FMF: Cheers! Nice place you got here.
McC: [shrugs] I need to get away, sometimes. Be me, you know?
FMF: Okay. Can I start the interview with a question?
McC: That’s a question already.
FMF: Not that one. Another one?
McC: Is that the other one?
FMF: I remember you saying the Beatles [popular singing group - Ed.] should have broken up after Sgt. Pepper. I thought I was the only person to think that, so I was surprised to hear you say it.
McC: We went a bit shit after Pepper, to be honest. Yeah.
FMF: Sixty-eight was a bust.
McC: We didn’t know what the fuck we wanted to do. No direction. There was that home movie we did ... [clicks fingers]
FMF: Magical ... something?
McC: Yeah. That was embarrassing, you know? Everybody hated it. We hated it.
FMF: Some people like it.
McC: [laughs] Some people on drugs like it. Not good drugs. Prescription drugs.
FMF: So why did you stay together?
McC: Yoko, really. She was like the glue in the ... sandwich. Her and Linda. They were like sisters, very close. Lot of hugging and kissing in the studio, going to the loo together ... anyway. They could see we were falling apart, you know? Bickering and stuff. Poking each other in the chest, snide comments. They really calmed us down. Especially Yoko. I really fancied her, at the time. Anyway, she’d come into the studio and it was like this, this wave of peacefulness, and love, washed over us. We did some great work after Pepper, but it never came out in the form it should, there was an album there ...
FMF: This was the Aloha album?
McC: [nods] Aloha means Hello Goodbye, which was like our single. Great album. Great album. It was going to be assembled from stuff we didn’t record for an album, as such, you know? There was never any, like, sessions for the album, but there were all these great Beatle songs sitting there, and we were going to do that album to tie up loose ends. Go out with a bang.
FMF: So you were still thinking of splitting up?”
McC: Oh yeah. But on a high, as friends. Yoko showed us the way. Oriental wisdom. And I don’t think we could have topped the Aloha album. Well, we didn't.
FMF: So what happened?
McC: [grimaces] I had a bit of a fling with Yoko. You could sense the chemistry in the studio. It got to the point where it was obvious, like this ... thick soup you were wading through. You look at the footage from Let It Be.
FMF: Another shit Beatles movie.
McC: Yeah. All that atmosphere, that soup, that was Yoko and me, desiring each other, yet staying apart for the good of the band. Remembering our stolen moments of passion - you can’t forget that. In the broom cupboard. On the bus.
FMF: So why didn’t the Aloha album appear?
McC: It just sort of faded away. Linda wanted us to work on a [finger-waggle] “proper” album, this concept she had about a vegetarian landing on the moon. We agreed to a new album, on the condition it wasn’t about vegetarians on the moon. Other than that, we had no fucking idea where we were going with that one. [blows raspberry]
FMF: Apart from down the toilet. But you had a track listing for the Aloha album?
McC: Oh yeah. Acetate pressed up. And a cover, Richard Avedon took the photos, it was ready to roll. Roll and rock! Wooh! [throws empty pork scratching bag off roof].
FMF: Anything we haven’t heard on it?
McC: No. Yeah. We edited Hey Jude down, faded it out before it starts to drive you nuts with that ner ner ner ner-ner-ner nerrr thing. The album version’s much better. Shorter.
FMF: How about letting me post the album on the blog?
McC: Groovy. What’s a blog?
Ask nicely ...
ReplyDeleteGreat interview, really excellent how you dug so much out of the lad. I would love to hear this album, any chance you can post a link to it? Pretty Please.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much sir, your kindness is deeply appreciated. I look forward to more of your insightful interviews.
ReplyDeleteBob W.
PS: Thank you for the bonus album. I think this band could be big, maybe even bigger than Donny & Marie :-)
What sort of buffoonery is this? It's a fact that The Beatles hired several musicians to replace Paul, after that accidental auto crash, and some became big names in the music biz. Clapton, Hal Blaine, Jack Casady, Nilsson, just to name a few. I don not believe you interviews the real Pauley, but probably more likely you were fooled into thinking that the fake Paul was the real Paul, AS WERE MANY OF US BACK THEN. Don't try to cover it up as some sort of cover up, on account of because we all know the truth exists somewhere. Besides that, when did Maureen ever take control of Ringo's drinking problem?
ReplyDeleteThank you for broadening the debate, Timmy! As ever, the conspiracy theorists never go quite far enough. I can reveal to you that Paul was born fake. He stood in for the "real" Paul even in the womb. In her unpublished autobiography, Mrs Mary McCartney says "I knew it wasn't him as soon as they cut the cord. He was too tall. But I never said anything. I didn't want them to think I was a nutter."
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry...Is this guy related in some way to LINDA McCartney?
ReplyDeleteHe's Linda McCartney's sock-puppet. Older readers will have fond memories of her kids' TV show "The Macca Mob".
ReplyDeleteThanks.. Is that on the net somewhere?
ReplyDeletehttps://www48.zippyshare.com/v/ZGApbWMR/file.html
ReplyDeleteTo those finding their way here after the Abbey Roadworks post, don't miss the Compleat Beetles post (May).
ReplyDeleteWhither Walrus, Flying, and the tripping over itself canter of It's Only a Northern Song? Does Long, Long, Long not survive the post-Pepper purges? Choice cuts from Abbey Road and Let it Be. I am confuse. I like your Hello Goodbye. It's a great little album. But it would have made a swell double.
ReplyDeleteI consider the original MMT ep as a standalone artist-created release. The US album was not put together by the Beatles, nor was the Yellow Submarine OST. Northern Song was recorded during Pepper sessions for that album and is included on the Compleat Pepper here. "Hello Goodbye" compiles tracks recorded within a defined timeframe that weren't written for, and did not appear on, albums created by the group. It is not a compilation of post-Pepper songs, more the "missing" 1968 album that predates the White Album.
DeleteOk. Got it. Thanks. I was assuming this was the final say.
DeleteSpent a lot of time in Poughkeepsie. There was a bloke there who made an entire album from banging tools on the Mid-Hudson Bridge. I believe this may have been the inspiration for Paul's Carnival of Light.