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McCartneys still making sweet music

Paul McCartney spoke candidly about his life with his wife, Linda, and his labor of love to assemble an album of her compositions.

Q: Linda's death seemed to rattle the public because everyone assumed such an epic love story could never end. Was it a fairy-tale marriage?

A: That is the beautiful thing. We were so bloody tight with each other. I lost my parents, and I loved them dearly, but losing both wasn't as difficult as losing Linda. I was unloading to a friend this morning about how difficult it was. This friend said, "Yeah, but it was so beautiful. You've got to remember that." It's true. Shoot, we didn't screw up in a major fashion, and we did love each other immensely.

Q: Is it hard promoting this album without Linda? A: We had planned to promote it together. Sadly, it wasn't to be. It is a labor of love. Linda didn't want to be the world's greatest musician, but she loved her music so dearly. This is a sum of everything she did in a musical direction since we met.

Q: The pop-reggae tune Seaside Woman, Linda's first song, was released. Why did no other songs surface over the years?

A: When Linda hooked up with me, she came in for a lot of criticism from people saying, "What's he got her up on stage for?" Our reasoning was that we loved being together. There have been stranger reasons for people being in bands together. I was happy to have her on stage to share the experience. But she was obviously in my shadow, and both of us were in the Beatles' shadow, so she took the easier option of recording stuff just for her own fun. She was not that keen to release it. She thought, "Why invite the criticism?"

Q: What changed her mind?

A: In later years, people started looking at what she'd achieved and how cool she was, and it gave her a little more courage. It was also a question of her thinking, "Who cares what people think?"

Q: Are there more of Linda's songs hidden away?

A: There's only one other, a little tune we didn't get around to recording. But I know the melody in my head, and I've got the lyric sheet. So I must actually demo it soon.

Q: In The Light Comes From Within, Linda slams her critics: "You say I'm simple/You say I'm a hick/You're f- - - - - - no one/You stupid d- - -." That vitriol seems out of character.

A: It was out of her public character. Let's face it, unless you go on Jerry Springer's show, most people are quite private and you see only the public face. In Linda's case, she could let fly, but you can't go around doing that all the time. The perception of her was a wife, mom and photographer. She had millions of sides to her personality and had very strong opinions. If she felt someone was mean-spirited, she might not attack that person in public, but you better believe she did in private.

Q: Did her views shape yours?

A: Very much so. I used to worry what people thought of me. Going through the whole Beatle breakup, there were and still are a lot of strange perceptions. I used to say, "Oh gosh, maybe I should do this so people won't think that." And her view was, to put it bluntly, "Screw 'em. Who cares what they think? This is our life." It was great to have that kind of tough cookie around.

Q: Which of her songs impress you most?

A: Love's Full Glory has a very lovely, very romantic melody. That and Endless Days are quite sentimental, but I like that. People will be surprised to find she could write tunes like that. It's not easy. Q: I'm sure skeptics will assume you had a hand in those.

A: That's a good point. There are a few co-written pieces I had a hand in, but a lot of this stuff is just Linda's ability. She wrote it, she sang it.

Q: Do you think Wide Prairie will upgrade opinions of her musical abilities?

A: Yeah. When she played a mini-Moog, people laughed and said, "Look at the one-fingered pianist." They were actually the fools. You can only play that instrument with one finger. The perception stuck. People were annoyed that she was a novice. Anyone on the Wings '76 tour, where she'd had the proper amount of time to learn, realized how much she'd flowered. She was playing all the keyboards. That involved quite complex parts, like orchestral parts in Live or Let Die. Neil Sedaka and Carole King came backstage and said, "I don't believe what they're saying. You were perfectly in tune, darling. Your playing was beautiful."

Q: The most bitter attacks focused on her voice.

A: You listen to records now, it's not like people are singing in tune. We're not talking opera here. There's a lot of what you'd called personality voices arising out of the punk scene. It has more to do with feel. She had feel. She was original.

Q: Did she do Cow and White Coated Man to further the animal rights cause?

A: It's unusual to have songs with animal welfare sentiments, but she figured if someone put together an album for an animal charity, she could contribute. She didn't look down on any species, except perhaps a mosquito that had just bitten her. OK, then she'd swat him. "He attacks me, I attack him."

