Listen live on Sat., June 3, at 8 p.m. ET for an NPR/WYNC Webcast of the U.S. concert premiere of a Garland for Linda from New York's Riverside Church.        Links & Resources      Linda's Passion      Paul McCartney Interview      Concert Program      Test Your Knowledge      Your Turn      Your Turn

Bob Edwards: Well, this is a fundraising thing but it strikes me as it's also a Valentine, this project to Linda.

Paul McCartney: Yeah. Well, really it was an idea of Steven's, Steven Connick, who just wrote to me and said, "There was this thing called A Garland for the Queen once, and I'd like to do a Garland for Linda. And I'd like to make it a benefit for cancer charities." And it sounded like a great idea. He said he'd like to get the composers together. They'd all compose something kind of in tribute to Linda. So yeah, my section was obviously a bit more personal than the others, but it's turned out very nicely, and I think she would've loved it.

Bob Edwards: The things you've done, the things you've said in connection with Linda just, I think really touched people. I think people are coming to realize this was one of the great marriages in or out of the entertainment industry and…

Paul McCartney: We're very lucky you know. We'd, I think we'd both sort of, um I don't know, sowed our wild oats or whatever, but we'd both done a lot before we met each other. We both sort of got it out of the way. We weren't looking for anything. And so when we happened upon each other and fell in love, um, I think we were then, by then, interested in real things, and, I think it made it easier really. We didn't... There wasn't any question of unfaithfulness. It just didn't occur, ever, in 30 years. If she had to go somewhere, I had to go somewhere, we'd go with each other. But people said, but you're gonna be in L.A., why is she coming?" I said, "Why not?!" And so, most of the time we were together, we always spent the night together. Unlike many professional people who go there and the wife won't necessarily go.

It just fell in to be that kind of very close relationship where I really always thought of her as my girlfriend. There was always a great romance to it. Then we had the kids and they became some greatest achievements really. They became the anchor for it all. And, we just enjoyed it. You know, some people say, "Oh, I like kids when they get to about the age of four or five. You can communicate better." I think we liked them from the word "go" right up until now, you know. I think we always got something. As baby they got certain charm and through all the ages, my youngest now is 22, and he's still a great guy.

Bob Edwards: My daughter wants to know what you sang to the kids.

Paul McCartney: What I sang to the kids. Um, just about everything I know, I think, at one time or another. I made up a tune to Mary Had a Little Lamb, which ended up as a record actually, but that came from people, people thought, "Oh!, There's some meaning here. Why has he done this as a record." They're always trying to attach some great meaning. But, if you're a father who sings to your kid, that is the meaning. I sang them every tune I could imagine. I remember I had to sit around and my acoustic guitar and just play. I used to make up stuff for them. Very easy to please at that age.

Bob Edwards: Linda obviously inspired so many songs, and before that, one of the great musical partnerships of all time. What George Martin described as "a rivalry" made you both better. Now they're both gone. What, who drives you now?

Paul McCartney: The trouble is that's life. People go. That's the unfortunate given from the minute you're born. It's a terrible shock to realize none of this is gonna last. And your greatest relationships, all my kids you know, we won't be together forever except in spirit. So you just have to except it.

You know, John went first, terrible way here in New York, and obviously it was a terrible shock. But as the years go by, you remember what was great about them. Luckily, John and I weren't writing together at that time. You know, had we been writing together, I think it would've been not only a shock and a loss of a friend, but a great professional shock as well. So it wasn't that at least. But I loved him, you know, still do.

So over the years, I think you just remember what was great. That's one of the good things about life. You go on a holiday and it rains for five days, you remember the five days it didn't rain. You know, that's what I do. That's how it is for me.

And then when I lost Linda, that was less of a shock, except in the beginning when she was diagnosed with cancer. You know it was a two year battle really, and right up until the last week, we thought we might win it, but it wasn't to be. So it was a great tragedy for us, for the kids and I, and of course for Linda.... But again, you know she was so positive. She was a real positive spirit. You hardly ever saw her let it get her down. I try to go along with that and sort of say, "Don't worry. We'll lick this. This is gonna be ok." We're very positive about it all. And all the doctors were good like that, and said this is nothing...

So we went through those two years in a climate of hope, hopefulness, even though it wasn't to be. And then when I lost her, it was terrible, and I think for about a year, the kids and I, we just cried, just let it all out. Didn't really bother to try to hold anything back or didn't try to be this reserved English gentleman at all. You know, it just flowed.

I think after that year, it was as if once all the seasons had gone round ounce, it was as if nature sort of said, "Ok! Spring's here again! It's time to maybe get on." Then again, I found myself remembering the great things, which you know, cuz I had to take the kids through this, they had to take me through this, so... When it was really desperate we would have had to say to each other, "Who would be the one person who wouldn't want us to sit around crying -- Linda. " She just is not that type. She didn't like long goodbyes, everyone sitting around saying "Goodbye! goodbye!" She said "Oh, I'm outta here! C'mon let's go!" And she was a very, very positive lady who would always have a little joke for everything. I've tried to remember that and remember the positive side of it, whilst at the same time going through the tragedy of it.

Bob Edwards: Your composition on this album, Nova, asks God, "Where are you?" When I first saw the lyrics, I thought you were asking her.

Paul McCartney: I wrote the lyrics second. I did the music first, and it just seemed to me I had this choral thing that I liked and I was satisfied with. And actually when I was listening to it once, the words suggested themselves, "Are you there?" and I thought, "What am I talking about?" And you might be right. It might have in a way been related, sure it was to Linda.

But then I thought this choral stuff is often religious or spiritual. I prefer to think of it as, just by its very nature, just sort of spiritual thing. And so I thought whenever I'm asking anyone "Are you there?" it might be a good idea instead of just automatically doing a God song, to question it a bit, saying "Are you there? Where are you? Is this like a game? Are you hiding? What's the deal?" which I think is a very good question.

And we all have to come to it in our own way. We have to say, "Yes, he or she is there in spirit," which is like dealing with a death - they're not there. But you're still dealing with the memory, and in this case, or in God's case, you're dealing with a hope, or whatever it is with you. So that's how the song formed itself, "Are you there. Are you there? Are you hiding?" This and that.

And then eventually I thought yeah, he should answer, "I am here" and I am here in every song you sing, in this and that, and all the beautiful things in life. You know, again trying to focus on the hopefulness. I don't think it does any good to go with the other side. I think you have to have a degree of the other side. But I think in the end you've gotta pull yourself back to the fact that there are so many beautiful things. You walk in Central Park and you see the tulips now and you look at that and you go, "You know what? This is great!"

Bob Edwards: Did you think you'd be working in the classical form back when you were doing string quartet parts for Eleanor Rigby and Yesterday and giving lots of work to the London Symphony?

Paul McCartney: I never thought that I'd particularly be doing anything. I'm not one of these people who has a vision or has a plan of what I'm doing. I'm just letting it unfold. What I'm lucky enough to be part of, and what leads me into something, I'm quite receptive to. Sometimes, people would say too receptive, 'cause I accept things like the Liverpool Oratorio. You know I was just asked, you know, would I do anything for the Liverpool Orchestra? I said, "Yeah! Sure!" without really realizing what I was getting into and how much work was involved.

So, no I didn't think I would ever be in this field, but I've always liked a variety of music. Still do. I'm not one of these people who just sort of says, "It's rock 'n roll for me." I love rock 'n roll. It was my formative music. It's what got me into music, what made me have to play, was rock 'n roll. But before that, my dad was a pianist and we'd play at home. And his music would be more Chicago, and Lullaby of the Leaves, all the old jazz classics, and I would just hear him singing… playing, not singing, playing at the piano. He taught himself.

