Paul McCartney has revealed that he still mentally consults late Beatles bandmate John Lennon when songwriting.
In an interview with Uncut (via NME), Paul McCartney opened up about how he still asks himself what John Lennon would think of his music.
“We collaborated for so long, I think, ‘okay, what would he think of this? What would he say now?’ We’d both agree that this new song I’m talking about is going nowhere,” he said.
“So instead of sitting around, we’d destroy it and remake it. I started that process yesterday in the studio. I took the vocal off it and decided to write a new vocal. I think it’s heading in a better direction now.”
McCartney also reflected on Lennon’s recent 80th birthday and the mixed emotions he felt around the occasion.
“That was happy sad… It reminds me he was murdered – but it also reminds me of the fantastic times we had. I tend to think back to early times,” he said.
He continued: “I remember, we tried to hitchhike to Spain once, but we only got as far as Paris. We liked it so much, we stayed there, just the two of us. We were in this little hotel in Paris; it was so cheap it had fleas. My mum was a nurse, we were very hygienic, then you end up there – bloody hell! Those things bring you together.
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“I had some great hitchhiking experiences with John and George. George and I went to Wales once, we ended up in Harlech. Another time, we decided to head south from Liverpool. We ended up in Exeter. We found a British Legion club where we could get a beer. So when I think of John’s 80th, those are the things I think of. It makes me happy to have shared all that with him,” he concluded.
Check out ‘Hello, Goodbye’ by The Beatles:
