All language subtitles for McCartney.3.2.1.S01E02.720p.HULU.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

You know,
I meet a lot of young groups and I say,

"I can't read music or write it."

They go, "What?"

And it's like...
"Well, that doesn't work.

Well, if you've done this,
how could you do it without‐‐"

But it means that it's here.
It's not on a bit of paper.

I tell kids who want to learn the piano,

I say, "Okay, here's you go.
Start with middle C."

We all know that.

It's the first thing in a piano lesson.

And then think about like
the Eddie Cochran thing.

I say, "Well, that's... that's a chord,
if you play those together."

"And you just got that,
remember this and that.

So you do that. One space.
Finger. One space. Finger."

So there you've got the chord.
I say, you know, "We started there."

‐ And so, you could kind of write
a song... with that.

‐ Yeah. Yeah.
‐ But if you just move this up one,

it's the same shape.
‐ Yeah.

‐ You've got another chord.
‐ Yeah.

‐ Now you've got two chords.

Move it up again,
you got three chords.

Yeah.

And move it up again,
you got four chords.

- Yeah. Yeah.
- And then again, you got five.

And then now you've got six.

Well, you don't need more than that.
‐ Yeah.

‐ So you can now
put permutations of that...

‐ Yeah.
‐ and you get songs, you know, like‐‐

Yeah.

But it's that same little shape.

‐ Yeah.

You know?

Did your dad
teach you that shape?

‐ No, we figured that out from‐‐

‐ Yeah.

‐ We had to know this
to do Jerry Lee Lewis.

‐ Yeah.

Yeah.

‐ So once you figure that‐‐

So it really gets
super fascinating, I think.

‐ Absolutely.
‐ You know, you,

you've got all the chords
you can play with,

put those in permutations,
then mess with the bass notes.

Obvious thing to do is to do

the... the note

one octave down
that relates to that chord.

But you can do‐‐

‐ Harmony.

‐ And you, you're getting
really dramatic now.

‐ Yeah.

‐ And I think that's all we ever did,
you know, just experimented.

With John doing Imagine,
you could hear that's him‐‐

Yeah.

‐ It's just sort of what
we'd learned based on that.

‐ Yeah.

‐ I saw John Legend the other night,
and John's doing this‐‐

I forget what the song was.
And then he sort of goes‐‐

But that's, that's those‐‐

‐ Yeah. Yeah.

‐ You, you know, if you put
some nice soul stuff over that‐‐

- You know?
- Yeah.

Or‐‐

Same chords.
‐ Wow.

Wow.

Our favorite composer
was Bach in the Beatles

'cause it was nearest
to what we were doing.

And we would just say,
"Just put a beat behind it."

‐ Yeah.

Yeah.

‐ It'd be, it'd be better.

‐ Yeah.
‐ It'd be better then.

‐ Yeah.

‐ What I liked about it
was the mathematical thing,

so that you kind of go‐‐

Or Eleanor Rigby‐‐

You do that.
So you go one, two, three, four.

And then you found out
this is what they were doing.

One. Two.

And then it‐‐

You know, so you put those together
and then on top of it, you might put‐‐

So you've got, like, you know,
two or four or eight.

‐ Yeah. Yeah. In the same space.
‐ Very simple mathematics.

‐ Yeah, yeah, yeah.
‐ It's all happening together,

so it gives this lovely feel
of something satisfying.

Eleanor.

‐ Let's do it.

‐ Aah!

‐ So that's where
they've done. Yeah.

I remember...

showing this to George, Martin

and we'd already done Yesterday,

so this was like,

it'd be nice to‐‐
I think this song could suit,

but instead of a quartet,
it was now an octet.

Again, just to do something
a bit different.

And I brought it in like,
a little bit like‐‐
‐ Yeah.

‐ Yeah, I brought it in like‐‐

And then George would show me.

He would say, "Well, okay,
that's sort of rock and roll."

So all pretty much in one octave.

‐ But he would then say,
"Okay, so a cello would go there

"and then a viola would go there,

and then‐‐"

So he would separate all the notes.

Yeah.

‐ And that's a fabulous orchestration
that, that he did.

‐ And this doesn't have
the piano in it?

You wrote it on the piano
and then decided to‐‐
‐ Yeah, that was‐‐

Yeah, that was the thing
because, you know, Yesterday,

there'd just been the one guitar.
‐ Yeah.

‐ So we decided we'd kind of try
and go a little bit further...
‐ Yeah.

‐ And just have this,
and then I would sing to this.

You know, so I'd show George the chords.
He would then transpose it.

Then George would talk
to the musicians, sort of say‐‐

I want it kind of really,
bam, bam, quite bright.

Staccato.

And they got into it.
‐ Yeah.

‐ They loved it, you know.

It's a nice, nice little arrangement
on its own.

‐ Yeah.
‐ And then I sang it.

And I didn't think I was singing it well.

I remember talking to George,
"I'm not singing this."

He said, "No, it's okay. It's good."

He was calming me down.

And then we double tracked it.

‐ I think probably because
I didn't think I'd sung it well,

so then... "Double track it."

We cover any sins.

‐ When you first heard
it played by the octet...

what was the feeling like?

‐ It was very exciting, actually.

Downstairs in Abbey Road,

the eight guys assembled

and they did it live.

‐ Did you listen from the control room?

Do you remember?
‐ Yeah.

I would, I would
kind of go down and say hi

and, you know,
listen to it down there.

‐ Yeah.

‐ Which is always nice first.
‐ Yeah.

‐ Then you go up and see
what the engineers are making of it.

‐ Yeah.

‐ You know, they'd put it all together.
‐ Yeah.

‐ Put the right little bits
of fairy dust on it.

‐ Yeah.

‐ And they, they now made it
like a record.

It's funny. On the EMI desk
that we first worked on,

there was the thing
on the end of the desk here,

a little switch.

You'd put it up for classical
and then down for pop.

So ours was always in the pop position.

It was funny 'cause we,

we took things
very on face value.

‐ Yeah.

‐ "Why have they got a better set
of EQs than we've got?"

They said, "No, it's not better.

"Pop, you need more of these,
sort of aggression and so and so.

Classical, it's more,
it's sort of more mellow and stuff."

But that was our way of thinking.

‐ Yeah.

‐ "Wait a minute.
How come they've got that?

We want a bit of‐‐"

With Penny Lane,
I'd come into the studio

and the night before I happened
to be watching on television

the Brandenburg Concerto. Bach.

‐ Yeah.

‐ I'd just kind of got it
on the background almost, you know.

I'm listening to it.

And then there's a little trumpet,

very high little trumpet that Bach uses.

And I came in the next day,

I said to George, I said,
"George, wha‐‐" Martin.

‐ Yeah.
‐ I said "What was that?"

He said, "That's a piccolo trumpet."

Funny thing about George, he knew

all the best players...
‐ Yeah.

‐ from the classical orchestras.

And there's a guy called David Mason

who was a really good player.

And so we just booked him.
‐ Yeah.

‐ So we go in there
and we've done the track,

and we're ready to put this,
we've left room for a solo.

George and David sort of say,

"Okay, so what do we,
what do we want to play?"

And I go, um,

And they go, "Okay, hang on."

And they're writing it down.

So we were kind of
making it up on the spot.

‐ Yeah.

And so I went‐‐

and put, like,
an impossible high note.

And David Mason turns
to me, he says,

"Well, that's officially

out of the range
of the piccolo trumpet even."

And I kind of give him
a look like, "Yeah."

Like, "You can do it," you know.

He goes, "Okay."

So he plays it and it's,

it haunted him
for the rest of his life, you know.

‐ Let's hear this.
‐ Yeah.

‐ The flute's beautiful too.

‐ Yeah, I think it's a mix of the two.

Wow!

‐ It's singing.
‐ Yeah.

‐ Whoa!
‐ That was cool.

‐ It's a groove you can listen to all day.

You know, it's just like‐‐
‐ Yeah.

‐ That feeling doesn't get old.

‐ Now these are more funky.

‐ Yeah.

‐ I don't think this is David.
This is other players.

‐ I never heard that before.
Crash sound. It was cool.

I've heard it. Yeah. Yeah.

‐ They're so, they're so high.

Ridiculous.
‐ Beautiful.

‐ And that's an example,
there at the end, that‐‐

Yeah.

I mean, anyone else would go,
"That's feedback."

