Macca on BBC Radio 4's Mastertapes

Paul McCartney: 'I was depressed after the Beatles broke up' - BBC News »

Mastertapes special: Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney, Mastertapes - BBC Radio 4 »

looks very interesting - will be putting some time aside to watch later!

 

If you're in the UK it's on BBC television as I write. The red button, or channel 601 on Freeview.

 

I think it's also being broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday.

 

It is!

 

I can't explain this but one time when I opened the page and tried to play the video it said it only played in the UK. But further down on the page on the right there was another picture and clickable caption and that worked and showed the whole or at least a 45 min version of the interview. Here's the URL for that link:

Mastertapes special: Paul McCartney, Paul McCartney, Mastertapes - BBC Radio 4 »

Hope it works for you!

 

Well apparently it doesn't. But when I click on the same link in the Word doc where I saved it, it plays every time. Computer issues like this are way over my head.

Try this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03w2989

 

Nope. Still doesn't work for me when I click it here. Although it works when I click it in my word doc. Go figure.

 

That was really good. I think John Wilson managed to conduct it very well, and also Paul didn't stick to some "generic" stories and answers, and Noel was Noel and still I could tell he's a real admirer.

 

I was surprised they started off with his first solo album and discussed Wings/solo career until I realised he has a solo/Wings best of out and this was to promote that, but it didn't follow the typical Mastertapes format of previous guests where they discuss in detail one specific album from an artists career.

Still worth watching though, no revelations but a nice way to spend 45 mins!

 

I was depressed when Beatles split up [x]
I loved John [x]
We were robbed in Lagos [x]
When Wings started we just used to turn up and play [x]
Etc

 

This show has got a real kicking over at Super Deluxe Edition both from Paul Sinclair and everyone who commented.Totally banal rehash of every story he has ever told 1985 times.The only interesting question was from Paul Weller and he batted it away like a senile old man.
If you can listen to other shows in the series there is some good stuff there but this is not.

 

You'd think that after all these years McCartney fans would realise/accept that he just isn't interested in deep discussions of his work and career. He just isn't interested. It's part of his package. I say this as a frustrated fan but, really, after all these years I just accept that we aren't going to get any level of detailed insight or serious consideration of points. He's just having fun promoting his new record. As he often says, he doesn't want it to be hard work.

 

Did anyone notice how bad his singing voice was? That was the worst I've ever heard it. You'd think he'd warm it up before doing a show like this. Perhaps he can't warm it up anymore as current reviews are saying its not good at all on his latest tour. Maybe its time to hang the gloves up?

 

Yeah, it's real froggy and has been discussed at length in his tour threads. It's incredibly sad.

 

He had a very rough start to his current tour (it seems that he rehearsed too much before the tour started, and it sounded like he also had a cold), but he has improved over recent shows, and he has certainly been sounding much better than he did during the BBC interview. He really should have warmed up for the show, because he could barely hit a single note, and it is a shame, because he can sound much better:

 

About the only only time now you get even a half-way interesting interview out of McCartney is when he goes on something like Howard Stern where some of the questions are more irreverent. You'll still be stuck with a lot of these same trotted-out war-horse answers, but there will at least be glimpses of spontaneity thrown in as well.

Someone should count over the years how many times he's used the old stand-by line "I duhknow, really" any time a question even starts veering into a direction he can't easily use one of his tired stories to answer it.

 

His answer to Weller's question was the only real insight. Pegg tried to be fair, asking him about whether he reveals himself in his songs but we got no closer to the truth. His voice was horrendous, I don't know how he isn't embarrassed by it! Time to return to classical music I think, his voice is shot through,

 

Really enjoyed watching this. Thanks for the link SebUK

 

Should Brian Wilson be "embarrassed" by his voice being shot through? Should Bob Dylan? Why on earth are people so much harder on McCartney on this front? Dolly Parton lip-syncs at Glastonbury and the British press ignore it and fawn all over her. McCartney's voice ages and he gets ripped to shreds. Very odd how people are always after him to a greater degree than these other aging legends.

And actually I thought what Paul said in response to Simon Pegg's question was VERY revealing: "Why do people have to know my innermost thoughts?"

 

I only saw a small part on ABC news last night and it looked interesting. I think I'll still watch it since I've never seen it before.

 

Maybe Paul is mentally trapped in his Beatle personna and can't escape it because he's not the kind of artist to re-invent himself easily like Dylan. He ages gracefully on record, being more honest with his current vocal capabilities and limitations but in a live setting, you just can't sing all McCartney songs at 70. I think that he will never retire but I'd love to see him overhaul his live shows to something more akin to what he is now than what he used to be in the 60s and 70s. Nostalgia is a cash cow and I like to think of McCartney as a musician first, not a human jukebox.

 

Paul McCartney allowed to trot out same old stories for BBC Mastertapes | superdeluxeedition »

The normally kind SuperDeluxeEdition really wasn't a fan of the interview.

 

Unfortunately, I have to agree with every word that they say. The show was basically a waste of time, with the exception of the Pegg and Weller questions, and when Paul spoke about working with Kanye. Yet again, the majority of questions are the same questions that he has been asked literally thousands of times.

It would have been far more interesting had they stuck with the album format, and then had Paul run through the songs from an album like 'Ram' or 'New'. Many of those songs have never been played live, and it would have been fascinating to see Paul discussing how he wrote songs like 'Dear Boy', and to see him sing at least fragments of them.

 

I just can't see Macca agreeing to sit down and honour the format of the show by analysing Wild Life or Back To The Egg or even Band On The Run. It was essentially 'an audience with Paul McCartney'.

 

I think that if one's only criterion for determining whether an interview was good/worthwhile or not is the amount of new info we glean, then perhaps it wasn't the best but having just watched it, I actually thought it was a pretty good interview. Admittedly, we didn't learn much that was new (besides McCartney's description of how he helped write those Kanye collaborations) but I thought it was actually quite a frank and honest interview.

McCartney gave Weller a pretty honest answer to his question about whether he (McCartney) gets frustrated at not being able to play more songs live: he basically said, yes it is frustrating but he understands that people want to hear his famous hits and its those songs that get the best responses, so that's what he sticks to. Many may not agree but McCartney is as entitled to his view on the matter as anyone else, and that appears to be it.

He was also as honest as one could ask about his mental state after the break-up of the Beatles - I know we've heard it before but that doesn't make his answer any less honest, and I'm not sure what else there is to say on the subject. He was pretty open about his naivety in Lagos - he called himself stupid - and he was pretty upfront about everything else that was put to him. I found the post-Beatles slant refreshing (sure, there were comments about the Beatles: how could there not be? - it would be like interviewing Bjorn Ulvaeus and him not mentioning ABBA) and I thought he was in good humour.