Interview for BBC Radio 2 • Sunday, October 12, 1997

Interview

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This interview was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on the morning of Sunday 12th October 1997 on the programme Parkinson’s Sunday Supplement.

The interviewer is Michael Parkinson and he and Paul go back a long way. In fact, Parkinson is one of the famous faces on the Band on the Run album cover. In exchange for appearing on the cover, Paul promised Parkinson an interview, a promise which took a very long time to fulfil! This interview takes place in 1997 – some 24 years after that Band on the Run cover shot.

A couple of years later in 1999 Paul appeared on Michael Parkinson’s TV chat show, but this radio interview came first.

Michael Parkinson is a brilliant interviewer, asking intelligent, thoughtful questions and then actually listening to the answers. This resulted in a great interview with Paul.

the Sun was singing from flaming pie thenew CD by Paul McCartney and PaulMcConnell is my very special guest todayPaul good morning good morning Michaelthis is taken a while I promised youyears and years ago and I’ve finallycome good that’s right in fact I thinkit’s Band on the Run when we did that Idid it I was one of those folk on me onthe sleeve and the deal was that you doan interview with me sometime in thefuture I know is this support or notwell it is it depends what you want tocall me you know it’s a huge honor Ilove this but I generally get calledPaul McCartney still that’s opposesbecause my professional name is Iwouldn’t look right on a record I don’tthink you know flaming pie by Sir PaulMcCartney that seems better but the wayI think it’s been misunderstood recentlysome people have been saying oh he justwants to be called mr. really what itwas for me was I’m still intrigued tofind out whether you automatically losethe title of mr. when you get the titleof Sir I’m looking into it as we speakbecause to me the type of mister is sortof hard-earned working-class you get ityou know when you’re 21 and I love it Ilike it a lot so I’d like to think thatyou could retain it and still be a sirand I don’t know if it’s allowed thingshaving your cake and eating it it mightwell be in which case I’ll have to juststill use it I think I’ll have to be arebel did you ever imagine that it wouldbe support God I mean was that anambition when you’re younger theycouldn’t dream of that I think you knowI’ve always had such a good imaginationthat I kind of dreamed of everythingstanding by the bus stop reading room atthe top you know and just sort ofwaiting for the sports car with theblonde to go past kind of thing yeah Icame from a place in the last house Ilived at in Liverpool’s called Allertonand I did always think Lord Hamiltonsounded great but in truth it was justmy imagination running away with itselfI never actually thought it had happenedin a million years what was thepractical ambitions of that child inLiverpool dreaming away that the busstop I mean what did you want to be itinvolved money the yeah because Iwas you know raised mainly in a placecalled speak which was quitedown-at-heel and still is actuallybecause my mom was a midwife so we’dalways get moved to the frontiers ofLiverpool you know the roads were notbuilt but I saw in looking around at myneighbor said the problem was money thatthey always argued why they fell apartwhy their kids got to go away or so thatmoney was the big central problem so Ididn’t know what it was I wanted to do Ididn’t really think it would be musicbut I knew it had to involve money sothat at least if I got married at leastthat part would be taken out of theequation and then I might have a goodmarriage if I was lucky but I wanted toremove that evil money problem you knowthat was going to wreck the marriagebefore you start is still the lure ofthe music industry in those days forthem was what fame and fortune bit itwas and in fact it’s funny that it’schanged yeah I’m not so sure it hasactually I think we just we assume it’ssort of changed I think when we start isno doubt about it you know we it was itwas to get out of having to do a job andcommit ourselves to some sort ofprofession that was gonna you’d be likea millstone round we all felt that weall felt we wanted to be in somethingsort of a little less job like and itwas to get famous for watching yes andgiving your kiss and it is a storymystery is that is that within this verysmall area where you were actuallyliving that that two guys LennonMcConnell get together and write somethe greatest pop songs ever written butbut more than that changed popularculture create the Beatles which was aphenomenal of the leica which you’venever seen it’s it’s a remarkable divineintervention live organism it’s a verystrange thing I’ll tell you what alsostrangers was national service as youwill recall yes er was the thing we wereall looking at I was certainly due to goin in a couple of years and and Johnbeing older than he was and Ringo beingolder than both of us put togetherwas but suddenly talk about divineintervention the National Servicestopped and I maintain you wouldn’t havehad a Beatles had it been for theNational Service who well we would haveall just not been in the same areasright in different you know regiments orwhatever and because Elvis if youremember went in the army and we thoughtit ruined him anyway you know yourservicer who’s calling on sir after thatyou know it was just it seemed to tamehim too much my other rebellious streakto yes I think I think it did and Ithink also I don’t think we would havemet up again mmmfour lads in Liverpool I think you knowwe would have gone our separate ways soit is quite strange really that ithappened in the way it did now all ofthis is is it set down in this it’s veryblue book called many years from nowwhich Barry mousers has written a longlong with you and it’s it’s your storiesyour side of the story about the reasonsfor doing the book in in just a momentbut I might talk to you now about thethe new piece of music that you’vecomposed which is this symphonic tonepoem I suppose with it well it’s alwaysdifficult to find a title because I’d Idon’t know enough about the forms of Idon’t like to call it classical musiccuz it isn’t classical to me suggestsold generally so I call it orchestralcontemporary orchestral music but um andI’ve totally lost the track what was thestarting point of it the starting pointof this thing was there’s Sammy Khanused to say was the phone call whichcame first there’s music over is exactlytrueEMI rang me up and I think they’d heardthat I was sort of looking for acommission after I’d done a thing calleda Liverpool oratorio I’d found I enjoyedit it was a stretch I love music and Ilove different forms of music so to workwith an orchestra was something verydifferent for me and exciting so I waslooking forward to doing it again but Iwas waiting for a commission and RichardLittleton of EMI wrote to me and saidwould you like to do something for ourhundredth anniversary in four years time97 and I said yes because four years wasnever going to comea new town scene was so long ago so Ijust said yeah immediately I acceptedhis offer and that was really the startof itwhat about they they’ve the business ofcreating their because you’ve got nomuse formal music training at all youdon’t read music so how do you go aboutthem because it’s different than justwriting a little pop song isn’t it yeahdifferent it really is it’s it’s likewriting a novel as opposed to a shortstory I think they’re both is hard to dobut how I went about it is I I alwaysvisualize the end productI imagine myself in the Albert Hall Iknew there was to be an orchestra and achorus if I want to do so I imaginedmyself there I’ve got the program on mylap I look up what do they do what doesthis orcas to do and I always just startthere so I thought right I’d like tostart with a bit of a bang this time thelast the last one wasn’t it sort ofcrept in I just imagined it from thatand I got a couple of ideas as to what Imight want to do one of them was thatI’d go back in time I’d go back tocreation so then I wanted a completelack of artifice so I what I did was I’dI still ated that none of the musicianscould finger their instruments theycould only use their bows in the in thecase of the strings or could sort ofblow the trumpets like a bugle they wereallowed to finger so I robbed them oftheir skills for the first couple ofminutes so I got little ideas like thatstarted putting those together andseeing if they worked and once I washappy with that intro those were okaywell now we’ll give them back theirskills and it just developed like thatand along with that I started to puttogether a couple of little pianosketches of melodies that might workinto something and then started to get astory because the traditional way as Ilearned as I went along I’d say topeople what is a symphony I go to thedictionary look it up you know that’s myway my dad had always said that isn’tlook it off you know so I go then into Cit says um something like a large scaleorchestral work so well that was no helpdidn’t give me any clues at all so um soI just started to kind of make it up andthen I thought well I need a storybecause