The Verge has an interview with Justin Richmond, executive producer of Paul's new "McCartney: A Life in Lyrics" podcast, which stems from tapes of Paul talking to Patrick Muldoon, editor of his "Lyrics: 1956 to the Present" book.
Some highlights:
What sparked the idea for this show?
Well, the idea for the podcast came through McCartney’s production team, from the person in charge of special projects. The sort of system that [McCartney and Muldoon] came up with to write [The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present] is that Muldoon turns up to McCartney’s house, turns on his phone, and records a conversation between the two of them. Eventually, the pandemic happened, lockdown, etc., and some stuff was delivered over Zoom.
My read on it is that after the stress of getting the book together was relieved, they were sort of realizing that they have hours of Paul McCartney being candid in a really special way. It’s not like this was expertly recorded in the studio. It’s not as if he was sitting down to be Paul McCartney of The Beatles to give an official interview about the band. These [recordings] really have the tenor of someone sitting down with a friend and having a leisurely chat about times past. And McCartney’s “times past” happens to be, for him, The Beatles and Wings and a litany of incredible solo work.
So [McCartney’s production team] brought the tapes to us, and we listened to them and proposed a way to put them together. We spent the better part of the school year, you could say, — fall, winter, and spring — putting this series together.
What’s one thing that surprised you the most while going through the tapes?
This is kind of a goofy one, but at one point in the series, you discover that Paul is a dog person and John Lennon is a cat person. And I don’t think there’s anything else that best describes the difference between these two people and the way they relate to each other in life and in art.
Cats kind of keep you at an arm’s length, right? Like they’re not completely trusting of you. Dogs are a lot more vulnerable emotionally. I think when you sort of look at how these two people lived their lives, it appears to be reified in their music.
I’m sure you know that McCartney came to a settlement with Sony over The Beatles’ catalog in 2017. Is this show an effort to put his mark back on his old work?
Having listened to the series dozens of times now, and having listened to the raw tapes, I never got the sense that he’s looking to make The Beatles about him or that this is his thing. I think the reason we’re talking about McCartney’s songs is because he feels the most — we’re not talking about Rubber Soul or “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” These are Paul’s songs that we’re talking about, by and large, because he feels the most comfortable speaking about them. I don’t think he wants to get into speaking for John, and I don’t think he wants to claim The Beatles fully for himself.
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