-Oh, it’s an honor. -It’s really great to see. I think it’s the greatest honor that Americans can bestow on performing artists. So I know now. -Yeah. You absolutely know it. -I know now, man. It was fantastic. -You just saw the President and Michelle because you got the Gershwin Award maybe three months ago or four months ago or something like that.
So you’re like old pals with the President now. -Oh, you know what? I mean, I love him. Um, I’m a big fan anyway, you know, and, um, it was just such an honor to go. I’ve never been to the White House. I’ve never met an incumbent President. -Is that right? -Yeah. -Why? -Well, they just never asked me. -You’re kidding me! No one invited Paul McCartney to the White House? What is wrong with America? What are we doing? Oh, my gosh.
-Well, you know, to go and to meet him… And he is such a dude. I mean… He’s a nice man, you know? He’s very… He’s just a great guy to be in the presence of. And Michelle is fantastic. -Yeah. -I was with my girlfriend, and she sees Michelle. She goes, “Oh, my God! You’re so beautiful!” -Yeah. -I love women, the way they do that.
-The First Lady. -“Jimmy, you’re so great — I love your tie!” -“You’re so handsome!” -We don’t do that, you know? -No, exactly. Women are totally different. -But it was fantastic. Really cool. -He’d probably be the first President to actually be young enough to grow up with… not ever not knowing the Beatles.
-I suppose so. I think Clinton was a little bit in that range, too, yeah. -Yeah. Was he singing along with all the songs? -He was. I mean, the thing was, we kind of expected — Okay, I’m singing “Hey Jude,” and we’re getting to the end. We’re doing the sing-along. ♪ Na na na na ♪ And I see the President, his wife.
And the two kids, Malia and Sasha, came, too. So that was great for me. My own daughter said, “Can I get a play date with them?” -I mean, come on. -You never know. -You never know. I mean, come on. Yeah. -It’s worth asking. -You have to do it. Please. -I think we might have one. But, anyway, um, so, they get up to leave, you know? So I’m singing “Hey Jude,” and I think that’s fair enough.
You know, Presidents don’t get up and do all that stuff. No, he’s coming on stage. He’s coming on stage. ♪ Na na na ♪ -He wants to do harmonies?! -Well, no, what he did is — Everyone was doing the na-na’s. He’s doing — ♪ Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy ♪ [ Laughter ] [ Applause ] -That’s — That’s fantastic. -I swear.
-That is fantastic. -I know. -Out of all the things you’ve gotten, I was going to ask you, like, what do you think are your favorite, uh, things that you’ve accomplished personally and your career? Two different answers. -Accomplished. -Yeah. What are your favorite accomplishments? -Well, you know, there’s been a lot, so I just have to kind of…
-Yeah, I guess. -I mean, I’m not being flash, but, you know, there have been a lot. “The Ed Sullivan Show” was pretty amazing. -Yeah. -I mean, that was — I was standing there ready to go on, and I was, on my own, gonna do “Yesterday” with the string quartet, and the guy who’s — you know, holds the curtains, like this guy here.
He says, “Are you nervous?” I said, “No.” He said, “You should be.” [ Laughter ] He said, “There’s 73 million people watching.” -Is that right? -I go, “Ahh…” -Start shaking. -So that was great. The Royal Command performances for the Queen. That was fantastic. Getting knighted by the Queen. That was pretty darn hot.
-Yeah. -Um… Going to the White House, meeting President Obama and his family, playing for them. Because I got to sing “Michelle” to her. And I said, you know — The minute they got in, I said, “One day I’m gonna sing my song ‘Michelle’ for her.” You know? So I did. [ Applause ] -That’s very cool. -It was beautiful.
-Is there a place — It must be tough for you going around because you are Paul McCartney. You are one of the Beatles. Where do you go where you’re just Paul McCartney or you’re just…? -There’s a lot of places you can go to, you know, where people kind of understand that you’re on private time. -Yeah. -But I kind of go anywhere.
I don’t — Yeah, I don’t like the idea that you get famous and then it ruins it for you. -Yeah. -It’s kind of a sad idea. -I think maybe, as all Beatle fans do, you just become obsessive with everything Beatles and you. And I’ve read every book on the Beatles. I mean, I’ve read stuff, I mean, like how you write the songs, where you wrote the songs, what ink you used.
