Paul McCartney's importance to music in the second half of the 20th century cannot be
overstated. His personal life, however, hasn't always been easy. This is the tragic real-life
story of Paul McCartney.
James Paul McCartney was born on June 18, 1942, in Liverpool, England, to James and
Mary McCartney. His mother worked as a midwife while his father worked at the Liverpool Cotton
Exchange. James McCartney was also the leader of a jazz group called the Jim Mac's Jazz
Band. It was through his father that Paul acquired his passion for music.
In 1956, Paul's life irreversibly changed when his mother passed away from breast cancer.
The death inspired the Beatles song "Let It Be" and may have sparked the lyrics to "Yesterday."
In an interview with Stephen Colbert, Paul McCartney discussed how he initially did not
think losing his mother influenced his music but realized her influence on his career later
in his life.
"To lose your mom at 14 is, you know, not easy."
"And I never thought it affected my music until years later."
He also spoke about how he and John Lennon connected through their love of music and
losing their mother as teenagers, as Lennon lost his mother when he was 17, not long after
meeting Paul.
After Stuart Sutcliffe, the Beatles' original bass player, left the group to focus on other
artistic ventures, the remaining members found themselves in a bind. The band initially attempted
to make Chas Newby their permanent bass player. However, Newby did not wish to stay long term
with the band, and Paul McCartney soon realized he would have to take on the role.
As the story goes, McCartney joined the band as the lead guitar player but moved to rhythm
guitar because of his limitations as the lead. McCartney then became the pianist, after his
guitar became inoperable. Finally, he accepted his position as the band's bassist. It might
not have been his first choice of instrument, but he made the most of the situation. In
July of 2020, Rolling Stone ranked Paul McCartney at No. 9 on its list of the 50 greatest bassists
of all time.
In the band's early days, John Lennon was understood to be the leader of the Beatles.
However, by the middle of the 1960s, Paul McCartney would take the reins. While the
band would find continued success under McCartney's leadership, the shift of power led to the
band members growing more distant from each other.
According to Far Out, the origins of this came in 1964, when McCartney broke away from
the pair's collaborative songwriting relationship and wrote "Can't Buy Me Love," which took
the A-side on their band's next release. Lennon reacted by writing, "A Hard Day's Night" and
most of the songs on the album of the same name. The song-versus-song dynamic would continue
over the rest of the decade. McCartney would write "Yesterday," and Lennon would follow
with "Norwegian Wood." Lennon would write "Strawberry Fields Forever," and McCartney
would follow with "Penny Lane."
McCartney has said this competition was a great way for him and Lennon to, quote, "keep
each other on our toes." According to Far Out, however, Lennon was not always happy
about it. In his book, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties, Ian
Diamond writes,
"Lennon must have sensed that his era of dominance over the band's output [...] was over. From
now on, his partner would be in the ascendant not only as a songwriter, but also as instrumentalist,
arranger, producer, and de facto musical director of The Beatles."
There is a segment of the population that has been convinced that in 1966, Paul McCartney
died and was replaced by a lookalike. According to Ultimate Classic Rock, the theory is that
while recording Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, McCartney perished in a car crash.
Instead of ending the band or continuing with a new member or as a trio, the surviving members
found a lookalike and soldiered on.
"That was a hoax, right?"
"Yeah, I wasn't really dead."
Rolling Stone reports that the rumor started when a mystery caller told radio DJ Russ Gibb
to play The White Album backwards, saying that he would hear messages including, quote,
"turn me on, dead man" and John Lennon saying, quote, "I buried Paul." Of course, McCartney
did not die in a car accident and is alive today. But fans have found so-called "evidence"
in album covers, song lyrics, music videos and elsewhere. The Abbey Road cover was even
interpreted as a funeral procession, with McCartney as the corpse.
Life magazine sent reporters to find McCartney on his Scottish farm, and, Rolling Stone notes
that after throwing a bucket of water on them, McCartney agreed to an interview and photos
to try to end the story. It didn't work. McCartney was still discussing the rumor decades later,
including on a 2009 appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman.
"So this started some rumor that because he was bare-footed, he's dead. I couldn't see
the connection myself."
By the end of the 1960s, the Beatles were operating under a cloud of tension and resentment.
Their manager, Brian Epstein, had died suddenly in 1967, and without him, the group lacked
guidance and a figure to act as arbiter in their creative disagreements. The ending came
on September 20, 1969. Despite the pleadings of the group's new business manager, Allen
Klein, not to say anything, John Lennon told Paul McCartney and drummer Ringo Starr he
was leaving the group.
The breakup did not come as a surprise. By that point, the four members had been living
largely separate lives, getting married, having babies, and making music outside of the group.
McCartney later said,
"I must admit we'd known it was coming at some point because of his intense involvement
with Yoko. John needed to give space to his and Yoko's thing."
The band kept things quiet for a few months, until, on April 10, 1970, McCartney announced
to the public that the band was splitting up.
A week after the news broke that the Beatles were breaking up, Paul McCartney released
his self-titled solo debut, and to say McCartney was on his own would be an understatement.
The former Beatle had written every song, played every instrument, and worked as the
lone producer on the album. Today, it is considered one of his best works, but at the time, critics
had mixed feelings about McCartney.
His next effort, Ram, met the same fate. Today, Ultimate Classic Rock places Ram as McCartney's
second-best post-Beatles album. But, in 1971, it was another failure on McCartney's part,
with Pitchfork describing it as "loathed" by contemporary critics. Third time's a charm?
