Speaker 1: Pushkin Hi, everyone, it's Paul Moldoin. Before we get to
Speaker 1: this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
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Speaker 1: Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.
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Speaker 2: One thing we used years later in the Sergeant Pepper
Speaker 2: album was something that I experienced I had as a kid.
Speaker 3: I would listen to some shows on the BBC.
Speaker 4: It's the Ken Dot Show and it would often.
Speaker 2: Be alive show, whether it be a comedian, and the
Speaker 2: comedian would come on, came dog, Hello, how are you
Speaker 2: doing all right? So it's on hey, and they'd be silence.
Speaker 3: And the audience would go arah and.
Speaker 4: Laugh and to me that was like, oh my god,
Speaker 4: what did.
Speaker 3: He just do?
Speaker 2: And I loved them laughing at the silence because my
Speaker 2: imagine was he's dropped his trousers.
Speaker 4: No he wasn't.
Speaker 3: On the BBC, He's done a funny face. No, well,
Speaker 3: what's he done?
Speaker 2: That to me was the start of a sort of
Speaker 2: fascination with art.
Speaker 3: Of all types. Why did they laugh at that silence?
Speaker 2: I needed to know and I was never going to
Speaker 2: find out, so I needed to speculate, and art would
Speaker 2: let me speculated.
Speaker 4: You do a comedy as well, don't know. I didn't
Speaker 4: play loud.
Speaker 1: I'm Paul mull doon for a while now I have
Speaker 1: been fortunate to spend time with one of the greatest
Speaker 1: songwriters of the era.
Speaker 3: And will you look at me, I'm going on to it.
Speaker 3: I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1: That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
Speaker 1: book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
Speaker 1: of our conversations.
Speaker 2: It was like going back to an old snapshot album
Speaker 2: looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 1: This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a war,
Speaker 1: and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
Speaker 1: figures in popular music. In this episode, day in of
Speaker 1: life was in my music room in London, at the
Speaker 1: top of my house.
Speaker 2: I had and still have a loverly little room with
Speaker 2: a daily painted piano, and I'd seen a thing of
Speaker 2: these guys who'd painted a Cadillac psychedelic. So I rang
Speaker 2: them up and said, we did do a piano for
Speaker 2: me in a little bit furious at first, but anyway,
Speaker 2: they did it psychedelic painting, and John would come in
Speaker 2: and we would sort of sit there for a few
Speaker 2: hours and write things. And one of us nearly always
Speaker 2: had the starter. For instance, Ellen Rigby had been my
Speaker 2: starter and we finished it up together. Day in the
Speaker 2: life was his starter, which would start by reading the newspaper.
Speaker 5: Read the news today, a bad lucky man who made
Speaker 5: the grade, and though the news was rough, said.
Speaker 2: I just had to learn when John would bring these
Speaker 2: things in, it's only these days that I would say,
Speaker 2: was he talking about himself some that was there some
Speaker 2: sort of psychological aspect where he's a lucky man who
Speaker 2: made the grade? And John did round about this time,
Speaker 2: did get a little bit out in Waybridge doing drugs,
Speaker 2: and we're a little disillusion because we'd sort of given
Speaker 2: up playing live. So him bringing that in, I would
Speaker 2: just go with the picture that he was painting. He was.
Speaker 5: He didn't notice that other nights changed.
Speaker 3: And then he blew his mine out in the car.
Speaker 3: He didn't know the lights of change.
Speaker 2: But this was about a friend of mine particularly called Tara,
Speaker 2: was a Guinness. We kind of steered clear of heirs
Speaker 2: and aristocrats, whereas the Stones didn't know Stones, rather embraced them.
Speaker 2: A really nice guy, and I say, I used to
Speaker 2: hang out to go up to Liverpool with him. And yeah,
Speaker 2: so he died in a car crash in Chelsea somewhere.
