Paul McCartney 80? Hard to believe. The ex-Beatle has just released an outstanding album – and will soon be playing at the huge Glastonbury Festival. About a pop phenomenon.
Number two in the genius songwriting duo The Beatles: Lennon/McCartney – in that order, despite some disputes, the brand name has held up as the most successful and influential partnership in pop.
The hierarchy of many experts, fellow musicians and Beatles fans fits in well with this: in front John Lennon, who was murdered in 1980 at the age of only 40, the bold, snotty, eccentric highly talented; behind him Paul McCartney, the charming beau, the arch-romantic, the somehow stuffy assembly line worker for beautiful songs about love, family and “Mull Of Kintyre”.
Flights of the Beatles
How little does this derogatory cliché do justice to the man who is celebrating his 80th birthday this Saturday (June 18) in obviously good health. For 50 years, Sir Paul (that’s his title since 1997), even after the Beatles’ crazy high, after all the groundbreaking albums and song pearls from “Love Me Do” to “Penny Lane” to “Let It Be”, proved that he was one of the greatest composers and lyricists of all – far beyond pop and rock.
Brief flashback to the notorious year 1970: The bassist, pianist and singer of the British quartet certainly had his share of the split after that brief “Beatlemania” era full of triumphs, but also increasing personal quarrels – some even consider him the trigger. Although it sounded different in a BBC interview last fall: “I didn’t initiate the break. That was our Johnny, »said the 79-year-old and blamed Lennon.
Not just the brave pop song craftsman
Whoever gave the world’s most famous band the death knell 50 years ago – McCartney didn’t bother to complain. Whether with the early solo records, as the frontman of the Wings with his wife Linda (1971-1981) or later as a living legend with many strong albums: the musician, born on June 18, 1942, also “delivered” as a former Beatle.
“Only Paul McCartney continued undeterred: released records, played concerts, faced up to the zeitgeist,” wrote the renowned music book author Maik Brüggemeyer (“It couldn’t be any nicer. The Beatles from 1957-1970”) in the magazine “Rolling stone». Since the separation from Liverpool buddies John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, Sir Paul has also been “a schizophrenic artist personality”, emphasizes Brüggemeyer (46). “On stage he’s the Beatle, in the studio he’s the ex-Beatle who competes with his own past and wants to show that you can still achieve something when you’ve already achieved everything.”
McCartney, who is said to be such a good pop song craftsman, dared to do quite a bit of experimentation – for example in the electro project The Fireman or as a newcomer to classical music. In 2020 he proved that he can still pull off pop highlights even in old age with the “Rockdown” album “McCartney III”, which he produced alone due to the corona. According to the Internet encyclopedia Allmusic, from the decades before that are the rustic “Ram” (1971), “Band On The Run” with the Wings (1973), “Tug Of War” (1982), “Flaming Pie” (1997) and ” Chaos And Creation In The Backyard» (2005) deserves special mention.
Dignities, prizes, honors
Of course, Paul McCartney has long since received all the honors and honors the (music) world has to offer – including double induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (the list would be long here long). He won the US Grammy alone 18 times, with a phenomenal 81 nominations. Even in the five decades after the Beatles, he is said to have sold over 100 million records.
Last year McCartney finally presented a kind of autobiography – a life in 154 songs, with personal texts, stories, private photos and notes. “Once people have reached a certain age, they like to use diaries or diaries, remembering past events day after day, but I don’t have such records,” he said about this 912-page major project. “What I have are my songs – hundreds – and they basically serve the same purpose.”
Even the sometimes skeptical music critics can no longer ignore his extra class: Five years ago, for example, “Rolling Stone” listed McCartney as number two in the list of the 100 best songwriters of all time – right behind Bob Dylan and ahead of John Lennon. “Sir Paul is the greatest inventor of melodies (…), he always had a much broader spectrum than stupid love songs,” wrote the magazine, alluding to the Wings hit “Silly Love Songs”.
Three marriages – five children
Speaking of love: with the US photographer Linda Eastman, who was almost a year older than Mrs. McCartney in 1969, the musician formed a pop dream couple until her death in 1998, which was mourned around the world. The second marriage to ex-model Heather Mills from 2002 to 2008 was unhappy, Paul McCartney has been married to New York businesswoman Nancy Shevell (62) since 2011. He has five children from two of his three marriages: Heather, Mary, Stella, James and Beatrice McCartney.
Can the pop titan (here the term really applies) celebrate his milestone birthday with his family? The odds are good because McCartney will probably have June 18 off. And well deserved, after seven weeks of stressful “Got Back” tour since the end of April, with 16 performances in 13 US cities. On June 25, when he was actually an unbelievable 80 years, a new highlight of this career full of highlights follows: McCartney appears in front of around 200,000 visitors as the headliner at the Glastonbury Festival in England.