Paul McCartney says major part of his self-titled solo debut was ‘misunderstood’

A major part of Paul McCartney’s studio debut was “misunderstood”, the veteran songwriter has claimed.

Following the break-up of The Beatles, McCartney would enjoy success as both frontman of Wings and as a solo artist. His first solo album, McCartney, coincided roughly with the release of The Beatles’ final album rollout, Let It Be, the documentary of the same name, and Ringo Starr‘s debut solo album, Sentimental Journey. McCartney had agreed in private for the date of his solo album, which was released on April 17, 1970. But there were problems once the album was released, mainly from McCartney not wanting to do a press tour to promote his first post-Beatles effort.

Peter Brown and McCartney had agreed to a question-and-answer format, which was released as part of the press release. This is where the album began to be “misunderstood” according to McCartney, who reflected on the album rollout during an interview in 1982. He said: “Now, see, that’s one thing that really got misunderstood. I had talked to Peter Brown from Apple and asked him what we were going to do about press on the album.

“I said, ‘I really don’t feel like doing it, to tell you the truth,’ but he told me that we needed to have something. He said, ‘I’ll give you some questions and you just write out your answers. We’ll put it out as a press release.’ Well of course, the way it came out looked like it was specially engineered by me.”

Answers McCartney gave on John Lennon and Yoko Ono were particularly controversial at the time, with the Live and Let Die songwriter saying he was not in the right headspace when giving answers. He continued: “I was digging at John really. There was no other way I could say it because the question was: ‘What do you think of John and Yoko’s music?’ and I said, ‘Well, it doesn’t bring me alot of pleasure.’

“It was political, depending on how I said it. I was trying to say something without really saying, ‘I hate them!’ I was trying to say, ‘Well, they are not too cool. As you can see I am a little cool on this.’ I was just trying to hate John… a bit.”

The trouble continued for McCartney, who looked back on the period and said he was facing “all sorts of changes” in both his personal and professional life. He added: “I can see how it looked to ordinary people who didn’t have the problems I was facing.

“As I say, I just feel that I have a kind of knack for doing crazy things like that. It’s an unfortunate thing in my character. You know, your character kind of sharpens up when it becomes your image.

“Now for me, this is a very strange game really, to meet the press, deal with the media… The rest of the group hated it with a passion.”