Speaker 2: He'd run the lights, I think, you know, so he
Speaker 2: didn't notice the lights of change. So this was in
Speaker 2: our minds, this was about him. He blew his mind
Speaker 2: out in the car. So again with the drug references,
Speaker 2: he blew his mind out. And I think we did
Speaker 2: think you might have been stoned, but that's what we're
Speaker 2: talking about.
Speaker 3: You blow my mind. Of course I told him that
Speaker 3: kind of way.
Speaker 5: A crowd of people stood unstead.
Speaker 6: They've seen his face before, nobody was really sure.
Speaker 2: So that was Tara. He's at the lights and he changed.
Speaker 2: And then so we're now painting a picture. A crowd
Speaker 2: of people stood and starred. It's seen his face before,
Speaker 2: not really sure if he was from the House of Lords.
Speaker 2: So there's a sort of aristocratic thing. But I think
Speaker 2: once we've sort of started off with Tara, it doesn't
Speaker 2: have to stay with him. It can now be anyone
Speaker 2: in a car, crowd of people looking at who is
Speaker 2: this guy?
Speaker 4: Or do I recognize him?
Speaker 3: Was he Eli?
Speaker 5: Just a crowd of people turning away?
Speaker 2: John was quite a World War Two buff. He had
Speaker 2: the works of Winston Churchill. He's a big Winston Churchill fan.
Speaker 2: I think till later, I think you read.
Speaker 4: A lot about it.
Speaker 7: Was a good writer, he was brilliant.
Speaker 2: I've not read any of this stuff. John had they had,
Speaker 2: They had a complete set. I remember.
Speaker 3: It's like I said, of encyclopedia, I.
Speaker 6: Just had to do.
Speaker 3: Had they read?
Speaker 2: So we had the film the War, and I just
Speaker 2: had to look having read the book. It's like a
Speaker 2: traffic accident where you have to look. That sort of
Speaker 2: ties back into that. Were turned away this time because
Speaker 2: they were looking at the traffic accident and now they've
Speaker 2: turned away because it's the war. But I just had
Speaker 2: to look. Love to Turn You On, And that was
Speaker 2: the conspiracy between the two of us, conspiratorial look between us.
Speaker 2: As we wrote that Love to Turn it, Oh well, okay,
Speaker 2: this is going to get people talking. We kind of
Speaker 2: knew exactly what we're doing and that it was being
Speaker 2: a bit cheeky. The other story about it was this
Speaker 2: this instrumental break musically, where I at that time had
Speaker 2: been looking at a lot of listening.
Speaker 3: To a lot of I haven't got stuff.
Speaker 2: That would be like Luciana Berrio and his wife Kathy
Speaker 2: Beveron and they did shows that like the wheat More
Speaker 2: Hall and Stockhouse and date there listening.
Speaker 3: To his remember it because.
Speaker 2: Yes, so listening to a bunch of that stuff and
Speaker 2: not so much listening to it just has just been
Speaker 2: interested in the concept of it. So I was intrigued
Speaker 2: by that. So in the middle of the day in
Speaker 2: the light, because it was sort of a trippy piece,
Speaker 2: I wanted to have this extraordinary instrumental moment. So I
Speaker 2: talked to George Marta and I said, okay, the instruction.
Speaker 2: The instruction here is for everybody in the orchestra to
Speaker 2: start on the lower snow on their instruments and proceed
Speaker 2: to their highest note on their instrument over the course
Speaker 2: of a certain amount of barbs.
Speaker 3: They can proceed at their own pace.
Speaker 2: However they wished to go because I want the kind
Speaker 2: of cacophony of sound. So came the session and George
Speaker 2: is a bit dubious about shooting a full symphony Orcases
Speaker 2: is very expensive.
Speaker 3: We said, that's the Beatles, come on, let's go crazy.
Speaker 2: So and then we started to get fun of the
Speaker 2: things where he said, what if you're paying all that money?
Speaker 3: He said, you know, do you want them to dress?
Speaker 3: Because they will? We said, oh yeah. He said what
Speaker 3: do you want, well, you know, dinner.
