Paul McCartney
NeFi lI--
Demographics
Gender Male
Birth Name James Paul McCartney
Birthplace Liverpool North, Lancashire, England, U.K.
Birth Date June 18, 1942
Ethnicity Northwest European
Overview Irish, English, Manx, Ulster Scots, Scottish, 1/32 Welsh
Nationality American
Career Singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and actor
Color Season Soft Summer
Notes and Motifs
Pe entertainer
Ji idiosyncratic
Member of the band The Beatles, along with George Harrison, John Lennon, and Ringo Starr
Also been known as Paul Ramon, Bernard Webb, Fireman, Apollo C. Vermouth, and Percy “Thrills” Thrillington
NeFi II-- Seelie
NeFi II-- Seelie
McCartney: "One of my biggest thrills still is sitting down with a guitar or a piano and just out of nowhere trying to make a song happen."
McCartney: "Listen to the colour of your dreams."
McCartney: "Look, people are allowed their own opinions and they don't always coincide with yours. As an artist you just have to keep plugging on."
McCartney: "I don’t have any desire to learn. I feel it’s like a voodoo, that it would spoil things if I actually learnt how things are done."
McCartney: "I realized marvelling at nature was a deep pleasure of mine."
McCartney: "The interesting thing about The Beatles was: The music was one thing, but we kind of symbolized a certain kind of freedom at a time when people of our generation were just growing up and just becoming adults."
McCartney: "I hate the idea of success robbing you of your private life."
McCartney: "Music is like a psychiatrist. You can tell your guitar things that you can't tell people. And it will answer you with things people can't tell you."
McCartney: "I don't work at being ordinary."
McCartney: "Painting is similar to music. You get a couple or words or notes or chords that excite you, and you just follow them and add a bit more and see where it takes you. That's the thrill for me. It still is a thrill, which is amazing after all this time."
McCartney: "Fight for the right to live in freedom!"
McCartney: "When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize 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."
McCartney: "Putting two songs together, I've always loved that trick when it works."
McCartney: "Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'"
McCartney: "It's also not unusual for writers to look backward as that's your pool of resources."
McCartney: "When I see bacon, I see a pig, I see a little friend, and that's why I can't eat it. Simple as that."
McCartney: "I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird."
McCartney: "I like the idea that people hear my stuff, and if it’s commercially successful, that’s a good sign that it’s being heard."
McCartney: "Why would I retire? Sit at home and watch TV? No thanks. I’d rather be out playing."
McCartney: "The most important ingredient to making a song work is the magic. You've got a melody, you've got words, but on the more successful songs, there's a sort of magic glow that just happens and you can feel it happening. It just makes the songs sort of roll out."
McCartney: "But with writers, there’s nothing wrong with melancholy. It’s an important colour in writing."
McCartney: "I think that, particularly in the old days, the spirit of The Beatles seemed to suggest something very hopeful and youthful."
McCartney: "The trouble with fame and riches is that you have more than one guitar."
McCartney: "With life and all I've been through, I do have a belief in goodness, a good spirit. I think what people have done with religion is personified good and evil, so good's become God with 'o' out, and evil's become Devil with a 'd' added. That's my theory of religion."
McCartney: "Criticism didn’t really stop us and it shouldn’t ever stop anyone, because critics are only the people who can’t get a record deal themselves."
McCartney: "There are only four people who knew what The Beatles were about anyway."
McCartney: "I love the past. There are parts of the past I hate, of course."
McCartney: "A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it's all you've got, unless you're brilliant and can write totally in the now."
McCartney: "Having a beard is natural. When you think about it, shaving it off is quite weird."
McCartney: "It’s hard to follow my own act. But the only answer to that would be to give up after The Beatles. I only had two alternatives. Give up or carry on."
McCartney: "Meditation is a lifelong gift. It’s something you can call on at any time."
McCartney: "When I left the Beatles, I made an album called McCartney that I played everything on. And it was kind of a cool experience. I felt like a professor in a laboratory, just crafting stuff and adding this, and putting this on and moving the microphone, and it was very homemade."
McCartney: "A hundred years from now, people will listen to the music of The Beatles the same way we listen to Mozart."
McCartney: "I saw that Meryl Streep said, 'I just want to do my job well.' And really, that's all I'm ever trying to do."
McCartney: "I had this song called 'Helter Skelter', which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, 'cuz I like noise."
McCartney: "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian."
McCartney: "It gets dangerous when you start believing your own legacy. That's why I've not gone back."
McCartney: "Hamburg totally wrecked us. I remember getting home to England and my dad thought I was half-dead. I looked like a skeleton, I hadn't noticed the change, I'd been having such a ball!"