Welcome to the Deep Dive, the show where we take
a huge pile of research articles, books, you
name it, and boil it all down to the absolute
essentials. And our mission is always to get
you past the surface level facts and into the
real expertise. Today, we're tackling a subject
so big, it's almost, you know, intimidating.
We are doing a deep dive into the career, the
influence, the entire legacy of Sir James Paul
McCartney. It's such a necessary topic because
for so many people, the name Paul McCartney just
means one thing. The cute beetle? Exactly. The
mop top, the writer of love songs. And I mean,
that narrative is just way too simple. So our
goal here is to get past that. to really understand
the sheer complexity of his entire creative life.
The eclecticism is staggering. You've got rock,
pop, avant -garde, classical, electronica, and
then you have the business mind that built this
huge post -Beatles empire. Okay, let's just jump
right in. We're looking at the bassist, the keyboardist,
the co -songwriter for the Beatles. And, of course,
one half of what is, without a doubt, the most
successful songwriting partnership in music history
with John Lennon. But before we get to the beginnings
in Liverpool... We really have to frame this
with the sheer scale of his success. We're talking
about one of the best -selling music artists
of all time. Of all time. And to put some numbers
on that for you, the record sales are estimated
at over 100 million. 100 million. But here's
the number that really shows the impact. He has
written or co -written a record 32 songs that
have hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
32. That that almost doesn't sound real. It's
an unbelievable level of consistency. And if
you're tracking the business side of the modern
music world, you just can't ignore the bottom
line. His fortune is estimated at around one
billion pounds as of 2024. So this is not just
a pop star. This is an industry. It is. And that
massive commercial success. Well, it often overshadows
the raw musical genius we're about to explore.
His versatility is everything. Right. The different
roles he played. Think about it. An innovative
vocalist, a hugely melodic bass player, a great
guitarist, a keyboardist who could do rock and
roll one minute and classical the next. And a
pretty solid drummer, too. He's a true polymath.
He works across the entire spectrum of creating
music. So let's go back to where that polymath
started. Back to the foundations. We're in Liverpool,
of course. James Paul McCartney, born in 1942.
And the environment he grew up in was, well,
it was all about music and stability. The support
he had at home was surprisingly strong, especially
from his father, Jim. Jim had been a salesman,
a lathe turner, but he had this whole other life
as a jazz musician. He led Jim Mack's jazz band
back in the 20s, and then his mother, Mary, was
a midwife. And her income was actually what allowed
them to move to a slightly better part of town.
So what you have is this kid growing up with
music just in the air, but also in a very secure,
very loving home. That's such an important dynamic.
He had the encouragement, but the sources also
point out he had this defiance against doing
things the formal way. Oh, absolutely. His dad
saw he had talent and suggested piano lessons.
But Paul wasn't interested. No, he preferred
to learn everything by ear. He had perfect pitch,
this incredible ear for melody, and he just wanted
to follow his instinct, not a rule book. It's
funny, he actually tried out for the Liverpool
Cathedral Choir and got rejected. Can you imagine
one of the greatest musical voices of the century
turned away right at the start? But the real
turning point, the moment he goes from a kid
who likes music to a budding artist, that happens
when he's 14. This is the pivotal trade. It tells
you everything about his priorities. His dad
gives him a nickel -plated trumpet for his birthday.
Great gift. A great gift. But Paul realized something
immediately. You can't sing and play the trumpet
at the same time. And singing was what he wanted
to do? It was everything. So he needed a chord
instrument. So he makes the trade, the trumpet
for a 15 -pound Franus Zenith acoustic guitar.
And that decision basically sets the course for
his entire life. But it came with its own problem.
Right. He's left -handed. And the guitar is strung
for a right -handed player. He struggled like
mad with it. Until he sees a poster of the country
singer, Slim Whitman. That was his aha moment.
He sees Whitman playing left -handed and a light
bulb just goes on. So he just reverses the strings?
Flips them around. Turns it into a lefty guitar,
and that's such a perfect metaphor for his career,
isn't it? Taking something standard and just
flipping it on its head to make it work for him.