Speaker 2: Suits, the sort of black tie, and we said, well,
Speaker 2: they do funny noses.
Speaker 3: They did actually, But anyway, so we got.
Speaker 2: To the session and I sort of went around sort
Speaker 2: of saying to them all, okay, might think is crazy
Speaker 2: starting your bar and.
Speaker 3: I said, you can go anyway we want.
Speaker 2: But they were a bit so George did have to
Speaker 2: go and rationalize it a bit. So he said to
Speaker 2: them go from here and be a round about there
Speaker 2: after ten bars, and we ran about there after fifteen,
Speaker 2: so he sort of so they did it anyway, and
Speaker 2: it was a great sound. We reside from Bergson, the
Speaker 2: Oscar plan, not the Beatles. It encouraged you to think
Speaker 2: like that, and we were at that period in our
Speaker 2: growth and we liked the idea that he should be
Speaker 2: an extension rather than just a continuation.
Speaker 6: Woke up, fell out of bed, dragged the comb across
Speaker 6: my head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then me I then go back into Fourthland Road,
Speaker 2: And this is me going to school in the morning.
Speaker 2: This is my routine. Woke up, fell out of bed,
Speaker 2: dragged a corm across my head, found the.
Speaker 6: Way downstairs and drank a cup, and looking up, I noticed.
Speaker 2: That I was late. That would sort of happen every
Speaker 2: morning to me, and I would just run to the
Speaker 2: end of my street where the bus stop was barely
Speaker 2: catch the bus.
Speaker 6: Found my coat and grabbed my hat, made the bus
Speaker 6: and seconds for lands.
Speaker 2: It was always a rush, and I knew there was
Speaker 2: a prefect at the other end at the school with
Speaker 2: the book and he was going to bust me. If
Speaker 2: I was one minute past night.
Speaker 6: Way upstairs and had as a smoke, and somebody spoke,
Speaker 6: and I went into a dream.
Speaker 2: You smoked on the upper deck of buses. So if
Speaker 2: I'm talking about going on the bus and going upstairs,
Speaker 2: I immediately thinking them smoking. And the minute I've said
Speaker 2: the words smoke in the sixties, I'm now talking about cannabis,
Speaker 2: and the whole upper deck would just be full of
Speaker 2: cloud of smoke. You know, you would enter that zone.
Speaker 7: Did you think of Sergeant Pepper as a big radio
Speaker 7: program in some ways.
Speaker 2: Kind of kind of you know, its scope and its
Speaker 2: imagination was that, and we did use sound effects we
Speaker 2: found out during during the making of an album like that,
Speaker 2: you're extending your repertoire and you're imagination, so you're asking
Speaker 2: for things like a full symphony orchestra. You're asking for
Speaker 2: things like the sound of elephants running through the jungle.
Speaker 3: It's interesting. I mean, we've talked.
Speaker 7: About this before, the extent which the radio shows were
Speaker 7: part of the band in your mind, on the front
Speaker 7: of your mind, but that that actually might have been
Speaker 7: quite a strong.
Speaker 2: It was a stronger for us on us all because
Speaker 2: you know, we'd all listen to radio and you have
Speaker 2: to use your imagination, whereas in TV it's okay, it's wonderful,
Speaker 2: and movies.
Speaker 4: The thing, but it's laid out for you.
Speaker 2: You can see how Henrietta Gibbs looks, whereas.
Speaker 4: In radio Henrietta Gibbs.
Speaker 3: But I live and breathe and you make your own
Speaker 3: Henrietta Gibbs.
Speaker 4: Yes, and that was a great thing.
Speaker 2: That was why no one could ever visualize Sergeant Bepper.
Speaker 3: The they tried to make a movie of it.
Speaker 2: Did they It's like, oh, don't do that, because everyone's
Speaker 2: already got their own.
Speaker 4: Picture Sergeant Dapper.
Speaker 1: And there's Longly Hearts Club.
