In McCartney 3, 2, 1, Paul McCartney sits down with Rick Rubin for an in-depth and intimate conversation about his time as a Beatle, his 50 year career as a solo artist, and how his personal relationships have influenced and informed the iconic songs that are now an indelible part of the soundtrack of our lives. In these six episodes, we are given a front row seat inside the brain of one of the greatest songwriters the world has ever known.
Umapagan Ampikaipakan: Before we get into it, I have a question for you. Every Beatles fan I’ve ever met always falls on either one side or the other. Are you a McCartney guy or a Lennon guy?
Bahir Yeusuff: I think I’m more of a McCartney guy myself. There was something McCartney says very early on in the first episode, where he talked about how he was the optimistic one, and Lennon the more pessimistic, and I think I just gravitated towards that in The Beatles’ music. That said, to be perfectly honest, I can never really pick one over the other. I say I’m a McCartney guy, but then I hear a Lennon number and I’m like, “wow, that’s genius!” So I always say that I think I’m a Paul McCartney fan.
What about you? (Now, please excuse me as I pull up a Beatles playlist on my Apple Music app!)
UA: I’ve always been a McCartney guy. I acknowledge Lennon’s genius, both as a musician and a songwriter, and I genuinely love some of his solo stuff, but there was something that Rick Rubin says in this series that really nailed why I’ve always preferred Paul McCartney.
There is a moment, when McCartney plays something new that he’s working on and Rubin responds by saying that the tune feels familiar. He knows it isn’t something he’s heard before, but it feels like something that has always existed. That, for me, perfectly describes McCartney’s music. Whether it’s his work with the Beatles, or with Wings, or even his solo stuff, his songs feel like a part of this world. That they’ve always been there just waiting to be played.
It’s echoed in McCartney’s story about how he came up with “Yesterday.” The song, he says, came to him in a dream, but he was convinced that it must have been a tune that he’d heard before. He was sure that it must have been a song from his father’s generation. He couldn’t believe that it was something that just manifested itself to him.
That’s how I feel about his music. That it’s somehow timeless.
BY: I like the idea that something like “Yesterday” came to him in a dream. I’ve heard other musicians describe how writing music is like tapping into an ether, a cosmic ocean that is just there, ready for you to reach out to. But the idea that a song so magical, and beautiful, and ethereal like “Yesterday,” coming to Paul McCartney in a dream, is just wonderful.
And let’s not forget that George Martin was instrumental in making the song, and a lot of the Beatles songs, sound the way they do. The arrangement of that string section in “Yesterday” just takes it to another level. I mean, just listening to it gives you goosebumps. It truly is otherworldly in it’s beauty.
UA: Magical is exactly what this series was to me. It was lightning in a bottle. Placing these two individuals in a room, with a piano, a guitar, and a mixing desk, furnishing them with what I imagine to be original tape recordings, and just leaving them to talk. To explore these songs. To try to get to the bottom of how they came to be. To try and explain what genius is. It was so warm. And so natural. It felt generous.
Which is a testament to just how precise this production is. All of that doesn’t just happen by accident. It is a function of great directing, and lighting, and editing. McCartney 3, 2, 1, is a masterclass in storytelling.
BY: This production is stunning. Everything is so restrained. Shot in beautiful black and white, with dramatic contrasting lights, and a bare stage, the production really lets these two guys just go at it. It is such a beautiful watch. It reminded me a lot of the interstitial photos we saw in The West Wing special episode last year.
And of course when you have Rick Rubin and Paul McCartney, along with reels and reels of Beatles and Wings material, you just stay out of the way. There was such a feeling of an outsider looking in, only you’re not removed from the action. The camera work was not distant, but it was definitely in awe. If you could ever prescribe and emotion to camera work, then that was what it felt like. You’re right, the entire series is so warm and inviting, but the camera never forgot its place. These are two giants of music, and you’re here to just watch.
There was so much in this series that appealed to every side of me. The film producer, the musician, the fan, the TV reviewer. I will definitely be going back to this again.
I Get High With a Little Help From My Friends
UA: Here’s the thing. If you’re a McCartney fan, if you’ve read books about The Beatles, or watched the man on late night talk shows, the stories in McCartney 3, 2, 1 will feel familiar.
McCartney, in reflecting on his life, reminds me a lot of Stan Lee. If you’ve ever tracked the apocrypha of Stan Lee’s life and career over the years, you’ll notice that he was always refining (even retconning) his life story. Every time he told a story, whether it was about the creation of Spider-Man, or his relationship with people like Ditko and Kirby, he would change it slightly, adding a bit of gravitas, even a new flourish here and there, making it deeper and more meaningful.
Now I’ve heard the stories about “Yesterday,” and “Come Together,” and Hendrix before. I’ve heard him talk about his time on the farm in Scotland after the breakup of The Beatles. And yet, hearing him tell those stories again still felt like a revelation. It never felt boring or stale. And I think a part of it is because he’s always bringing something new to the table. Not by way of embellishment, but in the way he tells it.
