Touchstone Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Touchstone hardcover edition November 2009

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Designed by Ruth Lee-Mui

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carlin, Peter Ames.

Paul McCartney: a life / Peter Ames Carlin.1st Touchstone hardcover ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. McCartney, Paul. 2. Rock musiciansEnglandBiography. I. Title.
ML410.M115C37 2009
782.42166092dc22

[B] 2009004281

ISBN 978-1-4165-6209-2
ISBN 978-1-4165-6223-8 (eBook)

For Ralph Berkowitz

Paul McCartney is almost home.

Hes in Liverpool, the city where he was born and raised. Not just that, but hes in Anfield, the section of Liverpool where his father grew up, where his grandfather lived and worked and raised his family, way back in the nineteenth century. No wonder Paul is beaming. He is only weeks from celebrating his sixty-sixth birthday, and at this moment he is right where his people have always been. In the midst of his family. Surrounded by friends. Right in the middle of a party. Joe McCartney would have been doing this, too, not a mile away, in 1908. Jim McCartney did it his way in 1928. And now, nearly a decade into the twenty-first century, Jims son is doing the same thing.

His cheeks glow. His eyes sparkle. His mouth opens wide as he tilts his head back and lets out a high-pitched howl of delight. Ahhhhhhh!

Tens of thousands of voices scream back.

Paul is wearing a dark suit with its collar turned up and a loose white shirt on underneath. His hair is preternaturally brown, which makes him look young, but in a kind of surreal way. But more important, he has his Hfner bass strapped around his neck, and this makes him lookand almost certainly feelageless. As he knows, its the instrument you see him holding when you close your eyes. If rock n roll has any iconic symbols, Pauls violin-shaped Hfner bass is one of them. It is his Rosebud, his Excalibur. Its not the key to his past, exactly. But that he still has it, and wields it so frequently in public, tells you something.

The Hfner is light in his hands and moves easily on his waist as he turns around and plucks a few notes. Behind him the drummer taps the hi-hat cymbal gently, establishing a rhythm. Paul spins on his heel, steps up to the microphone, and barks out a greeting to the one hundred thousand faces arrayed before him.

Faw goodness sakeI got that hippy hippy shake...

An explosion of drums and guitars and keyboards meets the roar from the crowd, and this is the instant when Paul really comes home. He didnt write this song, but he made it his own nearly fifty years ago, playing with some friends in a dank basement filled with kids from the neighborhood. Nobody talked about history then, nobody thought in terms of icons or legends. But what would any of that have mattered? They had three chords, drums, and some wild nonsense about shaking it to the left, then shaking it to the right, and doing a hippy shake-shake with all of your might. And that was really all they needed, really all that could possibly matter.

Thats where it began for Paul and his friends. And then it was everywhere else. A bigger basement, then a beer-splattered nightclub in Hamburg, Germany. A dance hall, then an auditorium, then more auditoriums. Then they were in London, then Paris, then New York City. Then they were all around the world. And then the other three were gone, and it was just him and Linda. And he made sure she came with him now, out onstage to ride that wave of energy. Then there was life, too. Home and kids and all that, but still the lights and the cameras and the music in the studios. And always the pure electric blast of guitars and drums and keyboards and his own sweet, clear, piercing voice.

Hes standing up there now, his body coiled like a spring, his fingers dancing on the frets of the Hfner, his voice wailing, because he wants to tell you his story. Not in words, exactly. Certainly, Paul likes to talk about himself, organizing and reorganizing facts and ideas to fit his evolving sense of reality. But the mans heart is in his music, so this is where his truth resides. Listen. Hes done with Hippy Hippy Shake now, and so much more is to come. Its his whole life up there, flashing before your, and his, ears.

Now its Jet and Paul and Linda at their height. Young, in love, with children and dogs at their feet, stoned out of their sweet, goofy gourds. Flash back now to Drive My Car, and its John and Paul huddled by the piano, weaving a slim idea and a bit of attitude into a wickedly slinky rocker about lust, money, and power. I got no car and its breaking my heart / But I found a driver, and thats a start! The entire writing of the song took, what, two hours? And that included a tea break. Next jump thirty years to Flaming Pie, and a look back at that same fated partnership, with a flicker of resentment for anyone who thought he might have been the junior partner: Im the man on the flaming pie! And just to prove Pauls still on top of it, heres his new single, Dance Tonight, perhaps the most gloomy invitation to boogie that has ever been issued.

Oh, but now a moment to remember George with a ukulele-led version of Something. This is sweet and yet strange. A ukulele? Paul plays it far more straight with his own classics Penny Lane and Hey Jude. Even straighter with Yesterday, that gift from the subconscious whose melancholy seems to spring straight from the loss that devastated him as a teenager, that made him grip his guitar so tightly he never let it go. Let It Be tells another version of the same storyhere mother Mary takes her own formthen comes another tribute, this one far more emotionally complex given all that happened, and all that didnt, and where hes singing this, and how he knows full well that Yoko Ono is out there in the audience watching his every move.

I read the news today, oh boy...

Hes never tried this before, a live take on A Day in the Life, perhaps the most complicated recording the Beatles ever committed to tape. It is, in many ways, the true apex of his collaboration with John Lennon, the seamless marriage of one mans existential gloom with anothers surreal prankishness. The cameras find Yoko in the crowd, a black top hat perched elegantly on her jet-black hair, and shes smiling and nodding even as the live music fades to make room for a taped sample of the famous orchestral anarchy, building to a slightly underwhelming climax in the stadiums speakers. Then theres a quick pivot and the band lurches into full-throttle anthem mode for the chorus of Give Peace a Chance.