So it was a very musical background. I heard the chords. I heard the harmonies. He'd sit me and my brother down and he'd say "Ok, listen to this piece of music. That's the bass. Hear that. Boom, boom, boom! Hear that low... " and he'd point it out. He gave me a good music education for an untrained man. He was very passionate about it. And he'd say, "This is harmony. If you sing that, the harmony to that is this."

So, when I got in the Beatles, it felt very naturally, John would sing the melody, for me to always bang a harmony on it. So it just sort of unfurled. And then when we got a little further along with the Beatles, we started to use other instruments. There'd be a flute or a French horn on one of my early records for no one, 'cause I love that. You know, like a lot of people you talked [to] and they sort of say, "I do like that cello!" There's many people who say, "I love a French horn!," and they've got their little things. They may not be great fans, they may not know much about classical music, but they love it, and I'm from those kind of people.

So I've always loved it. And we got into it. We flirted with it with the Beatles, so I never felt any fear. I always liked those people and thought we're just fellow musicians. They're trained. I'm not.

Bob Edwards: But when you're a kid, a young rock 'n roller, you don't have any idea of writing music that's going to be in elevators and dentists' offices and everywhere else 30 years later and who knows how long? I mean, when did you know you were writing classic rock?

Paul McCartney: I think when John and I started to get into it in the beginning, we knew, we would… it was early stuff. So we liked some of it, we thought it was ok, but I think as we got into it after a couple of years and we got with people who also wrote, and we saw what they did, and we sort of measured ourselves against them. I think there came a point when we started to think, you know, this is good what we're doing. It was successful, so that helps. But we also started to think, you know, I'm very proud of this. This is good stuff! That was a great little change I just put in there. Or, Boy! That was good lyrics you just put in there. And you know I think good stuff takes you by surprise and you go, "That's not bad."

I remember people would say to us, "Are you.. Do you ever get conceited about your success?" And I said, "Well not really," I said, but John and I are good, so I suppose you could say that's conceited, but I don't think it was conceited, I think it's just we're good. I remember I had an older cousin of mine who was into all, what we would then have called the standards, which would be Sinatra material and Chicago, my dad's kind of stuff, you know, Steal Away to Paradise. He's from that era of Paul Whiteman, going way back. And my cousin said, "Do you think your stuff will ever be standards?" And even though we were only into it four or five years, I said, "I think it will."

Again, that could be seen as conceit. But no, it just seemed to me that the stuff felt strong. It felt like there was a fairly good chance that it would last. And sure enough, you know, I get people coming up to me saying, "My six-year-old loves your stuff. He doesn't know it's the Beatles. But he says that music's cool," or whatever. You know, so if it's reaching six-year-olds, there's gotta be something there, you know.

Bob Edwards: You are of course on the oldie stations. You've got NPR stations playing your classical recordings. But those other stations are playing the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync. What about… Compare what they're going through and what Beatlemania was about.

Paul McCartney: Well I think, I'm sure it's very similar. You know I don't really know, I don't know those guys. But I'm sure it's similar. Young guys thrown into fame. It's very exciting. I always just wish them all the best, 'cause it's not easy, you know, you've got to be very careful about your ego. People are massaging you all the time for you, and you know, we know a million people whose head it's gone too, so that's the danger. And they're getting money fast and things. And often they're elevated out of reasonably unrich situtations, so there's a lot of dangers. I just wish them well, I think. I hope it's exciting for them. I hope they're enjoying it. I think a lot of them are. And so, I say good luck to them , I say.

Bob Edwards: You guys went out on top. You did it on your own. How long do you think you could've sustained it if you'd wanted to.

Paul McCartney: Well you know, we always felt that the ten years was a good period. It was really literally sort of a beginning and an end. It happened that business troubles broke us up in the end. But in a way we had come full circle. And we did, the last albums we did, we actually went back to where me made the first album cover and photographed ourselves there again, and I think that indicated that we knew we'd done it, we'd done about all there was to do. Then there were some rumors of we might get back together again, and this and that, but it was never to be. And I think one of the main reasons is we felt we'd done what we had to do. We'd done the body of work.

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