Q: There's a childlike sense of humor in her exaggerated twang on the title track.

A: She loved a joke and loved laughter. She surprised us the last couple of years by how upbeat she was. She kept our spirits up, and it was supposed to be the other way around. She'd say we were a great support team, and we'd say, "But you're doing it. You're leading this team." She had that innocent American humor formed in high school. If you inadvertently spit while you were talking, she'd say, "Say it, don't spray it."

Q: When she was recording Appaloosa in March, did she know how ill she was?

A: Not really. We always kept hopeful that there was another treatment around the corner. While we knew things were tough, we managed to keep a positive spin on it. Even though she was a little tired, we were putting that down to the treatment (chemotherapy), which is known to be tiring.

Q: When we last spoke a year ago, you sounded optimistic about her health. Did you think she'd beaten it?

A: We did toward the end of last year. It's difficult to ever say you've beaten something like cancer. It's an insidious beast and it doesn't just go away. But we thought we were doing really well. Then we got some bad news just before we were due to come to America. We thought, maybe there's a treatment for this too, and we just soldiered on. Right up until a couple days before she died, we were out horse riding. On our last horse ride, a whacking great rattlesnake came across our trail. It was majestic, and it was symbolic.

Q: She didn't suffer long?

A: That was the blessing. The last day was just a day of being too tired to get up, basically. Then she slipped into a coma and died. Not much fun.

Q: How have you coped since her death?

A: We're putting one foot in front of the other, the whole family. We're getting on, but missing her. It would be great if I could be resilient, but I've got to play it one day at a time. I've heard people use that expression, and I always wondered what they were talking about. Now I know. I play a lot of things by ear, but this year especially. If I've got to cry, I cry. If I've got to be strong, I pull myself together.

Q: You lost your mother to breast cancer and now Linda.Do you foresee a role in promoting cancer research?

A: It's too difficult to see the future. (Her death) is too close to me and too painful still. I'm not making any plans to be a cheerleader or the sad clown. I'm just getting on. I'm promoting the album. I just want people to know it's out there. To do something for Linda is good therapy for me.

Q: British tabloids said you may never perform again.

A: I suspect I will, but this year makes all those decisions very difficult. There's no pressure on me to make decisions. There's nobody standing above me with a big whip. I'll just see how I feel. I still love my music. But the main impetus now is for Linda. She has a new cookbook coming out, and a photography book next year. We're fulfilling her dreams.

Q: Are you finding any time to devote to your own music?

A: I'm still writing songs. Some of them are a little sad, but not all of them. And I'm making rough plans. I'm sure I'll eventually break into a trot.

By Edna Gundersen

When Linda McCartney died April 17 after battling breast cancer for two years, she left behind a musical self-portrait and a mourning widower. For Paul McCartney, Linda's posthumous solo album has been a lifeline. Completing it was bittersweet labor, and bringing her legacy to the public gave him new purpose. Wide Prairie, released Oct. 27, captures Linda's personality in 16 simple and charming tunes quietly recorded over the past 25 years. It was incomplete when she died, but her husband felt a duty to finish it.

"I had to wait a couple of months before I could face it," McCartney, 56, says from his London office. "Then I got together with my engineer for what we called 'the tears-and-laughter sessions.' "It was hard hearing her voice at first, but when you listen to what she sang, it was so crazy and upbeat that you had to laugh.

"Her spirit shone through, even in the darkest times." Linda wrote five songs, co-wrote seven (including six with her husband) and covered oldies Poison Ivy, Mr. Sandman and Sugartime. Her love for animals shines in Cow, which traces an animal's death march to the slaughterhouse, and White Coated Man, about a puppy in a vivisection lab. I Got Up reveals her resilience. Love's Full Glory spotlights her relationship with Paul.

"It's very uplifting," McCartney says. "Obviously, for those of us close to her, there's always a little tear or two when we first hear her voice."

McCartney ducked the public eye for months to grieve privately with his children, Heather, Mary, Stella and James, in Sussex, England. He shelved professional commitments and has no recording or performing plans, though he says he hopes to attend his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame March 15 in New York. Intent on promoting Wide Prairie, which has sold just under 6,000 copies to date, he recently emerged to chat about the life and work of a woman affectionately known as Mac the Wife. (note: read above interview) By Edna Gundersen

Cosmetics testing on animals was outlawed in Britain from today with a pledge from the Government that no more licences would be issued.

