Paul McCartney says Yoko Ono was an “interference in the workplace”
Speaking on his new podcast, Paul McCartney has discussed how John Lennon’s relationship with Yoko Ono, admitting her presence was an “interference in the workplace”.
McCartney made the comment on A Life In Lyrics, which Irish poet Paul Muldoon hosts. Episodes of the series are available to stream on a weekly basis on all podcasting platforms, unless fans are subscribed to Pushkin+ and can already listen to the whole series in full.
A second series of A Life In Lyrics has already been confirmed for February 2024. In each episode, McCartney dissects a track from The Beatles’ back catalogue, and in the latest release, he reflected on Yoko’s relationship with Lennon.
He explained: “John and Yoko had got together and that was bound to have an effect on the dynamics of the group. Things like Yoko being literally in the middle of the recording session [were] something you had to deal with. The idea was that if John wanted this to happen, then it should happen. There’s no reason why not.”
McCartney continued: “Anything that disturbs us, is disturbing. We would allow this and not make a fuss. And yet at the same time, I don’t think any of us particularly liked it.
“It was an interference in the workplace. We had a way we worked. The four of us worked with George Martin. And that was basically it. And we’d always done it like that. So not being very confrontational, I think we just bottled it up and just got on with it,” McCartney added.
In the first episode of the podcast, he dissected The Beatles’ ‘Back In The USSR‘ and told Muldoon: “Chuck Berry wrote a song called ‘Back In The US’, which we were very familiar with and I thought it was cool, it was obviously about a serviceman going home.”
“It was a little but too pro-US because we were in the UK, so I could poke fun at it in my own way. When I saw USSR was sort of similar, then I realised I could set it back in the US, and do a little parody on Chuck’s idea of being back, and I would have a Russian guy who’d come from America and was glad to be back in Russia. He’d come from Miami on BOAC, British Overseas Airwaves Corporation,” McCartney added.
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