I’m gonnaneed a framework because I haven’twritten a novel as it were ever beforereally and the last time I did somethingsimilar was with Kyle Davis who’s a bighelp in the structure of it all to havehours to do it on my own I got a storyso I started messing around looking atCeltic things I got this title standingstone I said well that’s symbolic ofsome very long-lasting and it’s alsoquite mysterious I don’t know why I lovestanding stone so these megaliths Idon’t know why I like all that stuff butI do and a lot of people do why do theylook so magical with a bit of mistaround them and in the middle of a fieldso I started to just investigate thatfor my own fun and it led me along akind of Celtic route and then in themiddle of that I realized I was Celticand having an Irish mom who came overwhen she was 11 and a dad who wasLiverpool Irish where the family wentback to our traditional littlebackground yeah the grid is all right sothis this bits called celebration fromyeah yes and then this is just this iswell this is right at the end wherewe’ve come from creation the ball offire spitting through space we’ve comethrough the whole story and the hero andthe heroine are finally in love and aremarried and this is sort of their lovesong but a standing stone PaulMcCartney’s latest work which is to beheard at the Albert Hall on Tuesday yesand for Symphony Orchestra choir on thewhole works and Monteith love and theCDs being released as well a couple ofweeks here and just um it’s number twohere number one in America that’s rightyes what’s the base at it’s fine it isgreat yeah you actually think as we sitfrom New York to LA I’ll go to NewOrleans all those people that’s rightmagic let’s let’s talk them a little bitabout this book many years from nowbecause no you you say in this book thatit’s a way of setting the recordstraighthmm what needed to be set straight wellI think you know when John and I andGeorgia ringer worked together wethought of ourselves very equal that wasthe great thing in the group if Ringodidn’t like a song he vetoed itseriously you know and even just said Ilike it and we just wouldn’t do iteveryone’s so that’s how it was when wewere working then when we split up itbecame more of a concentration perhapson Lennon McCartney as being the writersin it and then obviously when John’stragic death it became very muchnaturally centered on John as the sortof spirit behind the Beatles was youknow in many ways he’s quite right but Ithink unfortunately I think some peopletended to overdo that and assume he wasthe only thing in the Beatles in manyways you know well I think for wit heand Ringo were probably sort of the twowittiest you know so I think really thatit was a question of me thinking wellI’d better stick it down now before thememory goes completely which is goingfast you know even as we speak it’s abeing away and I’d better get withsomeone I know and can trust like BarryMyles who wrote the book to actuallyjust put forward my side of things youknow because it’s a kind of thing thatwas starting to happen was in GeorgeMartin wrote a book called a Summer ofLove and he asked me to proofread itjust to see if his memory was same asmine and he got to a song called Lucy inthe Sky with Diamonds and he said wellthis was John’s song completely Johnwrote this very typical of Johnda-da-da-da-da-da so I had to ring himup Sir George I said no it was John andI I said we sat down I contributed halfof the song I remember clearly arrivingat John’s place it’s in the book herewhere he had this little drawing thatJulie and his son had done and acrossthe top of it in this very naivechildren’s writing was Lucy in the Skywith Diamonds Johnson what about thatfor a title huh I said fantastic he saidwe’ll come on let’s go upstairs andwrite it should we do just like thatjust like that well I mean that was oneof the beautiful things about ourrelationship we hardly ever took morethan three hours over a song Lee and Idon’t I don’t remember ever having a drysession the nearest it came was a songthat ultimately was called drive my carthat I’ve norwegia would them butNorwegian would Delpy yeahgood I was talking about the memorythere here we have but some things likethat where it’s almost the better storythat John just wrote lucy in the sky OhThomas himself that is attributed to LSDetc said all the little legends they’vegrown up about it but unfortunate it’sjust not true mm you know that I wasthere and we had a great session but weloved the subject matter it wasn’t aboutLSD because otherwise it would have beencalled lits would because the initialsaren’t LSD lucy in the sky with holmesis