‐ Yeah.
‐ "Let's get rid of it."

And it well might be feedback.

I don't remember.
‐ Yeah.

‐ But with us, going,
"No, it sounds good."

‐ Yeah.
‐ You know, "It's great.

It's fine," you know.

So we'd leave accidents a lot of the time.
‐ Yeah.

Would the engineers ever fight back,
like, if you did something

and didn't like the way the meters
were looking or anything like that?

‐ In the beginning, yeah.
‐ Yeah.

- Because they're trained...
- Yeah.

By the record company

to follow the meters.

You're not supposed
to go in the red.

- Yeah.
- Obviously, you know.

But we'd say, "No,
go in the red. Go in the red."

'Cause it would make
the guitars, like, hot,

make an acoustic guitar,
like, into an electric guitar.

‐ Yeah.
‐ These days, it's not so easy.

These older boards, you could defeat them.

If we went into the red,
it would distort a bit.

‐ Yeah.

‐ Now they're rather good,
and they can handle it.

‐ I see.

‐ Which is a pity.
‐ Yeah.

‐ Because, you know,
we used to love that.

‐ Would you ever,
after recording a guitar song,

decide to reinforce
the guitars with piano or‐‐

‐ Yeah, sometimes. Yeah.

Sometimes, it's really a good idea.

Say you've got a little bass part.

‐ Yeah.
‐ And the bass is doing a‐‐

That combined
with a bass is a great sound.

Yeah.

- This gives it the punch.
- Yeah.

The attack.

- Yeah.
- Yeah.

Yeah.

This reminds me a bit of the piano

that's still there
in Abbey Road, actually.

We used to call it Mrs. Mills' piano

'cause there was a pianist
who did all this sort of‐‐

And you're like‐‐

I can't play it. Stride.

And Mrs. Mills' piano inspired that.

You know?

I mean, I wrote it at home.
‐ Yeah.

‐ But it was like, "No, got to do this
on that funky little piano."

And songs like that,

um, I like to kind of change
my voice a bit.

So I like to sort of get
a harder voice.

‐ So the singer would be
the same guy

who's playing that piano part,
makes sense.

‐ Yeah.
‐ It's almost like a character study.

‐ Yeah. Yeah.

I‐I‐‐ It's one of the things
I'd like to do, you know.

‐ Love that sound
of the tape starting.

‐ Yeah. It's such a good sound.

Three, four.

I sit and watch all the children.

‐ Yeah.
‐ Walking by...

They seem to say to me...

I couldn't tell what she was thinking.

But I knew

it was through.

‐ Yeah, my, my record label,
they've got studios everywhere, you know.

Brazil. China.

And I was into tenor guitar.

Little sort of Africany thing.

So I liked that,
so I just plunked for Lagos.

Let's go there.

Okay, now go, boy.

‐ Really good vocal. It's a good vocal.

‐ It's a nice, like, gentle little‐‐

‐ I'm drumming on this too.

Couple of members of my band

rang me up the night
before we were due to leave.

They said, "We're not coming."

For an hour or so, it was like,

"What a bummer.
I don't believe it,"

you know, "God," you know.

And then a sort of
optimistic spirit came back,

and I sort of thought,

"You know what?
We're going to make a record."

‐ Yeah.

There was a little period

when certain people
started writing, like, "rock opera."

‐ Yeah.

‐ It was kind of nice.
It was, like, different.

So I thought I could have a go at it.

‐ Is that a Moog?
‐ Yeah.

‐ Yeah, again,
unexpected twists and turns.

‐ Yeah. Yeah.
‐ Cinematic.

So we went to Lagos where the studio
was just being kind of finished,

but it was good.

And I had with me the tapes
of all the songs for the album.

‐ However, we were warned,
whatever you do,

don't go out late
in certain areas.

And, so of course,
we go to a friend's house,

and we go out late at night.

Hippies. We just
did not listen to anyone.

So a car pulls up.

The guy gets out of the car,

and, and I go
into Liverpool mode.

I go, "That is so nice of you."

"You're going to give us a lift.
No, get back in your car."

So I bundle him back in the car.
‐ Yeah.

Five of them jumped out the car,
one of them had a knife.

Linda's, aah! Screaming at them.