The ban was immediately welcomed by animals rights activists, and Sir Paul McCartney said it would have made his late wife, Linda, who was a leading campaigner, very happy.

"This is great news for our civilisation and for the animals," said former Beatle McCartney, whose wife died of breast cancer in April. "On behalf of my family, and I know Linda would want to be included, we are very happy to see this happening and we hope that other countries will now follow this lead," he added.

Lady McCartney opposed all animal testing, although her husband has acknowledged that drugs tested on animals were probably used during her cancer treatment. However, the ban will have scant effect on the number of animals involved in experiments because almost all are used in testing and developing drugs, or research into animal biology. Last year, experiments were carried out involving 2.6 million animals, of which only 1,266 were used for testing cosmetics, the Home Office said. Last November, British cosmetic companies agreed voluntarily with the Government to stop testing finished cosmetic products on animals. The new agreement extends the ban to testing ingredients used in cosmetics and the companies will voluntarily give up their testing licences, the Home Office said. Animal rights campaigners have protested for years, sometimes violently, over the cruelty to animals caused by the testing of lipsticks and other beauty aids. "We deal with irrelevancies. Skin and hair care is not a matter of life and death and that is what we are opposed to," said Anita Roddick founder of chain store Body Shop which sells only products not tested on animals. Roger Gale MP, chairman of an all-party parliamentary committee on animal welfare, said Britain should now press for a Europe-wide ban.

(note: the following controversial news item is left for YOUR own individual choice; whether to read it or not for details, you be the judge...just passing the following along.)

Linda McCartney left a fortune of about 138 million pounds in her will, part of which will go towards helping the fight against breast cancer, the disease that killed her. Her four children get the bulk of her estate, but millions have been set aside for breast cancer and animal charities. A trust fund is being set up to benefit the good causes and medical research well into the next century. Children Stella, 26, Mary, 28, and James, 21, by ex-Beatle Paul - and Linda's daughter by her first marriage, 35-year-old Heather - are beneficiaries of a separate fund. A friend said: "Not many people realise that Linda was worth a huge amount of money in her own right. "Paul involved her in everything he did and she was a director and shareholder in all of his companies. "Linda also made a fortune from her vegetarian foods, and her wishes were to keep her good work going." The final details of meeting the terms of the will are being worked out by Paul's lawyers. The names of the organisations which will benefit have been kept a secret. Most of Linda's estate is made up of the shares she owned in Sir Paul's companies. She was a director of MPL Communications Ltd, McCartney Music Ltd, McCartney Productions Ltd, MPL Ltd, Juggler Pictures Ltd, and Juggler Ltd. The string of MPL companies - which stands for McCartney Publishing Limited - are worth hundreds of millions of pounds. They generate huge revenues every year from Macca's songwriting royalties and lucrative investments built up over 30 years. Linda's name was officially removed from the company records on April 17 this year - the day she died in Tucson, Arizona. But in the last few years of her life Linda also made huge profits from her own £35 million-a-year vegetarian food ventures. Another big earner was Linda McCartney's Home Cooking book, a worldwide best seller. Her veggie foods have accounted for about 20 per cent market share since the launch in 1991. The frozen meals range from Britain's best-selling vegetarian sausages to Golden Nuggets and Triple Tikka Crunch.

Paul McCartney's spokesman Geoff Baker said of the will: "This is a private matter. Only the family and the lawyers would know anything about this kind of matter."

Linda's best friend, TV writer Carla Lane, said: "Linda and I never talked about money - it didn't mean anything to her. "She lived for Paul and the kids. All she ever wanted to do was help the animals and it's good that even after her death she is still helping them."

Sir Paul with Linda McCartney: "This one's for her." Sir Paul McCartney is planning to dedicate an American rock award to his late wife Linda. The former Beatle was speaking after hearing the news that he is to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist next year.

"I am very excited and honoured. Rock 'n'roll has played a huge part in my life and in that of my lovely Linda - so this one's for her." Paul said.

Linda died of breast cancer in April, and Sir Paul has vowed to carry on her campaigns for animal rights.