Was it blue or black ink? Was it pencil? Was it… And, like, “Yesterday.” I know the original lyrics. ‘Cause back then, you just wanted to remember the timing of the words. The original lyrics were “Scrambled eggs.” -“Scrambled eggs. Oh, my baby, how I love your legs.” -Yeah. That’s how you remembered the song “Yesterday.
” -Yeah. -The harmony that the Beatles did were advanced. They were beyond any pop act at the time. -We liked harmony, you know? It’s a nice thing to do. Yeah. -Even, like, “She Loves You,” you know? ♪ She loves you, yeah, yeah ♪ It’s not that easy. Like, the last “yeah.” ♪ She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ ♪ Yeah ♪ Or something weird.
♪ Yeah ♪ -Yeah. That’s right. Yeah. No, that — We kind of just liked the way it sounded. So we just put it together. It’s actually a sixth. Musically, it’s a sixth chord. So we thought it was great. So we showed it to our producer, George Martin, who we showed all our songs to. And he said, “It’s great, chaps.
” He said, “But I don’t think you should put that chord on the end.” And we said, “It’s great! Sounds great!” ♪ Yeah ♪ -He said, “No.” He said, “That’s really corny.” I mean, it is. Like, musically it’s a really corny end, you know? ♪ W-a-a-ay ♪ It’s a bit that. And we said, “No, we love it.” And we didn’t know, you know, it was that corny.
We said, “No, we love it. It’s great.” -I mean, but that kind of became a signature Beatles sound. -Became a little bit of a thing. -Yeah. -Nobody else knew it was corny. -What were the things — ♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ It goes — ♪ Yeah ♪ -♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪ -And then what was the third? -♪ Yeah ♪ -So, Kirk, you want to do that one? –
You do… -♪ Yeah ♪ -♪ Yeah, yeah ♪ -Okay. Alright. [ Laughter ] -♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪ [ Cheers and applause ] -Captain Kirk. Thank you, buddy. -That’s what I’m talking about. So here we got — We have “Band on the Run.” It’s the remastered edition, the reissue, which I think is super cool. It comes in this awesome book.
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This is the vinyl, by the way. 120-gram vinyl. And this is the book that it also comes in with CDs in the back and all sorts of fun pictures in here about the making of “Band on the Run,” which I do love. This is your fifth album post-Beatles. -Mm-hmm. -Your third Wings record. And I got to say, you have some of the some of the coolest sweater vests I’ve ever seen.
Look at this guy right here. This guy is magic. Look at that guy. Just rad! Wait till you see this. This other one is even better. This other one’s even better. I love this one. If you can find this around the house. It’s a deer-head sweater here. No. Yeah. Look at that guy. [ Cheers and applause ] I love that. Look at that. It’s a nice deer head.
Do you — Do you collect — Do you have all your old stuff? -You know what? I don’t think so. But maybe in some box under the stairs somewhere. -Is that right? -I’ll find it, you know, 20 years from now. “There’s that thing Jimmy talked about!” -I’ll just give you my address right now. -I couldn’t lay my hands on it right now, to tell you the truth.
-But this record, I mean, it’s an amazing story. The interviews in here about the making of the record and all this stuff. But you actually went to Nigeria to record it. -Yeah. Lagos. -Why? -Uh, you know what? Around about that time, people were sort of going to exotic places. It was a little bit the fashion.
And I just thought, yeah, it’d be nice, you know, go somewhere different. I’d recorded always in London. Abbey Road Studios. So I got a list of the studios that my record label owned, and they had studios in China, you know, Rio. And someone said, “Why didn’t you go to Rio?” -Yeah. -I don’t know. -[ Laughter ] -Lay on the beach. Yeah.
-Maybe I should have. -But you went to Nigeria. -I went to Lagos because I love African music. I love the beats. And I just thought, well, you know, we’ll pick up a flavor kind of, which we kind of did. Um, but it was crazy. I mean, we got there, and the studio wasn’t finished built. -Really? -Yeah. And I got back from that trip, and I got a letter from the guy at the record label.
He said, “Dear Paul, under no circumstances go to Lagos. There’s been an outbreak of cholera.” -You got the message in — -I got the message when I got back. -Oh, when you got back. -When I got back, yeah. -Hey, thanks a lot, buddy. Appreciate it. Yeah. -You know, so it was funky. I mean, I got mugged out there, you know.