more like you know but it was made upas were the sort of paul is dead room asall these the climate as you rememberwas sort of bit crazy anyway once anAmerican DJ got hold of this stuff so Ithink with all these distortions thatwere beginning to happen was kind ofsort of revisionism was starting Isensed and I thought well look I don’twant to kind of put John down at all Imean I’m I’m I’m his biggest fan I’m thelast person to do that cuz I really feelvery privileged and loved every secondthat we had together yeah I mean what isfacing the lennon-mccartney to a beMcCartney in the Lennon McCartneysongwriting partnership was fantastic nosay but I thought it was time to set oneor two little things straight like thatloosing this guy thing I said okay Iarrived there John would then saypicture yourself because it was veryvery John opening that was very LewisCarroll yes picture yourself you knowJohn and John and I both loved Alice sowe it was kind of our starting pointrather than LSD it was more Alice inWonderland yeah so we went through it Icame out with newspaper taxis he’d he’dPerry with you know go with a lookingless eyes I’d come out back withkaleidoscope or whatever this cellophanethat’s always been a favorite word ofmine that silver but so that wasbasically the idea I thought wellwhether people believe me or therevisionism doesn’t really message and Idon’t I think I ought to get it down youtalking about that we’ve got a song herefrom the very early days oh just from meto you I mean was that written and inthe same sort of way that you describeda sort of a yeah what was the genesis ofthat song yes it would in the early daysJohn and I wouldliterally take our two guitars and sitwherever we were I seem to remember abit of this was done on a tour coach ina hotel room often on the twin beds withJohn just sitting on one of them me onthe other and we’d be the afternoonwhere we done our sound check outwhatever we looked at the home we hadfrom now till the evening and ratherthan go to the flicks or something wewould we’d sit down we think of us writea song and we just trade off each otherand it was it was very magical becauseme being left-handed I was like a mirrorversion of him he could look at myguitar I could look at his and it it’slike looking in a mirror in many ways isquite strange I said but we could playoff each other and we knew each other sowell having come up in Liverpooltogether started writing songs haven’tgone through the whole Beatle thingtogether we could read each other weknew what each other was sort of gone tothink well with from me to you we’d hada lot of these I love ups I love you sheloves youplease please me we did we put a lot ofthat in it so this was gonna get all theeyes and Me’s all in one thing from meto you very which is a little kind offormula we were using the pivotal thingI think about it was when we got to themiddle we always called on middle eightsby the way even blue the sixteen bars or32 or just three they were middle eightsto us because we’d heard musicianssaying oh middle eight and we didn’trealise it was eight bars it justsounded great that’s raised to us sowhen we reached the middle eighth itwent to a different chord than one we’dused before it was slightly moresophisticated and I always rememberedthat moment in my own personal memory asbeing wow we’ve we’re really developingnow we’re moving away from the threechord songs there’s something moresophisticated about this alright but letlets hear that and then follow it with Ithink one the greatest songs everpopular on ever written which wish youwrote I think you could write that anddie happy couldn’t you know well youshould do really yeah but you know thesejust I’ve often thought that yeah anyone of them be enough really but youknow you just you want to do more I likedoing it so much mmmthat’s everybody’s favorite song mostpeople’s favorite and is it yours wellit’s still amazingly wide I do love it Ithink the thing for me that I lovedabout it was that I dreamed it yeah isthis true that you actually it can’t youin a dream yeah you know yeah you’dalways read about other composers orpeople and these magic things happen tohim but he’s never happened to meI literally one morning just woke up andI had this song in my head and didn’tknow what it was happened have a pianoby my bed started just put some chordsto it and took about two weeks going onall my friends saying what is this songI can’t have written it it just came tome you know so when people say to me tobelieve in magic to believe in fate andall this sort of mystery I say yeah I dopartly because of that song hmm I meannot