The latest batch of inductees announced today are: Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, Paul McCartney, as a solo act. Curtis Mayfield, Del Shannon, Dusty Springfield

Beatles producer Sir George Martin will join in the nonperformer category. The artists will be inducted March 15 at a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York. An edited version of the show, which usually features an all-star jam session, will air exclusively on VH1 on a date to be announced shortly

The selections of McCartney, Joel and Mayfield correct what many see as past oversights by the Hall. McCartney was inducted with the Beatles in 1988, but while his songwriting partner John Lennon was inducted as a solo in 1994, this was the first year McCartney was nominated for solo work. McCartney has had a hot-and-cold relationship with the Hall — skipping the Beatles' induction, but showing up to induct the late Lennon. Mayfield, likewise, was inducted as a member of the Impressions in 1991, but had not been nominated as a solo even though he became eligible several years ago. Joel, who has been an inductor at two past Hall ceremonies, was nominated last year, but not voted in.

PLOVDIV, Bulgaria, Nov 7- Britain's Prince Charles sang the Beatles song ``All You Need Is Love´´ in a duet with Bulgarian President Petar Stoyanov Saturday. Charles' trip to Plovdiv, Bulgaria's second city and Stoyanov's birthplace, included a visit to Hindlyan's House, once the timber-framed mansion of a wealthy resident of the picturesque old town quarter. In one of its rooms, Charles and Stoyanov stopped to listen to a woman playing the piano and then sang along to the Fab Four. Royal aides accompanying the heir to the British throne said Charles rarely, if ever, sang in public.

When Sir Paul McCartney and his family wake up on Christmas morning, they'll have presents from Linda. In an interview with Britain's Sun newspaper, he revealed, "She'd always buy the kids' presents in January - not to get in the sales or anything, she just liked being prepared "That means I'm going to have to give the kids her presents which will be difficult, but it's great. When you lose someone like that, it's all difficult and hard." He also said that Linda was always sensitive to criticism about her singing and that he is still angry about the playing of "Hey Jude" with her prominent vocal. "That was unfair. I'm sure if you listened to a Rolling Stones live tape then you'd hear the same. I don't know what I'd do if I find out who did it, probably I'd be so angry I'd send the boys 'round." On carrying on Linda's work, he said, "There is a weight on my shoulders now to carry on Linda's work. But that's good. The easy option is not to do it and that would be worse. I'm not going to do that. Carrying on her work will keep me going " He also commenting on his own aging. "That's what happens when you're in your mid-fifties. You know you're getting old when you get letters from the health club saying you're entitled to a reduction. One of my friends got a letter about funeral offers. Now that's worrying." Sir Paul, 56, is sensitive about Linda's new album Wide Prairie and says she was wounded, by criticism. He is still upset that an American DJ played a tape of her less-than-perfect live backing vocals for Beatles classic Hey Jude on air. One of Sir Paul's studio entourage isolated her voice on the track. He tells me: "That was unfair. I'm sure if you listened to a Rolling Stones live tape then you'd hear the same. I don't know what I'd do if I find out who did it, probably I'd be so angry I'd send the boys round. "There is a weight on my shoulders now to carry on Linda's work. But that's good." The easy option is not to do it and that would be worse. I'm not going to do that. Carrying on her work will keep me going " Here Paul reviews the tracks on Linda's album recorded over 25 years from 1973. WIDE PRAIRIE; This is a vintage track. It was done on a mad Jaunt to Paris when Princess Anne got married in 1973. It is a fantasy thing about riding which was her life. Linda was shy but came out of herself in the studio with me. NEW OREANS; We wrote this in New Orleans, funnily enough, and we had a great time there. She loved the place and its spirit. It's a music town, 24 hours a day which is great until you need to sleep, We had to move hotels because our room was above the jukebox THE WHITE COATED MAN; Carla Lane wrote the words for this anti-vivisection song which maybe our next single. We've made B shocking video to go with it, shot from a rabbits point of view. When they spray toxic stuff in rabbit's face you see it on the camera. LOVE'S FULL GLORY; It's great to have people who care and Linda's one of them. I wrote My Love for Linda after we met and this is her kind of her answer to that. It has good melody and I like it. It's very emotional. I GOT UP; We wrote this in the car on the way to hospita1 for Linda's treatment. I tried to make the journeys fun. I played the cassette of the backing track in the car and by the time the two hour trip was over we had some words. THE LIGHT COMES FROM WITHIN; This was the last vocal she did before she died. It's cool that she had the last word. She laid out exactly how things would go. She sticks up two fingers at her critics. She was a very ballsy and feisty woman. MISTER SANDMAN; We worked with the reggae producer Lee "Scratch" Perry on this one in 1977. Linda loved reggae. SEASIDE WOMAN; This was the first thing she wrote. She loved Jamaica, the freedom of the island and that's what it's about. We went on honeymoon there. ORIENTAL NIGHTFISH; This is moody. Linda loved songs like Leader Of The Pack and it has that sort of dramatic, tongue-in-cheek delivery. ENDLESS DAYS; When Linda was landed with the keyboard job in Wings, she had lessons. This came out of one of those sessions. It has a lovely innocent vocal. She had a vocal style ahead of its time. POISON IVY; One of her favourite songs by the Coasters. She was into 50s rock and as a kid she would hide under the bedclothes listening to songs like this. I like the thought of her in America and me on a Liverpool council estate listening to the same things, united by music. COW; Comedy writer Carla Lane did the words and we put it together in 1988. It's about a cow being led to the slaughter. It doesn't beat you over the head with its message but it is quite poetic. B-SIDE SEASIDE WOMAN; We knocked it up really quickly. It's very silly and good fun. Beatles echoes? Maybe, after all I worked on it. SUGARTIME; It's one of our party pieces. We started singing this on holiday in the Maldives this year and our kids said: "You're terrible you two, you're a couple of hippies." That's what this reminds me of. COOK OF THE HOUSE; That's Linda. We were in Australia in '77 and she literally turned what was on the shelves into a song in the kitchen. The pan you can hear at the beginning is our one at home. APPALOOSA; My favourite bit is when Linda speaks at the beginning. It's about the spotted horses bred by Native American Indians which were her favourite.

