Paul is this month's British Esquire Esquire UK cover star. You can check out the interview... HERE)
Esquire: Clearly you don’t need the money and you
don’t need the fame. So what are you doing here playing a series of
concerts in Japan, when you could be at home with your feet up?
Paul McCartney: Two reasons: I love it, and it’s my job. Three reasons: the audience. You sing something and you get this incredible warmth back, this adulation. And who doesn’t like that? It’s amazing. Plus, the band’s very good. And having said there were three answers there are now about seven. Another thing is I kind of get to review my songs, and they go back quite a way. So if I’m singing 'Eleanor Rigby', I’m me now reviewing the work of a twentysomething and I’m going, “Whoa, that’s good.” [sings] “Wearing the face that she keeps in the jar by the door”. Ooh! And you see it all again flashing by you… like drowning. In the nicest possible way.
ESQ: You’ve never seriously contemplated retirement?
PM: Sit at home and watch telly? That’s what people do, man. Gardening, golf… no thanks. Occasionally, I do think, “You should have got fed up by now, you should be jaded.” My manager, who I don’t have any more, glad to say, suggested quite a long time ago that I retire at 50. He sort of said it’s not a good look. I went, “Oh, God, he could be right.” But then I still enjoy writing, I still enjoy singing. What am I gonna do? You see so many people who retire and then immediately expire.
Paul McCartney: Two reasons: I love it, and it’s my job. Three reasons: the audience. You sing something and you get this incredible warmth back, this adulation. And who doesn’t like that? It’s amazing. Plus, the band’s very good. And having said there were three answers there are now about seven. Another thing is I kind of get to review my songs, and they go back quite a way. So if I’m singing 'Eleanor Rigby', I’m me now reviewing the work of a twentysomething and I’m going, “Whoa, that’s good.” [sings] “Wearing the face that she keeps in the jar by the door”. Ooh! And you see it all again flashing by you… like drowning. In the nicest possible way.
ESQ: You’ve never seriously contemplated retirement?
PM: Sit at home and watch telly? That’s what people do, man. Gardening, golf… no thanks. Occasionally, I do think, “You should have got fed up by now, you should be jaded.” My manager, who I don’t have any more, glad to say, suggested quite a long time ago that I retire at 50. He sort of said it’s not a good look. I went, “Oh, God, he could be right.” But then I still enjoy writing, I still enjoy singing. What am I gonna do? You see so many people who retire and then immediately expire.
ESQ: Is it that you feel you still have something to prove?
PM: Yeah, all the time. And it is a silly feeling. And I do actually sometimes talk to myself and say, “Wait a minute: look at this little mountain of achievements. There’s an awful lot of them. Isn’t that enough?” But maybe I could do it a bit better. Maybe I could write something that’s just more relevant or new. And that always drags you forward.
I mean, I never really felt like, “Oh, I did good.” Nobody
does. Even at the height of The Beatles. I prefer to think there’s
something I’m not doing quite right, so I’m constantly working on it. I
always was, we always were. I mean, look at John [Lennon], a mass of
paranoia and worries about whether he’s doing it right. You only have to
listen to his lyrics. I think that’s just artists in general.
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