only did I dream it it’s been mymost successful so it suggests to methat there’s more out there than we knowabout it did not only been your mostsuccessful it’s probably most successfulsong of all time it’s just going out forits 7 millionth play in America suddenlyworked out with more telling your eyeopen every six minutes it would havetake you twenty three and a half yearscontinuous play to listen to it talkingabout I mean that you’re talking aboutabout the Beatles and that song in factwas wasn’t released as a single becauseof this Beatle thing wasn’t it you knowthe corporate thing that you know we wewere a rock and roll group we thought wefelt that we were a sort of R&B comboand that it wouldn’t be seemly for us torelease a ballad also it kind of as asolo record mhm and I didn’t want toemerge from the Beatles as a solo acthmm no it was a very democratic groupbut how do you get from that from thatdemocracy and that spirit to a situationwhere you had this acrimonious bust-up Imean what was it was there aninevitability about it you know wellyeah I think that too but I think it wasbusiness it was money that old thingthat we started the interview withreally you know whereas it’s wreckedmillions of marriages I suppose itwrecked this one it was we used to playMonopoly and I was never very good atmonopoly I’ve never really enjoyed ityou know againa bit too wound up in the middle of itsome people could just play it and itwas a game I was got a bit intense sowhen it came to the real thing and thiswas real money nowI got ever so intense and it fell to meto kind of save our fortune because wehad an American bloke Calvin Klein AllenKlein and it appeared to me that he wasgoing to have it and I think if I hadn’thave done anything I think he would havein the first year he had a fairly heftymanagement fee and we had those sorts ofrouse you know about us and you’ll take15% and the other guys who were JohnMayne he was kind of besotted with himhe’d got in via Yoko knew John wasincredibly besotted with and good luckto him too but it had brought in AllenKlein because he’d promised her theworld but it was really how it happenedso I knew I had to kind of do somethingand in the end I had to actually sue toget out of this thing I I said well lookcan I just have my bit of the ballplease and can I just leave the pitchhmm they said no you can’t do thatthey were all tied in and so so it wasput to me that I’d have to sue someoneso what I said well Allen Klein theysaid no unfortunately he’s not party toany of the agreements it’s the othersyou’ll have to sue there’s probably oneof the worst moments in my lifereliving it in the book it comes acrossas oh and you said that when the Beatlesplits it was like a bereavement for youit was very difficult for me yeah it wasmy whole life I think you know I think Ithink the others in their minds I thinkJohn was lucky because he’d he’d gotthis new direction now with Yoko andJohn all his life had wanted to cutloose you know he’d always he’d been anart student he sort of buckled down abit for the Beatles you because it’sdemocratic you know I think he wanted tocut loose he wanted to do all thesethings you’ve read about artists inbooks doing and I think Yoko gave himthat opportunity and a lot of what theydid together was very fine stuff but Ithink when it came to the Beatles itmeant that he kind of had to leave thegroup he couldn’t do within the group soyeah it was very difficult for me thenwhat was sad too was was the the waythat it drove a wedge between yourrelations Anand and was it always amy key relationship I mean you said youloved him and that love comes to in theboat did he love you yeah I don’t thinkit was yeah I think he did actually hedid I will check yes no I think he didyeah it wasn’t actually a spikyrelationship at allit was very warm very close and veryloving I think all the Beatles we usedto say we want the first sort of men tocome out openly just remember you knowit’s quite strange in those days waslooking but a long time ago now andhomosexuality was still sort of largelyillegal sure we used to say I love himon interviews and the interviewers wouldget slightly taken aback isn’t a mansaying he loves him I think quitegenuinely I think we really did and Istill do but the business thing cameright in the middle of it and thelawyers came along with the businessthing and I talked to John many yearslater because a great saving grace waswe did put our relationship back to yourdad I mean thank God for that because Idon’t know what I’d do now with him goneif we hadn’t I think I would be sort ofwracked with all sorts of guilt but wedid and