So they took all our stuff,
including my demos for Band On The Run.

That was the only thing
I was really pissed about.

‐ Yeah.

‐ And so now we had to make
the album with just three of us,

me, Linda, and Denny,
without the demo recordings.

‐ Yes.

‐ And so, again, we just thought,

"Right, let's do this."

And we just became determined

to, to make it a... a good record.

‐ Do you feel like by going there,
it impacted the album?

‐ I was kind of half wondering

whether we'd pick up
a lot of African vibes

and maybe musicians,

bit Graceland thing, you know.
‐ Yeah.

‐ Um, but we didn't.

The only thing happened was
I went to see Fela Kuti.

This was at the Afrika Shrine,

- which was his club outside Lagos.
- Yeah.

‐ You're sitting right by him.
Front row seats.

‐ Yeah.

What was the energy
in the room like?

‐ The energy was great.
It was all‐‐

‐ Were people dancing or‐‐
‐ Yeah.

‐ Yeah.
‐ Yeah.

When he came on
and his band kicked in, whoa.

I still remember the riff.

‐ So cool.

‐ And his whole band kicked in.

So there was Fela at the front

with a little piano.

And the middle, at the back,
he's got two conga players.

- They're like the rhythm box.
- Yeah.

They're just going...

They're keeping that same rhythm.

This side and that side, like stereo,

and he's got the shakers...

And the drummer, he would go‐‐

Fills.

‐ Kind of fills.
‐ Yeah. Yeah.

Two guitars.

One's the tenor guitar,

and the other one's
a little bit more lead guitar.

Then he's got his sax section.

The music was so incredible that I wept,

just when it hit on the groove.

That was one of the greatest
music moments in my life.

‐ Yeah. Yeah. It sounds incredible.
‐ Hearing that song live.

‐ Beautiful.

I'm going to play something else,

a very different energy.

‐ What you got now?
‐ I've got this one.

It will be fun to hear.

‐ It's a pretty little song this. Yeah.

He said modestly.

‐ This is also, even though
it's not an electronic song,

this melody is very today.

This is a very modern melody.
‐ You think so?

‐ I know so.

It's like un‐‐ It doesn't‐‐

This sounds like
you could hear this now

in an unusual way.

‐ It kind of did get lost
on the album,

but sort of deep fans know that one.
‐ Yeah.

Yes.
‐ And often write to me about it.

‐ Yeah, yeah.
‐ I think I slightly regretted

that the strings on it

are just a little weedy,
synth little things.

‐ I think that might be part
what makes it modern, though.

‐ Maybe. Well‐‐

‐ Do you know, it's like‐‐
I don't know. It's the‐

‐ Hey, you know,
the thing is I can have regrets.

They don't have to be right.

Do you know what I'm saying?

I think all of us, we go,
"We should've done that."

‐ Yeah.
‐ Somebody else will say, "No.

You don't need to. That‐that's fine."
So...

‐ But I don't see you as someone,
as having a lot of regrets,

looking back on music that you made.

‐ Not really. No.

Forge ahead.

‐ Yeah.
‐ Constantly.

And, um,

well, that's what I love.

That's what I love about it.
‐ Yeah.

‐ Music. Life.

That there's, there's always
that next little song...

‐ Yeah.

‐ that you can be
thinking about or writing.

You know, I'm writing
a thing at the moment.

That's great.

That's great.

‐ Yeah.

‐ Yeah.

Incredible.

‐ Good, man. Great.
‐ Really good.

‐ I goofed it a bit, but‐‐
‐ No, but it sounds like it‐‐

The beauty of it is,
when I hear it, it sounds like,

"This is a song
that's always been around."

You know like it‐‐ In a good way.
‐ Like "You know this one."

‐ But not in a way that
I've actually heard it before,

but in a, like, "Yeah,
this is like one of those songs

that feels like it's in the air."

‐ Yeah.
‐ Do you know what I mean?

‐ That's what I've sort of done
all my life.

That's what I'm still doing.
‐ Yeah. Yeah.

‐ Just trying to discover just
a little thing that sounds nice.

Someone said Mozart once said,

"I write the notes
that like each other."

And I like that.
‐ Yeah.

‐ I like that. Sounds good to me.
‐ Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, right, I know.

Okay, man, great.