Image: Raph_PH, CC BY 2.0
19 quotes
English musician and member of the Beatles (born 1942)
“John and I wrote about 300 songs together, and we never had a dry session. We always finished something.”
"I wrote 'Blackbird' thinking about the civil rights troubles, hoping it might give a little bit of hope."
on Civil Rights
"Writing songs is almost like therapy; you can go in kind of angry or sad, and it makes the song better because it’s real feelings in it."
on Music
"Sometimes you just sit down at a piano, and it’s not like a formula. It’s just what you fancy at the time."
"The difference between me and a lot of people is they often dream about music but don’t remember. For some reason, this melody just kept going around and around in my brain."
"It's interesting to hear what people have and what they don't know... I like that people are even bothered to write in."
"I can kind of follow sheet music, but if it gets complicated, I can't really read it."
"I'm a vegetarian but eat cheese... it's a compassion thing for animals."
on Animals
"The first thing you hear is you've got a letter through the post saying you're going to be knighted, but don't tell anyone."
"We were massive fans of Elvis... it was just like a dream really meeting him."
on Elvis
"I think the Beatles was when I was about 19."
"The great thing about 'Yesterday' was it kind of wrote itself. I just woke up one morning and thought, 'What's that? I like that tune.'"
"I had a dream... my mother came to me in the dream and said, 'Don't worry, it's gonna be fine, just let it be.'"
"I wanted to make a song where I actually said, 'I love you too, John,' and that was the idea behind it."
on John Lennon
"I thought it was a great character, so I started this song about a lonely old lady who picks up the rice in the church."
"I like the idea of giving animals their little shots at life."
"We didn't need a click track... if you were a good band, you just had to hold the tempo."
"I was thinking about the boy whose name is Julian, and I started this idea, 'Hey Jules, don’t make it bad.'"
"Having a collaborator is great because if you get stuck, you can just say, 'What do you think of this?' and kick it around together."
What others have said about Paul McCartney
"We have to thank Paul for the amounts of music we put out because he's the workaholic."
— Ringo Starr
"He was the motivating force; he would call us to go to work."
"It's a shame Paul missed it because he contributed so much to it."
— George Harrison
"It's funny that now he wants to write with me after all these years."