in chatting to him he said oneof the first things he said where we metafter the breakup things had calmed downhe said did they try and put you againstme like they put me against you do theytry and do that I said by golly they dohe says that’s good good to know he saidcause they’re always trying to pit meagainst you but we did for ourrelationship back together it was lovelybecause we talked we ended up the lastcouple of years of his life when he justhad Shaun we could now talk about babiesbecause he didn’t he didn’t handle kidsliving it was it was one of the saddestthings we once went on a holiday andJulian was long is his first son and Iwas the kind of family I’m from inLiverpool there was always babies whohad been thrown a baby to jiggle on yourknee it wasn’t anything precious itwasn’t an ice object it was all rightyou know you just got slunk a baby andit were very tactile I think my family avery sir I always imagined it like a bitof an Italian kind of thing your mommyeveryone was all this sort of thing Johndidn’t know that and I didn’t realizeany of that too much later in ourrelationI never really we didn’t talk about ityou don’t talk about stuff on yourteenage and you’re in a group it’s lateryou sort of and I discovered sort of alot of reasons for John’s behavior muchlater in a relationship but we were onthis holiday and I would be bored withthe adults but you know they’re justsitting around getting drunk or whateveryou know she’s fun for a while I getbored so I’d go off with Julian and wewould be on a boat and I go okay now onthe pirate and you’re just a yeah anIndian and I’m gonna get you okay and Ijust go into the fantasy world and hegone okay and so the two of us would berunning around this boat and stuff withall the adults and the next door youknow and John saw this once he came upto me he said how do you do thatand I just I felt like crying you knowit was like God you know I can’t tellyou it’s just years of having babiesthrown at me or being a kid or playingwith kids or having you know I had nokids of my own at the time but it wasjust something my family taught youwhereas his with his dad leaving homewhen he was three and his mom not livingwith him only because it was verystrange to I would go with him to visithis mom who was living with a secondhusband and had a new family and Johnlived with his auntie so John I would beJohn’s moral support when we’d go Iwould go together we see his mom and heidolized his mum but then again she gotknocked over by an off-duty policemanwho’s had learn a driver or something itwas terrible tragic stuff so to me I wasjust very very fortunate to have thissort of rather stable warm Liverpoolfamily and in talking to John later hehad he had none other hmm so he had tofend for himself so that was the basisof John’s a Serb acquit he was alwayshaving to use it but yes I know he’sgonna say then it was interesting wasn’tit because that that was the when wetalked earlier about about the therevisionism I mean that really was whatit was it was John Dee the acerbic lonerthough I knew of them mr. nice guy thethe soft cop-out cop routine in thesentence oh yeah although in realitythat was our sort of public persona Ithink in reality we were actually bothquite sort ofcookies really or he could be very verysentimental I mean they I mean obviouslywere hard cookies I mean I mean do zonalcourses were suddenly murder but I meanI think when were storing things thereading this book as well is is how yousurvived I mean and I just mean survivedintact because nobody reasonably raisedbed for like most of it but nobody couldyou see this thing about the Beatlesit’s quite phenomenal in the sense thatnobody’s ever been through what what youwent through there’s one lovely story inthe book we said you just tell us aboutwhen your daughter said to me you’rePaul McCartney right I mean what do yousay to thatthat’s right we were in Scotland andthey were little and you know they’donly seen me as dad as you as you wouldbut they started to sort of be watchingtelly you look in her newspaper orsomething and I think they saw me ontelly somewhere and she was just gonnalike yes but I’m daddy to you you knowit is very strange that but I say that’sone of the good things about havingbrought the kids up in a reasonablylevel-headed way and that was one of thereasons Linda and I wanted him to go tostate schools because we thought wellthis is Fame in the picture you can’tget rid of that you know even if it’s umyou know I want to be alone yeah you youdon’t you don’t you’re not left aloneyou know you miss Bridget Bardot she maynot be doing films but she’s still