Why did Paul McCartney refuse to play The Beatles songs with Wings?
“With the Beatles, we did a big American tour, and, I think the feeling, mainly from George and John, was, ‘Oh, this is getting a little bit uhhh…’” Paul McCartney began, recalling some of the final days The Beatles spent on the road. “I thought, ‘No, you can’t give up live playing, we’d be crazy to’. But then we did a concert tour I really hated and I came off stormy and saying, ‘Bloody hell, I really agree with you now’.”
The Beatles had a tough time touring. Playing live was what skyrocketed them to fame in the first place, as when they initially came over to America and played ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’ on The Ed Sullivan Show, their captivating performance led to them becoming one of the biggest bands in the world. Interestingly, the thing that helped them on their rise to fame also became a poisoned chalice.
When you become one of the most famous bands on the planet, there is no escaping the fact that many people will want to see you play live. This was the case with The Beatles; their fans were ecstatic the minute they started playing.
Technology wasn’t as good in the ‘60s as it is now, so the amps and speaker systems that The Beatles were using fell fowl to their screaming fanbases. The quality of their gigs dropped as band members couldn’t hear one another. Not to mention, their tours were also laced with controversy, as John Lennon’s comments about the band being bigger than Jesus led to some people protesting the band.
These problems led to The Beatles stopping touring, which meant that when they eventually broke up and band members went their separate ways, there was added pressure on the subsequent shows. These weren’t just the first gigs that band members played without The Beatles; they were also the first gigs they’d played for years.
When Paul McCartney first started touring with Wings, there was already a lot of pressure on him to perform. He didn’t want to add to that pressure by playing Beatles songs and having people compare his new musical outfit with his old one, so he decided before going on tour that he would only be playing songs by Wings.
“The main thing I didn’t want to face was the torment of five rows of press people with little pads all looking and saying, ‘Oh, well, he’s not as good as he was’,” said McCartney, “So we decided to go out on that university tour, which made me less nervous because it was less of a big deal.”
“We decided not to do any Beatle material, which was a killer, of course, because it meant we had to do an hour of other material, and we didn’t have it, then,” said Paul McCartney. “I didn’t have something like ‘My Love’ that was sort of mine. I felt like everyone wanted Beatles stuff, so I was pretty nervous on that.”
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