SIR Paul McCartney has admitted he fears he will never be able to play live again - because he is haunted by the memory of tragic wife Linda. In a moving interview with The Sun, the grief-stricken former Beatle says: "I might not be able to get up on stage again. I don't know whether I can go up there and sing, thinking about Linda." Pretenders star Chrissie Hynde has asked Paul to take part in a string of veggie concerts next year in Linda's memory but he says: "I'm just going to have to play it by ear. If I can manage it, then I will. But I've said that if I can't do it, she'll just have to forgive me." Paul, 56, says he was often left in tears while putting together Linda's posthumous album Wide Prairie, which is out this week. But he reveals he has been writing new songs - one with son James, 22 - to help him through the pain of her death. He adds: "Songwriting is very therapeutic and it's lucky I've got that. It's a bit of a crutch. When I write stuff with Linda in mind it feels like I'm talking to her. "I really enjoy talking about her too because it brings her back - it's all I've got. "Me and James have written something - it's not called Linda or anything but it's with her in mind. "It's not a ballad, it's quite bluesy. I'd like to do another album next year when I have enough songs. "I've got a few now, a couple of saddish ones have occurred to me. It's hard work but there's a lot of depth,it's very real." Since Linda's death from cancer in April, Paul has left the family's Sussex farmhouse just as she arranged it. And he has been carrying her wedding ring around with him until he decides what to do with it. He says: "I've got it in my pocket. I've tried it on but it won't fit, not even on my little finger. I don't know what to do with it. "Those kinds of things are very difficult. I've not even looked at dealing with them yet. "I suppose there will come a time when I'll think, 'One of the kids should have this,' or I'll know what to do with the sweaters I bought Linda for Christmas, things like that. "I figure next year sometime I'll have a think about those things but there's enough to think about now." Paul is speaking to me at the Central London offices of his company MPL. His eyes are red from the tears he admits he has shed just before I walked into the room. He says: "I was just talking with the girls in the office and something came up about Linda and we all welled up and looked at each other. You can't stop it - I wouldn't want to stop it." He recalls how, during Linda's chemotherapy treatment, they would stop off for chips in South East London's Old Kent Road as a treat after each weekly session. He says: "When she was having treatment or waiting or whatever, I would say, 'Don't think about the needle going in, think about the chips' - and it worked. "We'd stop off at the chip shop and get two nice big helpings of fresh chips and a pickled onion. We were just a normal couple. "There's nothing better than sitting in the car eating a bag of chips off your knees. "We used to go to the same chip shop each week. There was a lovely Greek- Cypriot lady in there and she would say, 'How's your wife?' "I'd say, 'Fine, thank you, she's getting on all right.' She'd say, 'Send her my best.' "I haven't been back but I will - I know it will be a bit emotional because I'll have to say, 'She's gone,' and I'll only get one portion of chips." It is one of most moving things I have ever heard and we both pause to compose ourselves. Then Paul talks further about Linda's death at the tragically early age of 56. He says: "It's gone so quickly and it's very weird - that's the word we use for it in our family. It's the first time anything like this has happened to any of us. My mum and dad died but that's different because you kind of expect that to happen, even though you dread it. "But when someone like Linda goes, she's too young and she's been snatched