The 1960s singer Paul McCartney fell out of love with: “I wasn’t really interested”
For once in his life, Mary Hopkins was a woman in the 1960s with whom Paul McCartney wasn’t romantically involved.
No, this relationship was only strictly professional, as long as you believe public knowledge. Indeed, Hopkins was one of the first artists to be signed to The Beatles’ label Apple Records, and as such, had equal hopes and a rubber stamp of rock and roll approval pinned on her right from the very start of her career.
You could see how this so easily ended up in flames. The Beatles could be bad enough, at certain times, in managing to steer the ship of their own career and keep things afloat without killing each other, so having the responsibility of someone else in their hands was another thing entirely. Let’s just say that Hopkins and McCartney were, for better or worse, glued at the hip.
In fairness, Hopkins somewhat had a level of stardom that landed on her after she won the TV talent show Opportunity Knocks and was recommended to Apple by Twiggy, thus bringing her to Macca’s door. In this sense, their relationship got off to a flying start, with him producing her debut number one single, ‘Those Were The Days’.
However, you could say that the title of that song served as a bit of an ironic foreshadowing of what was to come, because by the time they reached her follow-up single ‘Goodbye’, things had already headed south. People interpreted the song as McCartney vowing to be less of a backseat driver, which was certainly true, but for the man himself, it was also a signal of change.
“After ‘Goodbye’, Mary and I didn’t work together again,” he later explained, expressing his side of the story. “She wanted to do a more folky album [Earth Song/Ocean Song], and I felt that if she wanted to do that, I wasn’t really interested in producing it. I don’t think it was a very good idea in the end.”
It possibly wasn’t a very good idea, in his eyes, because by this time, Tony Visconti had stepped into the frame as producer and relieved McCartney of his duties. Even though it was of his own volition, the green eyes of jealousy still seemed to shine bright. And if Visconti sounds familiar in the context of Hopkins, it was because, dear reader, she married him.
There is no way of knowing whether this was the real reason for the former Beatle’s abrupt departure from Hopkins’ life and career, nor would it be wise to speculate on it, but amid a ‘60s landscape of competing songs, competing bands, and competing girls, you could see how naturally Visconti could potentially fit into this triangle.
But alas, this was never to be the case, and Hopkins went down her preferred folk route of Earth Song/Ocean Song with Visconti at the helm, even if, in musical terms, it may not have been the wisest decision. McCartney could have been rubbing his hands in delight at this downfall, but it is more in his nature to yearn for the road not taken.
