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With Paul McCartney releasing his first solo album in over five years, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, and the Beatles’ four-film biopic’s main cast already announced, it seems only natural that the actor who’s transforming into Macca – Paul Mescal – had a chat with the legend about his songwriting process. And luckily for the rest of us, it was captured on camera.
“I teach some kids up in my old school in Liverpool, and that’s like the first thing [they ask]. I don’t know how to do this, which is not very inspiring. I haven’t got a formula,” McCartney tells Mescal.
“They used to ask me and John [Lennon], ‘How’d you do it? Who writes the music, who writes the words?’ I don’t know. To me, I think any story or song you’re gonna do, it’s gotta involve memory. With the Beatles, we always tried to write something different.”
Lennon still serves as a source of inspiration for McCartney – especially considering his upcoming album turns a lens inward and revisits the formative years that not only shaped his own life but the very foundation of the Beatles.
“I ran into this guy called John Lennon, and he was kind of fighting life,” he reminisces of his collaborator., whose first single, Love Me Do, was released in 1962.
“He’d had a lot of trouble. His dad had left home, his mom had got run over… so he was putting up a shield, so he’s very witty, very biting. And then when it came to writing, that kind of relationship stayed there.
“So on this record, I might even refer to him in my mind, as if we’re still writing together. I’ll write something and go, ‘What’s that? Is that any good?’”
“And you’re talking to him?” inquires Mescal.
“Kind of,” the older Paul affirms. “In my mind. Sometimes I get away with it. Sometimes you say, ‘No, it’s shit.’ Well, his spirit’s sort of still in me, and I’m very glad of that.”
The first Lennon-McCartney Beatles single, Love Me Do, was released in 1962. Their final collaboration, Now and Then, was released in November 2023.
The full conversation is available on Amazon Live and in the Amazon Music app.
The Boys of Dungeon Lane is out on May 29 via MPL/Capitol Records.
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