Paul McCartney Reflects on Starting Wings with Wife Linda: 'Like a Rebirth'

Paul McCartney spoke about his early days with Wings on the Dec. 19 episode of NPR's Book of the Day podcast
The musician released his book Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run in November. The oral history, centered on McCartney's post-Beatles group, pulls from interviews with band members and others in their orbit

Paul McCartney is looking back on the beginnings of his post-Beatles career.  The musician, 83, who published the oral history Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run this year, spoke about the beginnings of his post-Beatles band with A Martínez on the Dec. 19 episode of NPR’s Book of the Day podcast.

After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, McCartney recalled being in a “freer state of mind.” He noted how the dynamics within the group — which also included John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — were “changing,” though the breakup still remained a “shock" to him at the time.

“I was trying to encourage us to go back and start from square one,” McCartney said on the podcast. “But in actual fact, I did that with Wings.”McCartney, his wife Linda and guitarist Denny Laine formed Wings in 1971. The band saw a rotating roster of members before their breakup in 1981, and sold over 20 million records worldwide. Some of their beloved hits included “Band on the Run,” “Silly Love Songs” and “Live and Let Die.”

“It really was like a rebirth,” McCartney said. “And then the craziest thing was my lovely wife, Linda. We would sing around the house, and I always remember thinking, ‘Wow, she's really got something. But she's completely inexperienced.'"

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“She was very cute. She could tell I wanted to put a band together. I said, ‘Do you wanna be in it?’ She sorta said, ‘Uh, yeah.’”

McCartney also remembered trying to break away from the Beatles’ image during his early days performing with Wings.
Wings performing.

“At the time, I thought I'm trying to make a new band here. I'm trying to do this new thing, and promoters would say, ‘Would you just please just do ‘Yesterday’?’ We said, ‘No. We're not doing it.””

“We did it that way in order to build a Wings repertoire,” McCartney continued, adding that after they released their 1973 album Band on the Run, “we had songs that the audience would recognize that were our songs.”  “I felt easier about, ‘Oh, yeah, here's a Beatles song’. So now, I interspersed them. But I felt I had to establish the identity of Wings first.”

Wings: The Story of Band on the Run, published on Nov. 4, pulls from hours of interviews with McCartney, members of Wings and other important players in the band's orbit, like George Martin and Sean Ono Lennon.

“I’m so very happy to be transported back to the time that was Wings and relive some of our madcap adventures through this book,” McCartney previously said in a statement. “Starting from scratch after The Beatles felt crazy at times. There were some very difficult moments, and I often questioned my decision. But as we got better, I thought, ‘Okay, this is really good.’”

Source: Carly Tagen-Dye/people.com