My Recent Interview With Paul McCartney

BILL: Paul! Great to have you here.

PAUL: It’s great to be had.

BILL: You mean like… “fooled?”

PAUL: Never mind.

BILL: OK, so what was it like being a member of The Beatles?

PAUL: Can you narrow that down a bit?

BILL: What was it like being a Beatle?

PAUL: Well, it had its highs and lows.

BILL: Lot of highs from what producer George Martin had to say.

PAUL: To quote Schultz from Hogan’s Heroes: “Jolly joke.”

BILL: Thanks. I thought so. So let me ask you: What was your favorite Beatles album?

PAUL: “Let It Be.”

BILL: And why is that?

PAUL: Because it was the last one.

BILL: Things were that bad near the end, were they?

PAUL: Let’s just say I was glad when it was all over.

BILL: You know, I have to say, my favorite Beatles song is “The Long and Winding Road” which you wrote and sang, but which was altered quite a bit by Phil Spector. Much to your disappointment.

PAUL: The strings, harps and horns, you mean?

BILL: Yeah, I love that arrangement.

PAUL: Well, you’re an idiot.

BILL: (laughing) Who would ever think that a guy who stuffed a gun into a woman’s mouth and blew her head off could write such beautiful music?

PAUL: Who would ever think “The Catcher In the Rye” could inspire someone to shoot John?

BILL: I remember having to read that in high school and wanting to shoot myself. Does that count?

PAUL: How did you get this bloody gig?

BILL: Change up! What was your reaction the first time you heard Yoko Ono sing?

PAUL: Is that what you’re calling it then?

BUILL: Ouch! Seriously though.

PAUL: Honestly? It sounded like an owl being tortured. It sounded like… like…

BILL: Like a blackbird singing in the dead of night?

PAUL: Like a blackbird being tortured in the dead of night.

BILL: You and John had a peculiar songwriting credit method in that you shared credit despite each of you frequently writing songs separately.

PAUL: I often get asked about this and here’s a good hint: When I’m singing the lead that tends to indicate that it was a song that I wrote. When John was singing that was probably a song that he mostly wrote.

BILL: And what about when Ringo was singing?

PAUL: That usually meant that John and I had been drinking.

BILL: Well, that explains “Octopus’s Garden.”

PAUL: Actually Ringo wrote that, though if I recall he was quite pissed at the time. Me mum rather fancied that one.

BILL: Well, she’s an idiot.

PAUL: She was actually. Dumb as a post really.

BILL: I noticed George Harrison creatively has done, like… nothing for years now.

PAUL: That’s probably because he died over ten years ago.

BILL: He did??

PAUL: Good Christ, I’m going to kill my publicist.

BILL: Wow. John is dead. George is dead. Your wife Linda is dead. Now you’re going to kill your publicist. Granted, it’s a track on Charles Manson’s favorite Beatles album, but are you sure it wasn’t you and not John who wrote “Happiness is a Warm Gun?”

PAUL: That’s a low blow, mate.

BILL: Speaking of low blows, got any good groupie stories for me?

PAUL: You’re an idiot…

(McCartney leaves.)

BILL