Paul McCartney says he felt “dead” after The Beatles split
Reflecting on rumours that circulated when the Beatles officially called it quits, Paul McCartney has said that he certainly felt “dead” at the time.
In 1969, Liverpudlian and Beatles singer-songwriter McCartney was 27. Newly reflecting on that strange time for the Guardian, McCartney has written, “The strangest rumour started floating around just as the Beatles were breaking up – that I was dead.”
He continued, “We had heard it long before, but suddenly, in that autumn of 1969, stirred up by a DJ in America, it took on a force all its own, so that millions of fans around the world believed I was actually gone.”
The Beatles were swimming in legal rows, mostly pertaining to their manager Allen Klein. Meanwhile, McCartney thought it best to get out of London for a while, to raise his new child, Mary, with his wife, Linda.
McCartney recounted asking his wife how the rumour could be believed by so many, noting that they had moved to their remote farm in Scotland “precisely to get away from the kind of malevolent talk that was bringing the Beatles down.”
Reflecting after over five decades have passed, the iconic singer mused, “I’m beginning to think that the rumours were more accurate than one might have thought at the time. In so many ways, I was dead.”
In his own words, McCartney was “A 27-year-old about-to-become-ex-Beatle, drowning in a sea of legal and personal rows that were sapping my energy, in need of a complete life makeover. Would I ever be able to move on from what had been an amazing decade, I thought.”
Thankfully, the stint on the farm, away from the intensity of the capital, was just what McCartney needed. He wrote, “It was becoming clear to our inner circle that something exciting was happening. The old Paul was no longer the new Paul. For the first time in years, I felt free, suddenly leading and directing my own life.”
McCartney’s life will soon be depicted in four upcoming Beatles biopics. The movies, which will explore the story of The Beatles from the perspectives of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, are set to be released in cinemas in 2028. Saoirse Ronan will play McCartney’s wife Linda, while the man himself will be played by Gladiator II star Paul Mescal.
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