Howard Sounes - Fab - An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney

FAB:

AN INTIMATE LIFE OF

Paul McCartney

HOWARD SOUNES

Playlist Playlist PART ONE - WITH THE BEATLES CHAPTER 1 - A LIVERPOOL FAMILY CHAPTER 2 - JOHN CHAPTER 3 - HAMBURG CHAPTER 4 - LONDON CHAPTER 5 - THE MANIA CHAPTER 6 - AMERICA CHAPTER 7 - YESTERDAY CHAPTER 8 - FIRST FINALE CHAPTER 9 - LINDA CHAPTER 10 - HELLO, GOODBYE CHAPTER 11 - PAUL TAKES CHARGE CHAPTER 12 - WEIRD VIBES CHAPTER 13 - WEDDING BELLS CHAPTER 14 - CREATIVE DIFFERENCES PART TWO - AFTER THE BEATLES CHAPTER 15 - ‘HE’S NOT A BEATLE ANY MORE!’ CHAPTER 16 - THE NEW BAND CHAPTER 17 - IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY CHAPTER 18 - THE GOOD LIFE CHAPTER 19 - GO TO JAIL CHAPTER 20 - INTO THE EIGHTIES CHAPTER 21 - TRIVIAL PURSUITS CHAPTER 22 - THE NEXT BEST THING CHAPTER 23 - MUSIC IS MUSIC CHAPTER 24 - A THREE-QUARTERS REUNION CHAPTER 25 - PASSING THROUGH THE DREAM OF LOVE CHAPTER 26 - RUN DEVIL RUN CHAPTER 27 - THAT DIFFICULT SECOND MARRIAGE CHAPTER 28 - WHEN PAUL WAS SIXTY-FOUR CHAPTER 29 - THE EVER-PRESENT PAST SOURCE NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS About the Author Praise Also by Howard Sounes Credits Copyright About the Publisher

To hear a playlist of music by Paul McCartney, chosen by the author and discussed in Fab , please visit www.fabplaylist.co.uk

Contents

Cover

Title Page FAB: AN INTIMATE LIFE OF Paul McCartney HOWARD SOUNES

Playlist

PART ONE - WITH THE BEATLES

CHAPTER 1 - A LIVERPOOL FAMILY

CHAPTER 2 - JOHN

CHAPTER 3 - HAMBURG

CHAPTER 4 - LONDON

CHAPTER 5 - THE MANIA

CHAPTER 6 - AMERICA

CHAPTER 7 - YESTERDAY

CHAPTER 8 - FIRST FINALE

CHAPTER 9 - LINDA

CHAPTER 10 - HELLO, GOODBYE

CHAPTER 11 - PAUL TAKES CHARGE

CHAPTER 12 - WEIRD VIBES

CHAPTER 13 - WEDDING BELLS

CHAPTER 14 - CREATIVE DIFFERENCES

PART TWO - AFTER THE BEATLES

CHAPTER 15 - ‘HE’S NOT A BEATLE ANY MORE!’

CHAPTER 16 - THE NEW BAND

CHAPTER 17 - IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY

CHAPTER 18 - THE GOOD LIFE

CHAPTER 19 - GO TO JAIL

CHAPTER 20 - INTO THE EIGHTIES

CHAPTER 21 - TRIVIAL PURSUITS

CHAPTER 22 - THE NEXT BEST THING

CHAPTER 23 - MUSIC IS MUSIC

CHAPTER 24 - A THREE-QUARTERS REUNION

CHAPTER 25 - PASSING THROUGH THE DREAM OF LOVE

CHAPTER 26 - RUN DEVIL RUN

CHAPTER 27 - THAT DIFFICULT SECOND MARRIAGE

CHAPTER 28 - WHEN PAUL WAS SIXTY-FOUR

CHAPTER 29 - THE EVER-PRESENT PAST

SOURCE NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

About the Author

Praise

Also by Howard Sounes

Credits

Copyright

About the Publisher

PART ONE WITH THE BEATLES PART ONE - WITH THE BEATLES CHAPTER 1 - A LIVERPOOL FAMILY CHAPTER 2 - JOHN CHAPTER 3 - HAMBURG CHAPTER 4 - LONDON CHAPTER 5 - THE MANIA CHAPTER 6 - AMERICA CHAPTER 7 - YESTERDAY CHAPTER 8 - FIRST FINALE CHAPTER 9 - LINDA CHAPTER 10 - HELLO, GOODBYE CHAPTER 11 - PAUL TAKES CHARGE CHAPTER 12 - WEIRD VIBES CHAPTER 13 - WEDDING BELLS CHAPTER 14 - CREATIVE DIFFERENCES PART TWO - AFTER THE BEATLES CHAPTER 15 - ‘HE’S NOT A BEATLE ANY MORE!’ CHAPTER 16 - THE NEW BAND CHAPTER 17 - IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY CHAPTER 18 - THE GOOD LIFE CHAPTER 19 - GO TO JAIL CHAPTER 20 - INTO THE EIGHTIES CHAPTER 21 - TRIVIAL PURSUITS CHAPTER 22 - THE NEXT BEST THING CHAPTER 23 - MUSIC IS MUSIC CHAPTER 24 - A THREE-QUARTERS REUNION CHAPTER 25 - PASSING THROUGH THE DREAM OF LOVE CHAPTER 26 - RUN DEVIL RUN CHAPTER 27 - THAT DIFFICULT SECOND MARRIAGE CHAPTER 28 - WHEN PAUL WAS SIXTY-FOUR CHAPTER 29 - THE EVER-PRESENT PAST SOURCE NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS About the Author Praise Also by Howard Sounes Credits Copyright About the Publisher

