Music legend Paul McCartney has officially launched his new podcast, McCartney: A Life In Lyrics, which is a must-hear for fans of the singer-songwriter and especially The Beatles. The podcast is a deep dive into the stories and inspirations behind some of his most iconic songs, with season one being all about a number of beloved Beatles tracks.
McCartney released a pair of episodes to launch the series, each coming in around 20 minutes long and focusing on one specific single.
In one of the inaugural episodes of McCartney: A Life In Lyrics, the musician himself shares the backstory behind The Beatles classic, “Back In The USSR.” Reflecting on the song’s origins, McCartney admitted that the inspiration for the tune was closely tied to another legendary artist, one that the members of The Beatles were listening to at the time.
“Chuck Berry wrote a song called ‘Back In The US,’ which we were very familiar with, and I thought it was cool. It was obviously about a serviceman going home.” McCartney added that he felt that the original song by Berry was too pro-America for his taste, which led him to infuse his unique twist into it.
He continued, “We were in the U.K., so I could poke fun at it in my own way.” McCartney went on to say, “When I saw USSR was sort of similar, then I realized I could set it back in the U.S., and do a little parody on Chuck’s idea of being back, and I would have a Russian guy who’d come from America and was glad to be back in Russia.”
In addition to “Back In The USSR,” another episode of McCartney: A Life In Lyrics simultaneously explores “Eleanor Rigby,” another one of The Beatles’s biggest and most beloved hits.
McCartney shared where the song’s title came from, saying, “There is a grave which John and I wandered around endlessly talking about our future. And there is a grave there [with the name Eleanor Rigby].” While this origin story seems fairly straightforward, McCartney admitted than even he isn’t 100% certain this is where the title originated. “I don’t remember ever having seeing that gravestone but it’s been suggested to me that psychologically I would have seen it.”
The beloved musician also explained that when he wrote the future hit, he imagined it as a movie of sorts. “What I was seeing was like a film, just in my imagination,” McCartney explained. He continued the topic, adding, “I’ve got two protagonists that are lonely, she and then him. You don’t feel so sorry for him, but he’s lonely. So ‘all the lonely people now’, becomes the chorus… She dies and he’s the one who buries her, and he’s wiping his hands as he walks from the grave, ‘no one was saved’ and that’s the wrap up to the story.”
McCartney: A Life In Lyrics is hosted by McCartney and Irish poet Paul Muldoon, who worked with the former Beatle on the book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. Fans can tune into the podcast on a weekly basis via iHeartMedia on various podcast platforms. However, for those who are subscribed to Pushkin+, the entire series is already available to stream.
The series is accessible through all major podcast platforms, and it will also be broadcasted as a special program to millions of listeners every Sunday morning via various radio stations from October 8 through December 24.
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