youcan’t get that punishment that isself-inflicted punishment that you can’tget rid of that kind of hermit so youknow I just sort of I sort of felt thatit would be good for them to go througha normal kind of upbringing and so theygot all those knocks early they got youknow they’d be in the playground soevery single mile they can tire yeah butyou know makar horse and all that butthat’s what I had to put up with youknow all the names and all that stuffbut I feel like it strengthens you andso now you know they’re prettylevel-headed kids touchwood and they’vegot time for people they’re not snobsyeah which she’ll enjoy value quitehighlylet’s let’s have some more music nowlet’s serve at it go to work well almostwell we came in which is wingsbanned on the rum our our our album iswhat we made together band on the runwings Wow a song also our record I’vebeen written this book and and they saidit’s a it’s a tome well I didn’t writeyou I just I know I was very much but Imean it’s it’s all about about you butbut it’s not all about you really I meanthere’s a lot more still to to come butis it looking going to relive or it allagaindoes it make any kind of sense to I meanI mean there’ll be there’s a mystery atthe center of it all there’s a be saidearlier I mean you and joining that Ericcoming together creating this or anyteam you know you come to anyconclusions about not really know I’mnot a great analyst I kind of just countmy blessings you know I feel very luckyand there is so much faith involved youknow our friend Ivan Vaughan taking meto Walton village fete me seeing Johnthe me not going home immediately megoing backstage talking to him mehappening to know the words to 25 rockhim happening to be impressed you knowthere’s so much sort of conclusion no Idon’t ask me about conclusions aboutlifenever mind the Beatles career old allthat aspect of it I find it verydifficult to draw a conclusion anythingit’s just seems to me to be a one greatmagical adventure if you’re lucky youknow certain things of course change ofperceptions I mean Linda recently to bevery ill I mean I imagine that wouldchange your perception of bits of lifeas well it does a loss it’s when youhave a life-threatening illness you knowafflict your family I think it does putyour priorities in place you you startthinking or maybe I don’t need to dothat maybe we could do that together youdo it and it makes you realize you knowthere’s a man somebody said that nobodygetting out of this one alive youbecause I live as if I’m gonna liveforever I live as no sort of thought forthe future in my mind you know maybethat’s a good thingbut I think with something like that youdo have to sit down and you think okaywhat’s important you know well you’reimportant to me here I’m important and Ithink in some ways there is a good sideto it that’s the good side obviously allthe rest of it is horribleyeah but she’s doing well and you knowshe’s very very positive woman yes verycan consider laughs through all this I’dsay to her I don’t know if it happenedto me I’m not so sure I’d be that moreso but she’s fantastic she’s a greatstrong woman she’s my girlfriend youknow I know it’s a bit like you’re Maryyou know if we just got lucky with eachother I think it is luck isn’t it well Ithink so you know it’s a I mean had Inot have been at the bag of nails onenight my little watering hole late ornice we would have never met and had Inot have actually stood up as she wasabout to leave and actually stood intheir way and said we’re going toanother club would you like to join uswhich I never did but I just felt I hadto do it on this occasion and luckilyshe said yeah hmm so you know that was28 over 28 years ago and we’ve and it’sto imagine any life without itabsolutely no that’s the thing about itthat if you contemplate a scenario aheadit always includes that first in thereyou can’t think tous what might it belike without that yes you know for methere if there are some people who getmarried and spend a lot of time apart Imean for me just sleeping with a finewife it’s very much part of it that’s abit of a lady too I tell you that is oneof the fun things they were Union speednever sleeping with a lady oh my god Iwish I wished what about just a coupleof things to clear up before before weplay our final piece of music certainlyand this suit of Performing Arts thisthing you started in the before yeahthat seems to have taken off rather wellwell that’s great you know it’s it wasthe old grammar school that may inGeorge Harrison went to and so while wewere at itit wasn’t our greatest mostfavorite place cuz it was school and wewere teenagers in live