There’s something refreshing about a musician who doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortable truths of fame. Paul McCartney, now 83, recently sat down with Zane Lowe to chat about his new record, and let’s just say the conversation went somewhere unexpectedly honest.
The One Place He Thought He Could Escape
McCartney recalled a moment during the height of Beatlemania when he and Ringo Starr thought they’d found their sanctuary. He told Lowe about taking their girlfriends to Greece in the early days, believing they’d finally found a spot where nobody knew who they were.
“This is great. Wow, we must come back here more often. Even when we get really famous, we can always come to Greece and they’re never going to know us,” McCartney remembered thinking at the time.
Of course, that didn’t last. As he put it simply, “But, of course, that didn’t work.” Their music reached Greece, and suddenly those anonymous Mediterranean holidays were just a fantasy.
The Big Decision
What strikes me about this story is what came next. McCartney realized something profound: he was going to be famous for the rest of his life, “if I’m lucky.” That realization forced a choice. He could either walk away from the spotlight and enjoy the music he’d made, or push forward and accept that anonymity was no longer part of his reality.
He chose to keep going, but not without developing what he calls a “strategy” for handling the relentless attention.
Grounding Through Liverpool
McCartney credits his Liverpool roots for keeping him steady throughout decades of celebrity. His family, he says, are “the kind of people who put people at ease,” and being around them taught him how to do the same. It’s a reminder that behind every legendary performer, there’s often a crew of ordinary folks who helped them stay human.
His new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, dropped on Friday. Rolling Stone called it McCartney’s latest “solo masterpiece,” noting “the sense of a legend looking back on a life well spent.” According to their review, “the autumnal vibe is more pronounced than ever” — which makes sense given the reflective nature of the record.
What I find more interesting than the music itself is thiswindow into how one of the most famous people on the planet actually thinks about fame. Not as a gift, but as a condition to be managed.
It makes you wonder what any of us would do if we knew we’d never be invisible again.