Which is more of that magic I was talking about.
BY: To hear an anecdotal story about how Hendrix performed “Sgt. Pepper’s” is one thing, but I didn’t know there was footage! That was crazy.
There was, however, this one thing at the back of my mind the entire time I was watching this. I hate to be the cynic, but how much of this is just McCartney looking back with rose tinted glasses? Ringo Starr doesn’t talk much about his time as a Beatle, and with John, and George, and George Martin, and Brian Epstein having all passed, how accurate is any of this? I’m not trying to make him out to be a conniving villain. Not for one second do I think he’s trying to rewrite history. But I just wonder if it’s all just a little too neat.
He is very gracious through it all though. The way he talks about George Harrison and John Lennon particularly. There is a love there. A longing.
UA: I think time does heal all wounds. I think this was very much a 79 year old man looking back at the best times of his life. He talks about how he can now reflect on this work as a “fan” of The Beatles. For me, that moment gave me an understanding of where McCartney was coming from. I don’t believe it’s rose tinted glasses. I think he’s just far enough removed from the trauma of what happened between him and John that he can now talk about it with some detachment.
I mean, we’ve got so many chronicles of The Beatles, their music, and their breakup (the most comprehensive being Mark Lewisohn’s The Beatles: All These Years) that I was glad this wasn’t yet another documentary about that. I liked that I got McCartney’s view of it at 79. Because it was yet another checkpoint in how his feelings on the matter have evolved over the years.
BY: And I think Rick Rubin’s casting as the foil to Paul McCartney really made that difference. This isn’t a look back at McCartney’s career, or a cradle-to-grave documentary. This was purely about the music. The way Rubin broke down the songs, removing the musical tracks so you can hear Paul’s bass riff, or John’s lyrics, or George’s guitar and Ringo’s drum breaks. This was like watching a dissertation of the Paul McCartney discography and I loved that.
Will You Still Need Me, Will You Still Feed Me, When I’m Sixty-Four?
BY: This series also proves something that my friends and I have been talking about for years. The Beatles were way ahead of their time. Some of Ringo’s drum fills feel like they should be from the 90s. Paul’s aggressive bass runs are just funk and pop from the 1980s. And you can really hear it when Rubin pulls out the other instruments in a song. That was just how creative these guys were. McCartney talks about how they would push the Abbey Road engineers to not do things by the book and talk about how they were actively trying to break the mixing desk. It was great. I loved that look inside the music. Just breaking it down layer by layer, instrument by instrument. I could have sat there all day. If I was on the production team I’d be so engrossed in what Rubin and McCartney were saying that I’d be absolutely useless.
UA: I completely agree. This conversation would not have played out the way it did if it wasn’t between two equals. Yes, Rick Rubin is clearly in awe of McCartney. But Paul McCartney is deferential to Rubin’s genius as well. It was their mutual respect, coupled with a deep understanding of the art, that allowed this conversation to happen.
BY: I also think it was because they came from both sides of the musical divide. I think that conversation would have played out differently if it was someone like Dave Grohl talking to Paul McCartney. Don’t get me wrong, that would be great too, and Grohl is a great documentary filmmaker (on top of being a legendary musician and now pitmaster), but the musician to musician dynamic would be different. Rubin, being a producer, is more interested in the technicality of the song. He’s coming to it from a different perspective. (But now that I think about it, I really want to see Dave Grohl and Paul McCartney talk about Beatles songs all day.)
UA: McCartney 3, 2, 1 felt a lot like Bruce Springsteen’s Letter To You on Apple TV+. There was very little pretension to the proceedings. Just an ageing musician, looking back on his life and career, a little unsure of how he pulled off everything that he did, and recognizing that even his genius didn’t happen in isolation.
If there was one big takeaway from this conversation, it was that the people who made up The Beatles – John, Paul, George, and Ringo, along with Martin and Epstein – were once in a generation minds that somehow managed to find each other. All of that chemistry and conflict between them somehow gave birth to a collection of music that we will likely never encounter again in our lifetime. The genius of The Beatles was something altogether different from the genius of Paul McCartney, or John Lennon, or George Martin. The genius of The Beatles was something that could only happen because those six people came together.
BY: This is the perfect amuse-bouche to the Peter Jackson Beatles documentary coming out later this year. Let It Be, the original documentary that was released in 1970, really coloured my understanding of the breakup of the band. When I discovered that the drama was largely fabricated by the director Michael Lindsay-Hogg, it just blew my mind.
Hearing Paul McCartney talk lovingly about his band mates, and hearing Peter Jackson talk about how the original footage doesn’t show resentment within the band, will really make for a rewriting of the end of The Beatles in my mind. I’m looking forward to that.
UA: McCartney 3, 2, 1 really is a must watch. Irrespective of whether or not you’re a fan of The Beatles. If you love music. If you are a keen observer of history. Or even if you just enjoy being in the company of greatness. This series really does work on every level.
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