Once he unlocked that, the songs just started
coming. His very first song, I Lost My Little
Girl, he wrote on that guitar. And it's amazing
to think that a song as famous as When I'm 64,
an early version of that, was written on the
family piano around the same time. His early
influences were pure American rock and roll.
His idol was Little Richard. That raw energy.
In fact, the first song he ever performed in
public was Long Tall Sally. At a holiday camp
talent show. Exactly. He starts his career literally
with this declaration of pure rock and roll intent.
Now we have to talk about the tragedy that really
created the bond with his future partner. The
loss of his mother, Mary, in 1956. Paul was only
14. She died of an embolism. And that profound,
sudden loss became this shared ground between
him and John Lennon, whose own mother died just
two years later. Having that shared trauma, losing
their mothers as teenagers, that had to be a
huge part of the connection that allowed them
to create what they did. It's really the genesis
of the partnership, and the meeting itself was
just pure chance. July 6th, 1957, he meets John
and his skiffle group, the Quarrymen, at a local
church event. And skiffle was huge then. A mix
of jazz, blues, folk. Easy to play. It was the
gateway drug for an entire generation of British
musicians. So Paul joins as a rhythm guitarist.
Yeah. And that creative engine with Lennon starts
right away. George Harrison joins in 58. And
they go through all the classic garage band names,
Johnny and the Moondogs, the Weird Spelling,
Beatles. Before finally settling on the Beatles
in August of 1960. Right before they hired Pete
Best on drums and went off to Hamburg. Which
is where they were really hammered into professional
bands. That's where the legend begins. So the
early 60s. The Beatles start to define their
sound. And within that, McCartney gets the job
that will define his musicianship. The reluctant
bass player. He only took it over after Stuart
Sutcliffe left in 61. And everyone agrees, nobody
wanted that job. Pauly himself said it was because
bass was seen as boring, just thumping along
in the background. And yet he takes that unwanted
job and makes the bass the melodic heart of the
biggest band in the world. It's the first huge
example of him turning a limitation into a strength,
an innovation born out of necessity. And things
move so fast. Love Me Do in 62, and by 64, it's
full -blown Beatlemania. And the press just sticks
him with this label, the cute Beatle, a label
he'd spend the next 60 years trying to move past.
The early hits, She Loves You, I Want to Hold
Your Hand, they just cement that tight pop sound.
But the real deep dive, the moment they go from
pop stars to true artists, that starts in 1965.
And a lot of that change was driven by Paul.
The evidence is just overwhelming. In 65, you
get Yesterday. A song so completely different
from everything else they were doing. Musically,
it was radical. Their first time using classical
instruments, a string quartet, in a pop song.
Imagine hearing that for the first time. It must
have been a huge shock. And technically, it was
just Paul, the first Beatles recording with only
one member. And the proof of its genius is in
the numbers, right? Over 2 ,200 recorded cover
versions. It's just a perfect melody. Musicologists
like Ian McDonald point to this as the moment
Paul really starts to take over. McDonald said
he was in the ascendant, not just as a songwriter,
but as an instrumentalist, arranger, and the
de facto musical director of the band. He was
the one pushing them to get beyond that early
cute phase. Which leads to Rubber Soul in 65.
A huge step forward creatively, but it also started
to create a rift with Lennon. The dynamic starts
to shift. The recording sessions for that album
already had increasing contention. The engineer
said Paul was becoming absolutely finicky about
every little detail. He was already thinking
like a producer. Exactly. And that meticulous
approach leads directly to Revolver in 1966,
which is just this quantum leap in studio experimentation.
And again, Paul is right at the center of it
with Eleanor Rigby. A neoclassical tour de force.
Just his vocal and a string octet. I mean, this
is not a rock band anymore. It's sophisticated
modern art. So after their final concert at the
end of 66, they become a purely studio band.
And Paul immediately uses that freedom to push
the concept for Sick Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club
Band. He invents this fictional band to give
them the freedom to experiment. He said they
hated that fucking four little mop top approach.
He said they were men now, artists, not just
performers. That's the core of his artistic drive,
isn't it? Tearing down what's successful to build
something new. And you hear that on tracks like
A Day in the Life, the big climax of the album.
It took a 40 -piece orchestra, which Paul and
George Martin instructed to just create chaos.
He wasn't just writing melodies. He was directing
organized chaos. But then real chaos hit when
their manager, Brian Epstein, died in August
of 67. And the discipline was gone. Paul tried
to step up and fill that leadership role. But
his first big project, the Magical Mystery Tour
film, was a total disaster. Critics hated it.
Paul the artist was trying to be Paul the executive,
and it just didn't work. So the endgame starts.
The sessions for the White Album and Let It Be
are just full of tension. If you've seen the
documentaries, you see Paul trying so hard to
hold it all together, almost lecturing the others.
He was trying to bring back the discipline that
Epstein had provided. In the middle of all this,
he finds some personal stability, marrying Lindy
Eastman in March of 69. And they managed to pull
together one last time for Abbey Road. Which
was really a compromise. The big medley on side
two was Paul's idea to wrap things up symphonically.
But the end was just drawn out and painful. Lennon
quits privately in 69. And then Paul makes the
public announcement on April 10, 1970, citing
all the business disagreements over their new
manager, Alan Klein. And the legal mess took
years to untangle. Lawsuits went on until 1989.
What an end to an era. A spectacular end. The
breakup of the Beatles could have just destroyed
a lesser artist. But McCartney just launches
straight into chapter two. And he does it with
a lot of humility. That humility is so important
for understanding the Wings era. He starts with
his first solo album in 1970, just called McCartney.
And it's basically him alone. It's a one -man
album. He played everything. It was raw. It was
intimate. And it went to number one in the U
.S. It proved he could do it on his own. He follows
that with Ram in 71. but he quickly realized
he missed being in a band. He was really clear
about that. When he formed Wings in 71 with Linda
and Denny Lane, his whole mission was, let's
go back to square one. No super group. Exactly.
He knew he couldn't compete with the ghosts of
the Beatles, so he had to build something completely
new. And the way he did it was just brilliant.
The famous Van Tour of 1972. It was the total
opposite of Beatlemania. They just drove around
the UK in a van, unannounced, playing surprise
gigs at universities. And getting paid in coins
from the students. The whole point was to strip
away the baggage. They played almost no Beatles
songs. It was about proving the new band on its
own merits. And that gritty back -to -basics
approach really worked. The momentum starts building
in 1973 with the James Bond theme, Live and Let
Die. Which was huge. Nominated for an Oscar.
It showed he was still comfortable mixing that
rock bombast with big orchestral arrangements.
But the real defining album for Wings was Band
on the Run. And it was recorded under pretty
difficult circumstances. Two of the band members
quit right before they were supposed to fly to
Lagos, Nigeria to record. So it was just Paul,
Linda, and Denny Lane. That adversity just forced
them to rely on Paul's musicianship. And it pay
off. Band on the Run was a massive hit. The UK's
first ever platinum album. So by 1975, he's feeling
confident enough to start embracing his past
again. The Wings Over the World tour was this
huge moment. It was the first time he started
playing Beatles songs live again with Wings.
He was reclaiming his own legacy. On his own
terms. And their biggest hit single came in 1977.
Olive Kintyre. Which was just an unprecedented
smash in the UK. It sold two and a half million
copies, which was double the previous record
holder. The previous record holder was... She
Loves You. He broke his own record. But just
like the Beatles, Wings eventually fell apart.
The last album, Back to the Egg, had one amazing
high point. The Rockestra session. A supergroup
with members of The Who, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin.
I mean, it was legendary. But the album itself
was a disappointment. And that, plus disagreements
over money, and then Paul's cannabis bust in
Tokyo in 1980, which canceled a huge tour. It
all just led to the end of Wings in April. 1981.
So in the 80s, he pivots again. He moves away
from the band idea and becomes this ultimate
collaborator. Bridging genres and generations.
The early 80s are defined by these massive duets.
Ebony and Ivory with Stevie Wonder in 82. Which
became his 28th number one single on the Billboard
charts. And then two huge hits with Michael Jackson,
The Girl Is Mine and Say Say Say. That pairing
with Jackson just connected two eras of pop royalty.
It kept him right at the top of the charts. But
not every project in the 80s was a hit. We have
to mention the 1984 film, Give My Regards to
Broad Street. Ah, the film. Critics just destroyed
it, called it characterless and pointless. But,
and this is the key thing about McCartney. The
soundtrack was gold. It went to number one in
the UK. So Paul, the filmmaker, might have failed,
but Paul, the musician, was still untouchable.
He also played a huge part in Live Aid in 1985.
He performed Let It Be, but his microphone was
dead for the first two minutes. Can you imagine?
Paul McCartney and nobody can hear him. They
got it fixed, though. They did. And the decade
ended on a real high note for him, critically.
Flowers in the Dirt in 1989 with Elvis Costello.
Yeah. A big success. It showed he could still
work with the sharpest contemporary artists and
make vital new music. And as a live act, he was
just a giant. The world tour from 89 to 90 was
massive. He played for 184 ,000 people in Rio
de Janeiro, the largest paying stadium crowd
in history. Setting new records, decades into
his career. It's incredible. Okay, let's get
into the centerpiece of this deep dive, the craft.
We keep calling him a self -taught genius. What
does that actually mean when you listen to the
music? It means he worked on instinct. He had
a perfect pitch and these incredible ears. He
wasn't thinking about music theory. He was feeling
his way through it. He compared himself to primitive
cave artists who drew without training. It's
a great analogy. Creation comes first. The rules
come later. And that intuitive approach is exactly
what let him revolutionize the bass guitar. The
instrument he got stuck with. Right. And he turned
it from a background instrument into a lead melodic
voice. He was listening to a lot of Motown, especially
James Jamerson. His hero. His hero. Because Jamerson's
bass lines were like a second melody weaving
all around the vocal. Paul took that idea and
put it into a rock context. And it's why he's
always ranked as one of the greatest bassists.
Even Lennon said that half the bass lines you
hear today are just ripped off from Paul's Beatles
work. That's the ultimate praise, really. So
where can you hear that evolution happening?
It starts to shift with She's a Woman, but the
huge technical leap is on Rubber Soul. On a track
like The Word, you can hear him just flying all
over the neck of the bass. But the absolute peak,
the moment that redefined the instrument, is
the B -side Rain. Rain is just astonishing. His
playing on that is what you'd call lead bass.
The rest of the band is holding down the rhythm,
and his bass is off on its own melodic adventure.
It's almost a counter melody to the song itself.
It really is. Some people say it's so inventive
it almost overwhelms the track. And he himself
said his most creative bass playing was on Sweet
Pepper, especially on Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
And for the gearheads, it was mostly the violin
-shaped Huffner bass live. but a Rickenbacker
in the studio. The Rickenbacker had a much sharper,
more cutting sound that was perfect for recording
those intricate lines. But moving on from bass,
the sheer number of instruments he mastered is
just incredible. His acoustic guitar playing
is fantastic. On a song like Blackbird, he's
using this finger -picking style where he's pulling
two strings at once to sound like a more complex
folk player. And what often gets overlooked is
that he was a really great lead electric guitarist,
too. A very distinctive one. He played that sharp
slide solo. Solo on Drive My Car, the crazy screaming
guitar on Helter Skelter. And even the solo on
Georgia's song Paxman. Which is pretty bold.
He loved his Epiphone Casino guitar because it
was semi -hollow, so he could get all this amazing
feedback and sustain out of it at high volumes.
It gave his solos that wilder, less polished
sound. And then you have his keyboard playing.
He could do the Fats Domino rock and roll bounce
on Lady Madonna or the beautiful gospel feel
of Let It Be. He was also right there at the
start with electronic instruments. An early adopter.
He was playing the Moog synthesizer on Abbey
Road on Maxwell's Silver Hammer, this huge, complicated
machine creating sounds no one had ever heard
in a pop song. And the Mellotron on Strawberry
Fields Forever. That iconic wobbly flute sound.
That was him. And on top of all that, he's a
great drummer. He played drums on all his solo
McCartney albums and on Band on the Run. a true
one -man band. He even played drums on a Foo
Fighters song in 2017. Which brings us to the
most experimental side of him, the avant -garde
stuff that completely shatters the cute Beatle
image. This is him in mid -60s London, getting
deep into the art scene, influenced by composers
like John Cage. He started making what he called
electronic symphonies with tape loops. So what
does that mean in practice in 1966? It means
physically recording sounds onto magnetic tape
and then literally cutting it up with a razor
blade. splicing the pieces together into loops,
playing them backwards, speeding them up, slowing
them down. It's manual physical electronic music.
Total analog control over sound. And these weren't
just home experiments. Those tape loops ended
up on Tomorrow Never Knows and The Fool on the
Hill. They became part of the sound of the Beatles'
most psychedelic period. And that experimental
drive never left him. In the 90s, he started
a pure electronica project under a pseudonym.
The Fireman. With the producer Youth. They made
three albums of ambient electronic soundscapes.
This wasn't Paul the songwriter. This was Paul
the sonic scientist, just exploring texture and
mood completely anonymously. So McCartney isn't
just a musician. He's a very smart, very rich
businessman who learned some hard lessons early
on about ownership. After the Beatles fell apart,
he built his own fortress, MPL Communications.
a publishing company which is now a giant it
owns over 25 000 copyrights and not just his
own stuff no things like the rights to classic
musicals guys and dolls grease annie but the
big shadow over his entire business career is
the Northern Song Saga. It's the great irony.
Northern Songs published the Lennon -McCartney
catalog, and they lost control of it. It was
famously bought by his friend Michael Jackson
in 1985. Which created a huge rift between them.
It did. So the most successful songwriters in
history didn't own their own songs. But he did
manage to get a couple of them back. Just to
Love Me Do and P .S. I Love You, which is what
led to the big legal fight later on. In 2017,
he sued Sony ATV. Based on a part of U .S. copyright
law that says creators can reclaim their works
after 56 years. And he won. Right. Or at least
they settled. They reached a confidential settlement.
So he finally regained at least some measure
of control over his own legacy. And beyond the
boardroom, his creative energy spilled over into
visual arts. He started painting seriously in
the 80s, inspired by watching the artist Willem
de Kooning work. And he got pretty good. He had
his first exhibition in Germany in 1999, showing
portraits of Lenin, David Bowie, Andy Warhol.
Even his official coat of arms is a piss of art.
It has a liver bird holding a guitar and four
little emblems that look like beetle backs. He's
also a successful author, poetry. Children's
books. Yay, Grand Dude was a big hit. And he
and Linda became these really influential activists,
especially for animal rights. Their vegetarian
story is so famous. It's a great one. They were
eating lamb for dinner while watching little
lambs playing in a field outside their window.
And the connection just clicked. They stopped
eating meat right then and there in 1975 and
became lifelong advocates. He's also campaigned
against landmines, seal hunting. He even called
for ecocide to be made a crime at the International
Criminal Court. Which brings us right up to the
present day and his most recent activism, the
protest against generative AI. This is where
the tech pioneer of the 60s meets the tech protester
of the 2020s. It's a fascinating turn. In November
of 2025, he released his first new recording
in five years. And it was. A nearly silent track.
Just some quiet hiss and a few little noises.
It was on a protest album, and his track was
meant to symbolize the silencing of human artists
if their rights aren't protected from AI theft.
So his fear is that AI will just destroy the
ability for young songwriters to have a career.
Exactly. It's a direct call for government protection
for artists. That tension with technology really
makes you think about his relationships with
the other Beatles after the breakup. The one
with John Lennon was obviously the most complex.
They had their ups and downs. Their last time
together was just watching TV. Watching Saturday
Night Live in 1976 when the host, Lorne Michaels,
offered them $3 ,000 to reunite on the show right
then and there. And they actually thought about
doing it. For a minute, they almost just went
down to the studio. It's a beautiful last memory.
Paul said their last phone call just before John
was killed was very friendly, which was a huge
comfort to him. He always regretted his first
public comment after the murder, though. Telling
a reporter, it's a drag. He meant it in the sense
of a profound wheat, a deep sadness, but it just
came across as flippant, a misunderstanding he
spent years explaining. His relationship with
George Harrison was a bit more strained. George
often talked about how bossy Paul was in the
studio. George said Paul would make them work
on 10 of his songs before they could even look
at one of George's. He called him selfish. Which
speaks to that directorial architect personality
of Paul's. He had a vision. and he drove everyone
towards it. But after George died, the affection
was undeniable. Paul called him his baby brother
and played this beautiful ukulele version of
something at the concert for George. And then
there's Ringo, the most consistent collaborator
post -Beatles. Even though they had huge fights,
Ringo quit the band for a bit during the White
Album because he was so fed up with Paul criticizing
his drumming on back in the USSR. But they always
made up. And they've played on each other's records
for decades. The most recent reunion in December
2024 was really special. That was when he got
his old bass back. His original Huffner violin
bass, the one that was stolen in 1972. He got
it back after 52 years and played it on stage
with Ringo. an incredible full circle moment.
In his later career, Paul has just refused to
become a legacy act. He keeps pushing. which
is most obvious when he tried to take on classical
music. The Liverpool Oratorio in 1991. It was
a huge, serious project. And it sold well. It
topped the classical charts. But the critics
were not kind. Some of the reviews were pretty
brutal. One described the music as afraid of
anything approaching a fast tempo. But Paul,
you know, he just wrote a letter to the newspaper
defending it. He quoted the exact tempos. He
did. And he said, basically, History shows that
critics are often wrong, so I'll let the people
decide. He just has this unshakable self -belief.
And he's still a major force on the album charts.
Egypt Station in 2018 was his first number one
album in the U .S. in 36 years. But the truly
insane stack came with McCartney III in 2020.
The one he recorded alone during lockdown. That
album made him the first artist ever to have
a new album in the top two chart spots in each
of the last six decades. Six decades. That's
just unprecedented. And his book, The Lyrics,
was a massive bestseller. He's become a literary
figure, too. As a live performer, he's still
one of the biggest draws in the world. He's still
headlining festivals, playing at huge global
events like the Olympics. And memorably, he fronted
the surviving members of Nirvana for a concert.
The list of awards is just endless. Two Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame inductions, 19 Grammys,
an Oscar, an Emmy, knighthood. He's reached the
pinnacle of achievement in pretty much every
medium. And he stayed culturally relevant, collaborating
with Kanye West and Rihanna in the 2010s. Introducing
himself to a whole new generation. And he even
had a cameo as a pirate in a Pirates of the Caribbean
movie. Because why not? At this point, why not?
So when you look at the whole picture, when you
get past the cute beetle. What really defines
Paul McCartney is this constant refusal to be
put in a box. He co -wrote the world's biggest
pop songs, and then he made weird electronic
music as the fireman. He revolutionized the bass,
built a business empire, and just set the standard
for what it means to have an enduring, versatile
career. And the motivation behind all of it,
he summed it up himself. He said, I think there's
an urge in us to stop the terrible fleetingness
of time. Music. Try and capture one bloody moment,
please. His whole career has just been an attempt
to capture as many of those moments as possible.
So as you reflect on all this, think about the
central tension that runs through his entire
life. In the 60s, he was the ultimate technological
pioneer, using tape loops and synthesizers to
push music into the future. But late in his career,
he becomes a technological protester, releasing
a silent track to warn against AI. So the question
for you is this. Does his life show that true
creative freedom only exists when technology
is a tool for the artist, a new instrument, and
not when it becomes something that consumes and
replicates their work? And maybe more importantly,
do new artists today even have the luxury that
he had? The freedom to experiment and to fail
without the fear of being creatively silenced
before they've even begun. Something to think
about. That's all for this deep dive. We'll see
you next time.