Perhaps not. Wild Life was McCartney's third effort and first with his new band, Wings.
Unlike the first two albums, Wild Life did not see a reevaluation years later. Rolling
Stone called it, quote, "trivial and unaffecting," and decades later, it is still considered
one of McCartney's weakest works.
John Lennon's and Paul McCartney's songwriting partnership is remembered today as the greatest
in pop music history. But after bonding over a mutual love of music and reaching unimaginable
peaks, their relationship soured. During the final years of the Beatles and after the band
split, the former friends would spend the next decade in a love/hate relationship.
The pair met on July 6, 1957, when Lennon was performing with his skiffle band, The
Quarrymen. A mutual friend introduced the two, and a few months later, Lennon asked
McCartney to join the group. It evolved into the Beatles, with Lennon and McCartney as
the main singer/songwriters. By the time the band broke up, the two were at each other's
throats. They wrote one another angry letters, as well as insult songs directed at each other.
McCartney's included "Too Many People," and Lennon's response was "How Do You Sleep?"
The two eventually reconciled and maintained contact over the final years of Lennon's life.
McCartney has also said that their last conversation before Lennon's murder was friendly. Linda
McCartney said that Lennon's final words to McCartney were:
"[T]hink about me every now and then, old friend."
As bad as his relationship with John Lennon was at times, Paul McCartney's friendship
with George Harrison was even more contentious. On Lennon's 1971 song attacking McCartney,
"How Do You Sleep?," Harrison played guitar. According to Far Out, by 1974, Lennon and
McCartney were not only speaking to each other but jamming together. Lennon and Harrison
had also joined Ringo Starr on songs for the drummer's solo album. As rumors swirled about
a potential Beatles reunion, Harrison stomped that idea into the ground, saying,
"Paul is a fine bass player, but he's a bit overpowering at times. To tell the truth,
I'd join a band with John Lennon any day, but I couldn't join a band with Paul McCartney."
In the Beatles, Harrison was overshadowed by the dominance of Lennon and McCartney,
according to the Guardian. When he walked out of the studio in 1969, Lennon suggested
the band replace Harrison with Eric Clapton, Biography reports. Harrison remained at odds
with McCartney over the decades, and the pair did not reunite to make music until the mid-1990s,
when they performed a short medley of their songs.
While the Beatles were in their final days, a family of pre-teen musicians hit the charts
almost as hard as the Fab Four. The Jackson 5 became hugely successful in the late 1960s,
and Michael Jackson went on to become a superstar. In the 1980s, Jackson tapped Paul McCartney
for a series of duets. McCartney had written a song, "Girlfriend," for Jackson. The song
appeared on the 1978 Wings album, London Town, before Jackson included it on his album Off
the Wall.
McCartney and Jackson also came together for "The Girl is Mine" on Jackson's Thriller album
and both "The Man" and "Say, Say, Say" for McCartney's Pipes of Peace album. While working
together, McCartney had talked to Jackson about the importance of music publishing and
owning catalogs. McCartney had purchased the back catalog of the late rock icon Buddy Holly.
Jackson took the advice to heart and in 1985, bought the most sought-after catalog in pop
music, that of the Beatles.
"And I said you ought to think of getting into song publishing. And so he kind of looked
at me and said, 'I'm going to buy yours.'"
After this, the pair never spoke to each other again. McCartney said,
"I think it's dodgy to do something like that. To be someone's friend, and then buy the rug
they're standing on."
In 1967 photographer Linda Eastman got a chance to work with the most popular group of the
era: the Beatles. Eastman was no stranger to celebrities, having worked on photoshoots
with Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, and the Grateful Dead. But while working with the Beatles,
Eastman caught the eye of Paul McCartney and the two fell head over heels in love.
The couple married on March 12, 1969, and had three children, Mary, Stella, and James,
in addition to raising a child from Linda's previous marriage, Heather. Linda and Paul
McCartney formed the band Wings in the 1970s and toured while raising their children. Linda
continued to work as a photographer and was an advocate for vegetarianism and animal rights.
Unfortunately, in 1995, Linda was diagnosed with breast cancer. The same disease that
took Paul McCartney's mother would take Linda McCartney on April 17, 1998. McCartney was
overcome with grief after Linda's passing, telling the BBC,
"I think I cried for about a year on and off."
After the passing of Linda McCartney, Paul McCartney married model and media personality
Heather Mills. Their marriage drew criticism from Paul's daughter Stella McCartney, who
had mixed feelings about Mills' and her father's decision. The union led to a daughter named
Beatrice. Unfortunately, after only six years of marriage, Paul and Mills divorced, and
the drama was played out in the British tabloids.
Ultimate Classic Rock reports that the pair acquired the lawyers used during the divorce
proceedings for Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Attempts to reach a settlement that
included a confidentiality clause failed, and all the details were made public. Mills
accused Paul of abuse and rampant drug use, while Paul claimed she was irresponsible and
rude to his staff.
Mills also accused her ex-husband of abusing his first wife, Linda McCartney. Stella McCartney,
Paul and Linda's daughter, spoke out against the accusation and even questioned her father
for marrying Mills. Both former partners denied each other's claims, and the divorce was finalized
in 2008, with Mills receiving just $30 million after requesting $150 million. She reportedly
said that she was, quote, "very, very, very, pleased" with the outcome. In 2011, Paul married
Nancy Shevell, and the pair have been together ever since.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite
stuff are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss
a single one!