Speaker 2: Then the joy of this kind of audio approach was
Speaker 2: that you made your own pictures. If you heard elephants
Speaker 2: tramping through the jungle, you saw your own.
Speaker 3: Set of elephants.
Speaker 2: You heard an audience laughing for no apparent reason, you
Speaker 2: made up the reason. And I think that's a very
Speaker 2: enriching thing that probably all of us from that generation
Speaker 2: were helped by sort of synapses that were fired as
Speaker 2: we sort of, you know, lay on the carpet listening to.
Speaker 5: Read news four thousand holes in Blackburn, lankashees.
Speaker 2: And then we go back to read the news today.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, to top and tailored, and now we have
Speaker 2: to have another verse. We can't have a lucky man
Speaker 2: and made the Gracey of the four thousand holes, which
Speaker 2: is from.
Speaker 8: The newspaper reported in the Daily Mail, January seventeenth, nineteen
Speaker 8: sixty seven thousand holes in the road in Blackburn, Lancashire,
Speaker 8: one twenty sixth of a hole per person. According to
Speaker 8: a council survey.
Speaker 2: There were holes in the streets and like I said,
Speaker 2: there's four thousand holes in Blackburn.
Speaker 8: If Blackburn is typical, then there are over two million
Speaker 8: holes in Britain's roads and three hundred thousand in London.
Speaker 5: Well, the holes were rough, small, that comfortable. Now they're
Speaker 5: not how many.
Speaker 2: Olds it takes to feel around, So you know, the
Speaker 2: holes became instead of holes in the road, it became
Speaker 2: a sort of synonym for people absence, kind of just glassholes.
Speaker 1: The inventiveness of A Day in the Life wasn't confined
Speaker 1: only to the song, but permeated the Beatles approach to
Speaker 1: the entire album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band.
Speaker 2: I was with our Roady mal. We had a big
Speaker 2: bear of a man who was called Mal Evans with
Speaker 2: our Roady and uh, that's coming back on the plane
Speaker 2: and he said, will you pass the Sultan Pepper and
Speaker 2: I misheard him.
Speaker 3: I said what Sergeant Pepper? I said, no, Sultan.
Speaker 2: And I always mantain that one of the things about
Speaker 2: the Beatles and me and John was that we noticed accidents.
Speaker 2: Here's the idea we are these four space cadets were
Speaker 2: just these four people in this slightly weird band. But
Speaker 2: what it's going to do is gonn of free us up.
Speaker 2: So we're not going to be the Beatles, which we
Speaker 2: are now getting a little bit sort of inhibited by
Speaker 2: having to be those boys. Will now just chuck all
Speaker 2: that away and we'll be these guys. So I said
Speaker 2: to everyone, Okay, now, so I want each of us
Speaker 2: to come up with a list of favorite people because
Speaker 2: it so I want you know, I want us all
Speaker 2: to know you because we'll have pictures of them.
Speaker 9: One of the things that strikes me, and I wonder
Speaker 9: if you'd like to comment on it, is that being
Speaker 9: an artist really involves having a sense of the whole,
Speaker 9: the totality of the project and even the product.
Speaker 2: You mean visual artists, any kind of an artists.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean you had a sense of not only
Speaker 7: playing the music, writing the lyrics, but you know how
Speaker 7: this thing should look when you gets sided into the world.
Speaker 2: I think if you if you've got a passion for something,
Speaker 2: you want to be thorough. And I think that's the thing.
Speaker 2: Sticking with it means that you're actually thinking about it
Speaker 2: and thinking, well, if we're going to call it's harder
Speaker 2: PEPPERSONI house combat, what.
Speaker 3: Do they look like?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Okay, well I've got an idea in my brain.
Speaker 2: It's just jumped in my brain, but I will shribble
Speaker 2: it down, and so that that album was very much
Speaker 2: like that. But I do think, yeah, you know that that.
Speaker 2: I I've always had that totality.
Speaker 4: Thing where.
Speaker 2: Music theater performances are concerned.
