I'm the political one, says McCartney

Paola Totaro
December 14, 2008

'You say you want a revolution, well you know, we all want to change the world.'

Sir Paul McCartney has disputed the long-held view that it was John Lennon who was the political Beatle, arguing that it was his views that originally galvanized the band to take an anti Vietnam stance.

Ignoring music magazines to speak to an intellectual magazine, Prospect, which will be on sale on British news stands on Wednesday, Sir Paul describes how he caught a taxi to the Chelsea home of the philosopher, Bertrand Russell, and it was this unplanned meeting and chat that sparked the Beatle's musical foray for pacifism.

Russell, the author of the seminal work, A History of Western Philosophy and probably one of the most influential voices of Britain in the 20th Century, was also one of the modern world's best known and respected pacifists and was imprisoned during World War I for speaking out to warn British workers about the American military role in strike breaking.

In his interview, granted to an old school friend, Jonathan Power, McCartney says that this meeting with Russell was to be his personal political awakening and that he returned to Abbey Road studios where the band were rehearsing and recording tracks to infect them with his new found spirit.

While the interview, published in The Sunday Times, is granted front page and page three treatment, the newspaper also described the piece as McCartney "rewriting history".

However the 66 year old Beatle describes with great alacrity his meeting with Russell just at the time that the band was becoming well known: ". . .someone said to me Bertrand Russell is living not far from here in Chelsea, why don't you go and see him? And so I took a taxi down there and knocked on the door,"

"He was fabulous. He told me about the Vietnam war - most of us didn't know about it, it wasn't yet in the papers - and also that it was a very bad war. I remember going back to the studio either that everning or the next day and telling the guys, particularly John Lennon about his meeting and saying what a bad war it was."

Several influential rock historians and biographers are quoted by The Sunday Times making clear they are highly skeptical of Sir Paul's recollection, saying that while he may have become politicized it was John Lennon who voiced the new opinions in song.

A biographer of all four Beatles, Alan Clayson, told the Sunday Times: "I think Sir Paul is rewriting history now that Lennon is gone."

"Tariq Ali, who was on of the British anti war movements leaders told the Sunday Times that he had no contact with Sir Paul. He says he asked John Lennon why he never attended the anti war marches like Mick Jagger did and that he told him he regretted it but had been warned by their manager, Brian Epstein, that if they did the Beatles would not be allowed a visa to America.

However Hunter Davies, who spent 18 months with the Beatles on tour between 1967 and 1968 before writing their authorized biography defended the statements saying that all the Beatles were open to "smart, intellectual and artistic people trying to get them involved in things".

My thoughts on these two is all over a bunch of threads, but even I'll say it's pretty clear that Lennon was more conscious of the political world. He was also an idealist and a bit simple in his thinking about it all, but come on....

That's cool and all that Paul was political, and maybe even he was the first to hear about the Vietnam war, but he was by no means the most political Beatle and I'm gonna bet Johnny boy was involved in politics way before Pauly Shore over here met Berty Russ.

Its ironic how Paul is so preoccupied with how history will perceive him and what people think of him, yet its that exact paranoia that's really starting to annoy music fans.

One wouldn't have existed without the other. They're both equally great. Since it was John's band initially, history will pretty much always consider him the leader. You'd think that after all this time Paul would've come to grips with everything.

But Lennon burned out while McCartney is fading away. I bet its pretty difficult to be in his position at times.

Paul: shut the fuck up already.

How incredibly insecure must Paul McCartney be?

The guy even wanted Lennon's name removed from the songwriting credits of Yesterday - has anyone, ever, really assumed John wrote it?!

John was awesome, so were you. Live with it Paul.

yeah, because selling out shows all over the world is a tough spot to be in.

When I read that Paul wanted to switch the order of the writing credits on "his" songs, I first saw his insecurity. This is clearly Paul's paranoia of how he'll be viewed by history. The Beatles will always be the Beatles...they may not be as influential as they are today in 100 years, but who knows.

Paul needs to live and let die.

Hmm, I would say that Paul, if not more so, was certainly as political as John. I mean, He wrote a song called "Give Ireland back to the Irish" during the IRA's heavy bombing campaign of England during the seventies. A really political thing to do, if you understand what was going on over here at the time.

Yeah, it was a political song but damn, Lennon has him beat if you go by politically charged songs.

Paul is a douche... end of story..