“I’ve always had this thing of him and me,” Paul McCartney told Barry Miles, his authorized biographer, in 1996. “He goes onstage, he’s famous, and then me; I’m just some kid from Liverpool … this little kid who used to run down the streets in Speke … collecting jam jars, damming up streams in the woods. I still very much am him grown up.
“Occasionally, I stop and think, I am Paul McCartney … hell, that is a total freak-out! You know, Paul McCartney! Just the words, it sounds like a total kind of legend. But, of course, you don’t want to go thinking that too much because it takes over.” And yet, “when I go on tour, I’m glad of the legendary thing,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to try and entertain 60,000 people in a Texas stadium with just the guy next door.”
No, that wouldn’t do at all. And so—still, in 2012—he steps out on the stage of whatever arena he may be playing, in whichever corner of the world—it scarcely matters where or what language they speak; everyone knows him and loves him, everyone knows the words to all the songs—and, as the roar rises to the rafters, begins singing, for the umpteenth time and with undiminished joy:
Roll up, roll up for the magical mystery tour, step right this way …
Today, June 18, 2012—inconceivably—he turns 70, and he’s still rolling. Fast. In the months before the big day, he seemed to be everywhere at once: touring in Helsinki and Moscow and Liverpool. Getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Playing at the MusiCares benefit (where he was honored as Person of the Year). Playing at the Grammys. Attending his daughter Stella’s fashion show in Paris. Vacationing in St. Barts with his wife Nancy Shevell—and then touring some more, in Rotterdam and Zurich and London.
It was almost as though, if he moved fast enough and squeezed in enough events, he might sideslip the 18th of June altogether and proceed to the next golden stage, untouched and untallied. Exactly the kind of dream a little kid running down the street in Liverpool might dream.
Except that no one, in his wildest imaginings, could have dreamed all that had happened to him in the years between then and now.
All four of them had remarkable faces, but only his was beautiful, the big-eyed, long-lashed looks saved from mere prettiness by a persistent, perhaps willfully untended, five-o’clock shadow and those asymmetrical, ironically arched brows, which seemed to say, I’ve got the goods. No, really. Think I’m kidding?
He had the goods, and then some. “Oh, beyond measure—on a Mozart level,” the musician and record producer Peter Asher told TIME recently, speaking of the musical gifts of the brash young -Liverpudlian who, beginning in 1963, dated his sister Jane and, though already famous, bunked in the attic of the Asher family’s town house on Wimpole Street: the attic where the melody of “Yesterday” came to him one night in a dream.
That, of course, was many yesterdays ago. And while Paul McCartney’s youthful beauty has gone the way of youth, the immense musical talent endures, along with, at the biblical three score and 10, something perhaps even more remarkable: “He keeps on going,” says another longtime acquaintance, the writer and director Michael Lindsay-Hogg. “He doesn’t have to. He’s got all the money and all the success, and he’s written some great songs. In Tennessee Williams’ Camino Real … there’s [a line]: ‘Make voyages, attempt them; there’s nothing else.’ I think that’s Paul.”
At 70, he voyages still, maintaining a schedule that would give pause to a man half his age: a 30-concert tour in 2011-2012, from the Bronx to Bologna, Moscow to Montevideo to Mexico City. “My wife says he’s an alien from the Planet Fab,” says Paul “Wix” Wickens, the keyboardist in the band that has backed McCartney for the past 10 years. (The band also includes bassist Rusty Anderson, guitarist/bassist Brian Ray and drummer Abe Laboriel Jr.)
“If you’re enjoying it, why do something else?” McCartney asked Rolling Stone, rhetorically, earlier this year. His pleasure in his art and his craft seems as pure as it was when he first picked up a guitar almost 60 years ago. “He absolutely loves music,” Wickens says. “He loves to play. And he loves being involved. He’s always doing something. When we [in the band] are not working, he is not not-working. He does relax, and he does take holidays. But he puts his head into other places, not just pop music, because he likes a challenge, he likes just to be doing it.”
Funny, the things an ordinary man will come up with.
Excerpted from TIME’s new book; Paul McCartney: The legend rocks on, by James Kaplan, copyright ©2012 by Time Home Entertainment Inc. To buy a copy, go to time.com/mccartneybook.
Paul McCartney and John Lennon members of the 'The Quarrymen' rock and roll band perform on stage at the Casbah Coffee House, Liverpool, England in 1959.