CHAPTER 1 A LIVERPOOL FAMILY CHAPTER 1 - A LIVERPOOL FAMILY CHAPTER 2 - JOHN CHAPTER 3 - HAMBURG CHAPTER 4 - LONDON CHAPTER 5 - THE MANIA CHAPTER 6 - AMERICA CHAPTER 7 - YESTERDAY CHAPTER 8 - FIRST FINALE CHAPTER 9 - LINDA CHAPTER 10 - HELLO, GOODBYE CHAPTER 11 - PAUL TAKES CHARGE CHAPTER 12 - WEIRD VIBES CHAPTER 13 - WEDDING BELLS CHAPTER 14 - CREATIVE DIFFERENCES PART TWO - AFTER THE BEATLES CHAPTER 15 - ‘HE’S NOT A BEATLE ANY MORE!’ CHAPTER 16 - THE NEW BAND CHAPTER 17 - IN THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY CHAPTER 18 - THE GOOD LIFE CHAPTER 19 - GO TO JAIL CHAPTER 20 - INTO THE EIGHTIES CHAPTER 21 - TRIVIAL PURSUITS CHAPTER 22 - THE NEXT BEST THING CHAPTER 23 - MUSIC IS MUSIC CHAPTER 24 - A THREE-QUARTERS REUNION CHAPTER 25 - PASSING THROUGH THE DREAM OF LOVE CHAPTER 26 - RUN DEVIL RUN CHAPTER 27 - THAT DIFFICULT SECOND MARRIAGE CHAPTER 28 - WHEN PAUL WAS SIXTY-FOUR CHAPTER 29 - THE EVER-PRESENT PAST SOURCE NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS About the Author Praise Also by Howard Sounes Credits Copyright About the Publisher

AT THE START OF THE ROAD

‘They may not look much,’ Paul would say in adult life of his Liverpool family, having been virtually everywhere and seen virtually everything there is to see in this world. ‘They’re just very ordinary people, but by God they’ve got something – common sense, in the truest sense of the word. I’ve met lots of people, [but] I have never met anyone as interesting, or as fascinating, or as wise, as my Liverpool family.’

Liverpool is not only the city in which Paul McCartney was born; it is the place in which he is rooted, the wellspring of the Beatles’ music and everything he has done since that fabulous group disbanded. Originally a small inlet or ‘pool’ on the River Mersey, near its confluence with the Irish Sea, 210 miles north of London, Liverpool was founded in 1207, coming to significance in the seventeenth century as a slave trade port, because Liverpool faces the Americas. After the abolition of slavery, the city continued to thrive due to other, diverse forms of trade, with magnificent new docks constructed along its riverine waterfront, and ocean liners steaming daily to and from the United States. As money poured into Liverpool, its citizens erected a mini-Manhattan by the docks, featuring the Royal Liver Building, an exuberant skyscraper topped by outlandish copper birds that have become emblematic of this confident, slightly eccentric city.

For the best part of three hundred years men and women flocked to Liverpool for work, mostly on and around the docks. Liverpool is and has always been a predominantly white, working-class city, its people made up of and descended in large part from the working poor of surrounding Lancashire, plus Irish, Scots and Welsh incomers. Their regional accents combined in an urban melting pot to create Scouse, the distinctive Liverpool voice, with its singular, rather harsh pronunciation and its own witty argot, Scousers typically living hugger-mugger in the city’s narrow terrace streets built from the local rosy-red sandstone and brick.

Red is the colour of Liverpool – the red of its buildings, its left-wing politics and Liverpool Football Club. As the city has a colour, its citizens have a distinct character: they are friendly, jokey and inquisitive, hugely proud of their city and thin-skinned when it is criticised, as it has been throughout Paul’s life. For Liverpool’s boom years were over before Paul was born, the population reaching a peak of 900,000 in 1931, since when Liverpool has faded, its people, Paul included, leaving to find work elsewhere as their ancestors once came to Merseyside seeking employment, the abandoned city becoming tatty and tired, with mounting social problems.