away. It really hits you in the head - it's like being cut in half. "I feel like I'm under sedation. She would have wanted us to get on with it and we are getting on with it. She wanted to change the world and it's lucky there are strong people around like that. Thank God for women like Linda." Paul has been spending most of his time at the family home with son James and daughters Heather, 36, Mary, 29, and Stella, 27. He says one of the hardest things since Linda's death is visiting places they went to together. He appears on the verge of tears again as he admits: "I got asked to do a choir piece which I'm working on now. I went with Linda to see the choir in Oxford last year and we had a lovely visit. "I've just been back to see them and it was emotional but good. It was sad that she wasn't there but it was also happy because it reminded me of the good time we had. It's double-edged." Throughout the interview, which goes on for 90 minutes - 30 more than allotted - Paul's face lights up as he talks about the woman he spent just one night apart from during 30 years of marriage. And he peppers the conversation with phrases Linda would have used. When a piece of his spittle accidentally lands on me during the chat, he apologises and says: "Do you serve towels with your showers? - that's what Linda would have said. "I like using her little phrases, it makes me feel very warm inside. "When we think of crying, we think of someone like Gazza, but I've cried more this year than I have in my whole life and I'm man enough to admit it. "The crying gets less but every now and then, someone will say something and it'll go 'Bing!' " The studio sessions for Linda's album were christened Tears And Laughter and Paul says: "I listen to the record at home quite often and it's a good reminder of Linda. It's eerie because I hear her voice and go 'Ahh!' But then I am suddenly laughing when I hear her swearing on it. "It's not offensive, even though she sings, 'You're f***in' no one, you stupid d***." It's not often you get a lady of the realm saying f***. "Maybe it won't get played on the radio but I think, what year are we living in - the 1920s? Mind you, Zoe Ball said f*** on the radio the other day. Imagine if a McCartney record got banned in 1998, that would be great!" Then Paul asks me if I am married and how I feel about my wife of two months. I can't quite believe one of the Beatles would be interested in my relationship but I know he is hoping I am as happy as he and Linda were. He says: "You said the wife word - how long have you been married? It's a lovely feeling, isn't it? "It's important to reveal your true feelings and express your emotions. "There's nothing wrong with being romantic. Marriage went out of vogue but it's great being romantic and soppy." Then he asks my wife's name. When I say Michelle, he starts singing the famous ballad he wrote 33 years ago. I leave the room, thinking, "Blimey, the missus will never believe this."

Sir Paul McCartney is completing his third album for EMI Classics, likely for release late next year. Billboard Bulletin reports that the disc, tentatively titled "Working Classical," will feature McCartney's first foray into chamber music, including a string quartet titled "Inebriation" and a piece for four horns dubbed "Stately Horn." Also featured are two pieces for small orchestra, "A Leaf" and "Spiral." The performers are the Brodsky Quartet, the Michael Thompson Horn Quartet, and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lawrence Foster. According to EMI Classics chief producer John Fraser -- who was behind the board for McCartney's hit discs "Standing Stone" and "Liverpool Oratorio" -- the former Beatle is getting better all the time in classical terms. "Paul really has become much more sophisticated with this sort of composition at a very quick pace," he says, "and, as always, his musical instincts are impeccable.