Speaker 3: As a kid, I would always do that.
Speaker 2: I was sitting with my dad just watching TV and
Speaker 2: a presenter would come on at the stage to a
Speaker 2: variety shows on and I would go, he shouldn't have
Speaker 2: worn that like graysuit. Just worn a dark suit. He
Speaker 2: would have stood out a bit better. I mean, it
Speaker 2: was like the Nixon JFK thing. The JFK wore the
Speaker 2: dark suit and Nixon and it was like, well, he
Speaker 2: just looked better. So I've always been very involved in that.
Speaker 2: The Beatles thing. The idea that we had.
Speaker 3: A uniform was sort of one of the original ideas.
Speaker 7: I had some very of this uniform existed already or
Speaker 7: were you designing that there?
Speaker 3: I suppose that are you designing it? Yeah, because I
Speaker 3: don't think you'd used this look. You hadn't this frock coat.
Speaker 7: Yeah, with the bottles and things.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's very beatly. It was an instinct.
Speaker 2: So when the Beatles were going to Hamburg, we had
Speaker 2: a tailor next door to us, mister richards So when
Speaker 2: I was living in twenty fourth Land Road, I kind
Speaker 2: of went next door, mister Richardson, you got some materials
Speaker 2: chose to She gave us a few night sholdren to
Speaker 2: the guys. We chose a purple sort of wool, the
Speaker 2: best material for stage. Scratchy, little scratchy little wool anyway,
Speaker 2: so we got purple pets. And this had come from
Speaker 2: a very definite experience I'd had when I was eleven
Speaker 2: in Botlin's seeing this group wear identical clothes and they
Speaker 2: won the talent contest, and I still have this really
Speaker 2: crystal clear image of them walking out of that building
Speaker 2: to go to the pool, and they were all in
Speaker 2: gray crew next quarters, Tartan flat caps, twat hats as
Speaker 2: we call them, and Tartan shorts and each with a
Speaker 2: role towel and anything else. Five of them. It was
Speaker 2: like ah, and it was like well.
Speaker 3: Mc jay would later called us the foreheaded monster.
Speaker 2: That all came from that, that whole sense of wow,
Speaker 2: if you do that, people are really going to notice you.
Speaker 2: And I bet it makes you feel homotroenous.
Speaker 7: Yeah, both from without and from within.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's sort of what happened with the Beatles. And
Speaker 3: it would probably be me pushing that.
Speaker 2: If you're going to pretend you are Sergeant Peppers, only
Speaker 2: has to bail to think, oh weare this and this
Speaker 2: is in Sergeant Peppers, sergeant military epaulets, tassitly things, buttons,
Speaker 2: and to me it's what it's what you do to
Speaker 2: get into character. It's somewhat theatrical really. And we went
Speaker 2: down to Less Square where Berman's the costume he lived
Speaker 2: and who did theatrical and movie stuff.
Speaker 3: And we all went down the arrange a visit for us.
Speaker 2: We chose our chatterings and got measured, which sort of
Speaker 2: we did.
Speaker 3: We carried it through. That's what I'm being thorough.
Speaker 2: It's actually it's a it's a lot of what it's about,
Speaker 2: but it is at the US. Is that going right
Speaker 2: through all the way. Day in the life, full symphony orchestra,
Speaker 2: not just messing around here.
Speaker 5: I read the news today, a battle lucky.
Speaker 2: Man who made the great.
Speaker 5: And though the news was rather said, I just had
Speaker 5: to man.
Speaker 2: I saw the phonograph.
Speaker 1: A day in the life from the beatles nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: seven album Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Speaker 5: Did you know that changed?
Speaker 1: In the next episode, The Healing Power of Music.
Speaker 6: Take a sad sound and make it better. Remember to
Speaker 6: letter reteal, then you can start to make it better.
Speaker 1: Het that's next time on McCartney A Life in Lyrics.
Speaker 1: McCartney A Life in Lyrics is a co production between
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries.