It’s the image of an unshaven young man that comes to mind first when I think of Paul McCartney. He wears a brown leather jacket with teddy fur that is half open to reveal his white t-shirt. A baby wrapped in the fluffy inner lining looks curiously out of the jacket. Paul McCartney smiles. It’s a tired smile, like young fathers often show. Perhaps it is also a timid or even uncertain smile because an uncertain future lies ahead. Not just because of the young family and all the adventures that come with it. But also because this picture, which his wife Linda took of him, was taken in a difficult, one could even say traumatic time. He was breaking up with his best friends, losing his job, and rumor had it that he was dead. All in all, that’s not the best place to start a family.
In the autumn of 1969, Paul McCartney had fled to the country from London. He hadn’t wanted to watch any longer as everything he held dear went down the drain. John Lennon had announced internally that he was leaving the Beatles and Allen Klein, the manager he had hired against McCartney’s will, would rip them all off. A run-down Scottish farm on the Kintyre peninsula, which he had bought a few years earlier for tax reasons, served as the Beatle’s on the run hideaway. Some days he was so depressed that he wouldn’t get out of bed. he drank Whiskey. Way too much. But eventually he realized there was more than what he’d lost: the success, the fame, the fan crush, and the critical acclaim. Namely his young family, nature, his talent, love, maybe even a life beyond vanity and hustle and bustle. He was 27 years old. time to grow up.
The photo with the baby in the jacket is on the back cover of his first solo album, which is simply called McCartney. It was released on April 17, 1970. From that day on – he made it clear in the info sheet accompanying the press – he was an ex-Beatle. More than half a century has passed since then. Paul McCartney turns 80 on June 18. Everyone will write again about the biggest and most influential band in pop history, whose engine he was with his dreams, his ambition, his work ethic and his talent. However, it seems to me that his most impressive achievement was not being a Beatle, but being an ex-Beatle.
The sequel can be read in the current issue of ROLLING STONE