Portrait of Paul McCartney taken at the Hamburg fairgrounds with Stuart Sutcliffe in the background. Hamburg, Germany,1960
Astrid Kirchherr's first group photo of The Beatles taken at the Hamburg fairground, just blocks away from the Reeperbahn district where the group played nightly. Pete Best, George Harrison, John Lennon, Paul McCartney Stuart Sutcliffe. Hamburg, Germany 1960.
The Beatles contact sheet from shoot by Fiona Adams on assignment for Boyfriend Magazine taken on location in London, England 1963. One of the jumping frames was later chosen for the Beatles EP album 'Twist and Shout'.
The Beatles; L-R: Ringo Starr, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, John Lennon in a posed, group shot - jumping on wall, later used on the Twist and Shout EP cover. London, England,1963.
The Beatles on stage at the Washington Coliseum, Washington DC, February 11, 1964.
Policemen struggle to restrain young Beatles fans outside Buckingham Palace as The Beatles receive their MBEs (Member of the British Empire) in October 1965. London, England. John Lennon later returned his MBE in September 1969, in protest against British politics.
Paul McCartney poses for a portrait holding a Beatles fanzine which depicts 'Beatlemania' on the back cover, 1964
John Lennon and Paul McCartney with guitars. England, 1963.
Paul McCartney waves from a taxi on the Champs Elysees, Paris, France, January 1964.
Beatles' fans sit in an alley way in Liverpool waiting for their heroes. April 24, 1963.
The Beatles, 1963.
The Beatles during filming of 'A Hard Days Night'. The Beatles film was primarily shot on a moving train. Fan recognizing Paul McCartney. London, England, 1964.
Paul McCartney in a disguise during filming of "A Hard Day's Night." London, England, 1964.
The Beatles during filming of 'A Hard Days Night'. London, England, 1964.
A Hard Days Night
Paul McCartney on the set of 'A Hard Day's Night' at the Scala Theater, holding camera. London, England, 1964.
The Beatles in the Abbey Road Studios, where many of their most famous records were made, examining the script of the film 'A Hard Days Night'. London, England, 1964.
The Beatles arrive at New York's Kennedy Airport Feb. 7, 1964 for their first U.S. appearance. From left are: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison.
Fans of The Beatles in Boston 1964.
Paul McCartney chatting with American talk show host Ed Sullivan during The Beatle's tour of the USA, New York, 1964
1st Ed Sullivan Performance
Beatles First U.S. Concert 1964
(L-R) Paul McCartney and John Lennon rehearsing on stage during the American tour of The Beatles, 1964.
Paul McCartney during the Beatles Christmas concert, England, 1963.
The Beatles perform at the Seattle Centre Coliseum in Seattle, Washington, during their US tour, August, 1964.
Paul McCartney at Madame Tussaud's waxworks with his newly unveiled effigy in London, England, April 29, 1964.
Escaping fans Paul McCartney is helped over his car by a guard before The Beatles concert at the Futurist Theatre. Fans can be seen in the background, Scarborough, England, 1964.
Paul McCartney shown in the Champs Elysees, Paris, France, 1964.
(L-R) Paul McCartney, George Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr of The Beatles, taking a dip in a swimming pool. USA. February 1964.
The Beatles at a mansion in Bel-Air, Los Angeles, August 1964.
The Beatles 1 [Full Album] k
Paul McCartney and George Harrison reading a magazine, 1965.
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Full Album)
Paul McCartney, London, England, 1966.
The Beatles and friends give an audience to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. From left to right; Paul McCartney, Jane Asher, Patti Harrison, Ringo Starr, his wife Maureen, John Lennon (1940 - 1980), George Harrison (1943 - 2001) and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. September, 1967.
Paul McCartney signs autographs for fans whilst sat in his Aston Martin car outside his flat in St John's Wood. He has a badge on his shirt which reads 'The Love Of My Life'. London, England, 1967. (In this photo, the circle highlighting the badge was made by a prior media source)
Let It Be (Full Album)
Policemen clear the field of enthusiastic fans as The Beatles perform on a bandstand in Candlestick Park, San Francisco, California, Aug 30, 1966.
Photographer Linda Eastman (1941 - 1998) talks to Beatle Paul McCartney at the press launch of the Beatles new album 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'. The couple married two years later. May 19, 1967.
Beatles singer and bass player Paul McCartney holds four year old Julian, son of his colleague John Lennon (visible in the background) during a holiday near Athens in Greece.
John Lennon
John Lennon
John and Cynthia Powell in 1959
John Lennon last television interview Tomorrow show
Paul McCartney on stage during The Beatles' concert at the Metropolitan Stadium, Bloomington, Minnesota, August 21, 1965.
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