-You got mugged? -Mugged at knifepoint, dude. -What?! -Yeah. I was, you know — Okay. You know, when you’re young, you can be a little stupid. -Yeah, sure. -As you know, Jimmy. -Thank you. -I don’t mean that personally. -I didn’t take it that way. I did a little bit, but that’s alright. -I thought you did. So, the people would say to you, “Whatever you do, don’t go out walking at night.
It’s kind of dangerous around here.” Oh, we’ve been to Jamaica. It’s just the same. It’s Lagos. It’s great. It’s funky. So Linda and I go out walking. Um, we’d been to some friend’s house, and we walk back. We decide to walk back. So, a car pulls up, and we’re just walking along. Car pulls up.
[Imitates tires screech] And I’m crazy. I think the guy wants to give us a lift. You know? -Oh, my gosh. -So it was crazy because — So the guy rolls down his window. Before automatic windows. Rolls down his window. And he looks up, and I say, “Hey, man. That is so cool. You’re gonna give us a lift?” I said, “Well, we’re walking. We’re great. You get off.
Go on. Off you go.” -Yeah… -He sort of went, hmm, put the window back up. And then the car went like another 100 yards and — errr — screeched. And by now, we’ve caught up with it and stuff. And he gets out the car this time. I go, “You are just too cool for words!” I said — I said — “I’m telling you, man, you’re so friendly, but we’re walking.
It’s a lovely night. Get back in the car!” And I push him back in the car. Another 100 yards, they all get out. There’s like five of them. One of them’s got a knife. And now I know they don’t want to give us a lift. -Oh, my God. That’s crazy times. But, I mean, you do all this, and, like, I should say, “Band on the Run” is my favorite song on the album.
That and “Let Me Roll It.” There’s so many good ones. But “Band on the Run” is almost like you get three songs in one song because it’s the… [ Imitating melody ] And then it goes into… ♪ The rain exploded with a might– ♪ Right? -No. -And then it goes to… -[ Imitating melody ] -[ Both imitating melody ] ♪♪ -Kids on the boxes. -Yeah.
-It’s just — And I think that was just a different song. I remember the first time I heard that, I’m like, “This is like four songs in one song.” -Yeah. -It’s crazy. And it’s just kind of groundbreaking for — You know, it must be pressure because you must put out the album and you go, like, “I was already in The Beatles.
I did some great solo stuff already.” You know, at this point, this is following “Live and Let Die.” So you crushed with that James Bond theme. That was off the charts. And then you’re like, “How do I top myself?” And then you did it. Again. You just keep doing it. -Yeah, well, you know, thank you. I mean, you know, I just love doing what I do, and I keep trying, and sometimes it comes out good.
-Well, we love what you do. That’s so — I’m so excited. [ Cheers and applause ] -Thank you. Thank you. -We love it. [ Cheers and applause ] -Now on a — On a different note, yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the death of John Lennon. -Mm-hmm. -And it was a very sad day. And were you — Were you in New York? -I was in New York. Yeah. -You were.
-Mm-hmm. -And when you heard the news, did you — I mean, this was — -I wasn’t in New York when I heard the news. I was in England originally. I was in New York yesterday for the 30th anniversary. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what can you say? You know, it was just so senseless. I think that was the feeling everyone had.
It was like — The phrase kept coming in my head about the guy who killed him — “jerk of all jerks.” Because, you know, it was just like, “What for?” Well, the guy was deranged, you know? So, yeah, it was just so, so sad, you know, because you thought John would be around forever and we’d hang and… -Yeah.
-I think the nice thing about it, though, was that we’d got our friendship back together. I think it would’ve been really difficult if we’d still… Because, you know, we kind of fought when the Beatles broke up. A lot of business problems. But since then, at that point, we’d started to chat on the phone and we’d started talking about how to make bread and stuff like that.
-Is that right? -You know? Yeah, just kind of ordinary stuff, you know? -Isn’t that cool? -And he’d had a baby by then. He’d had Sean. So we could talk babies and family and bread and stuff, you know? So — So that made it a little bit easier. -Yeah. -The fact that, you know, we were — we were buddies.
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