Questions for Mr. McCartney

[littlewillow]

Well, since "Submit Your Question" has been removed. I propose to create a thread around questions you would like to ask Mr. McCartney. That way if by any chance it would be of interest to the @paulmccartney.com team... we never are. As they say, hope lives on.

So, here is the first question for Mr. McCartney.

Is there a song that would have touched you written by another artist? Touched you so much that you feel like that song was written for you.
Thanks

[wandy]

@littlewillow Not sure how to post my question, so I will post on the back of this one. Paul, now over 50 yrs has gone by since the break up of the Beatles, do you now feel that the Beatles just needed a rest from one another rather than to break up.

[LadyLeslie]

@wandy @littlewillow There is a thread in "Not such a bad boy forum" called "Fans submit your messages to Sir Paul McCartney" or something like that... with many pages.

There's also another thread called "Silly Questions for Paul" where people could post fun questions, not like the one @wandy asked

The threads should still be here, I'll try and find the links!

[Yankeefan2]

@littlewillow
My question would be "What is the current status of the musical you were involved with writing music/lyrics for called "It's Wonderful Life".

[LadyLeslie]

Found the links for two threads here where fans can send messages and questions to Paul.

For Sir Paul McCartney - Fans Write Your Messages Here (243 pages)
https://maccaboard.paulmccartney.com/topic/3521/for-sir-paul-maccartney-fans-write-your-messages-here/4821?_=1668809735978

Silly Questions for Paul (131 pages)
https://maccaboard.paulmccartney.com/topic/3719/silly-questions-for-paul/20?_=1668811301579

A long time ago, in the Silly Questions thread, I asked Paul what songs he likes to listen to on the radio when he's driving, and said he seems like a "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" kind of guy!

[littlewillow]

@ladyleslie said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

A long time ago, in the Silly Questions thread, I asked Paul what songs he likes to listen to on the radio when he's driving, and said he seems like a "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" kind of guy

@LadyLeslie
Thank you very much for the links. I didn't know this existed. I will go and check it out. Especially "Silly questions for Paul". It piqued my curiosity. I would love to see what the question is and especially what imagination you all had.

[oobu24]

I'm surprised that this thread has not been moved to the other thread.

[Fast City Line]

I have a thousand questions I could ask Paul. Most of them have to do with technical musical questions, including the songwriting process. For instance, I would like him to talk about the underrated factor of tempo in song composition. It's like for any given song, there's a perfect tempo for it, and it just wouldn't be right if it were faster or slower. So my question would be does the tempo just come to you automatically at the beginning or do you sometimes have to work on figuring out what the right tempo would be? And if it's the latter, which songs did you have difficulty working out the tempo, and how did you settle on it?

Another question would just to kind of prod him to expatiate at length on something that I got just a tiny glimpse of in one of his answers to an interviewer (who typically didn't pick up on it and only wanted to talk about blandly general stuff and the Beatles days etc.) And that was he mentioned how he finally settled on the name Eleanor Rigby for that song. For a while, he was going to use Father McCartney, but he kept thinking that wouldn't be right, so he and John scoured the phone book looking for names (how fun -- before the internet!) And soon enough he found the name Eleanor Rigby and knew instantly that was perfect. Part of that process involves he said it had to be the right number of syllables. Also it had to come off the lips just right in terms of which parts of the name are flowing and which parts are percussive, etc. So I would like him to then use that as a jumping off point to talk generally about coming up with lyrics and and how things that aren't necessarily deep and meaningful but just technical, are also important parts of the process.

I'll post my other 998 questions when I have some free time.

[NJR]

@fast-city-line said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

I have a thousand questions I could ask Paul. Most of them have to do with technical musical questions, including the songwriting process. For instance, I would like him to talk about the underrated factor of tempo in song composition. It's like for any given song, there's a perfect tempo for it, and it just wouldn't be right if it were faster or slower. So my question would be does the tempo just come to you automatically at the beginning or do you sometimes have to work on figuring out what the right tempo would be? And if it's the latter, which songs did you have difficulty working out the tempo, and how did you settle on it?

Another question would just to kind of prod him to expatiate at length on something that I got just a tiny glimpse of in one of his answers to an interviewer (who typically didn't pick up on it and only wanted to talk about blandly general stuff and the Beatles days etc.) And that was he mentioned how he finally settled on the name Eleanor Rigby for that song. For a while, he was going to use Father McCartney, but he kept thinking that wouldn't be right, so he and John scoured the phone book looking for names (how fun -- before the internet!) And soon enough he found the name Eleanor Rigby and knew instantly that was perfect. Part of that process involves he said it had to be the right number of syllables. Also it had to come off the lips just right in terms of which parts of the name are flowing and which parts are percussive, etc. So I would like him to then use that as a jumping off point to talk generally about coming up with lyrics and and how things that aren't necessarily deep and meaningful but just technical, are also important parts of the process.

I'll post my other 998 questions when I have some free time.

You are new here, so you don’t know we’ve talked about this at length here. Eleanor was from Eleanor Bron, who starred in Help! with them And Rigby was from a store Paul saw. In just a minute I will post a photo of the plaque with their name. And Paul looked through the phone book to find the name McKenzie!

They were vinters (Wine merchants)

https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/20771/lot/381/

[Fast City Line]

@njr That shows you what a green Beatles fan I am! D'OH!!! Not only should I have known that -- I actually now remember him saying that, and that would have bolstered my case because now I recall he talked about the sound of the "K" in "MacKenzie" which he liked.

[NJR]

@fast-city-line said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

@njr That shows you what a green Beatles fan I am! D'OH!!! Not only should I have known that -- I actually now remember him saying that, and that would have bolstered my case because now I recall he talked about the sound of the "K" in "MacKenzie" which he liked.

FYI, it’s “McKenzie” not MacKenzie.

https://genius.com/The-beatles-eleanor-rigby-lyrics

[Fast City Line]

@njr Thanks -- I'm usually a stickler for details, but I got lazy.

[NJR]

@fast-city-line said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

@njr Thanks -- I'm usually a stickler for details, but I got lazy.

As a stickler, you’re my kind of person!

[Fast City Line]

@njr Thanks!

[NJR]

@fast-city-line said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

@njr Thanks!

Quote me next time - I had to scroll back to see what you were thanking me for!

[oobu24]

All you had to do was hover on the gray box.

[NJR]

@oobu24 said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

All you had to do was hover on the gray box.

How many times do I have to tell you, you can’t “hover” with an iPad?

[wandy]

@njr said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

@oobu24 said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

All you had to do was hover on the gray box.

How many times do I have to tell you, you can’t “hover” with an iPad?

Pity. Its a lot less bovver with a hovver.

[NJR]

@wandy said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

@njr said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

@oobu24 said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

All you had to do was hover on the gray box.

How many times do I have to tell you, you can’t “hover” with an iPad?

Pity. Its a lot less bovver with a hovver.

Maybe, but I prefer a quote.

[wandy]

@njr said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

@wandy said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

@njr said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

@oobu24 said in Questions for Mr. McCartney:

All you had to do was hover on the gray box.

How many times do I have to tell you, you can’t “hover” with an iPad?

Pity. Its a lot less bovver with a hovver.

Maybe, but I prefer a quote.

What I quoted was the narration from a British TV advert from the 1970s. Any old Brits here might remember it. A bit of a British in joke