Letterman - Paul McCartney
The Late Show with David Letterman / Letterman - Paul McCartney
Letterman: (You know), Вы знаете, (you're, you're one of the people obviously), очевидно, Вы один из людей, (that we've tried to get) которых мы пытались получить (on the program as a guest) на программу как гостя (about every week), каждую неделю, (maybe every other day) возможно, через день (we would call to find out), мы звонили бы, чтобы узнать, (“Can he be on the show?") "Может он быть на показе?”
(And after the first 15 years) и после первых 15 лет (we started to get) мы начали получать (our feelings hurt) чувство огорчения.
(And now it's been close to 25-30 years) и сейчас прошло около 25-30 лет, (and I just need to know) и мне необходимо знать, (going forward) продвижение (are there any problems we don't know about) существовали там какие-нибудь проблемы, о которых мы не знаем?
McC: I don't like the show. Я не люблю шоу.
LETTERMAN: Oh! OK! I'll make a note of that! We'll put that in your file. “By the way, Sir Paul doesn't care for the show.”
McC: What can I tell you?
LETTERMAN: Good to have you here, though. I know you've been in this building since 1964. I think you did an MTV [GARBLED]... When you – does it mean anything to you to walk back into this building?
McC: It really does, actually. I was just thinking today, when we first came here we'd never seen this kind of thing. TV studios in England were kind of all one floor. The makeup was next door to this and... But here it's like an apartment block. You know, you go to makeup and then take an elevator 5 floors. Then you go to wardrobe. But yeah, just the memory of being here is great. It was kind of scary the first time.
LETTERMAN: I would think so.
McC: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: How old – how long had the band been together? How old was the band when you came to this country?
McC: How old was the band? About 6 months. No! No! No! I'm just being silly! It was very old. It was an old band. We were, I don't know, like 8, 9 years old or so. I don't – I don't count. People know my history much better than I do.
LETTERMAN: You were 22 – is that about right?
McC: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: And the band came together. You and John became buddies and then you joined his band? Is that the beginning of it?
McC: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: And then George was a friend of yours.
McC: George was my buddy.
LETTERMAN: And then you guys joined, and then Ringo came later.
McC: Yeah.
LETTERMAN: But you really hadn't been, I mean, crazy, maniacal successful very long when you came to this country.
McC: No, we – it's kind of nice. We got popular like in Liverpool and we played Hamburg – got kind of popular there. Went back to Liverpool and they thought we were from Germany.
LETTERMAN: Mm-hmm.
McC: Great memories. “We were very popular two months ago.” And then, you know, we did very well in England. And then finally we came here, which is sort of where we wanted to do well.
LETTERMAN: I remember as a kid we would look for anything we could find out about the Beatles. We would go to the library in high school and check out a Time magazine that had an article about you and the band. And everybody was crazed with anticipation for the arrival. And your family – musical background. Your father was a musician?
McC: My dad was – well, he was a cotton salesman, really. But he did play the piano at home and he had a little jazz band when he was in his 20s. You know, he told me they weren't really that good. I used to love his piano playing. I think that's where I got it from, my love of music. But they went out as the – what was it? – the Masked Players.
LETTERMAN: Masked Players.
McC: That was because they'd been there under another name and got fired, so they came back with masks on.
LETTERMAN: You have to do what you need to do to get a gig! And can you – tell us about yourself and then tell us about the other guys in the band.
McC: Well, I'm a boy.
LETTERMAN: Yeah.
McC: I like girls.
LETTERMAN: When you came in to do the show – 22-year-old kid – what kind of a kid were you then?
McC: Well, you know, I mean, that's when you [GARBLED] my memories. I don't if you find it, but when we were 22 I thought we were like older than I feel now. I mean really, because, you know, we were smoking Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes and we thought we were like really grown up. We were only 22 so... But I had to stand somewhere here and there was a curtain, and the audience was out there and we were kind of very new to America and loving it, but little bit scared. And I had to do “Yesterday” – my song – on my own. And I'd never done this. I'd always had the band with me. But suddenly they said, “You're doing 'Yesterday.'” So I said, “OK.”So I'm standing there – “Come on, get it together! It's OK!” – and the floor manager, the guy on the curtain, came up to me and said, “Are you nervous?” I said, “No.” He said, “You should be. There's gonna be 73 million people watching!”
LETTERMAN: Wow! Well, sadly, you and I've no problem tonight.
McC: Why, how many have we got tonight? What's the figures tonight?
LETTERMAN: Look at this. Here we are. Talk about kids. Oh my goodness, there they are. And how was Ringo thought of in those days? Were you guys nice to Ringo?
McC: Sometimes. Sometimes. He was a good boy. He had had a beard which had to go. But he [GARBLED].
LETTERMAN: I remember reading – as I said, we'd try to find out everything we could about the Beatles – that Ringo was sickly as a child. Was that true?
McC: And that is really true, yeah. And that's not funny because he got peritonitis when he was 3 – and that's like, you can die of that. It's a stomach thing. And the first thing we never knew of him – 'cause you know, we wouldn't talk about that kind of stuff – was when we were in Miami and we were all in a swimming pool together – I think it was for the cover of Life magazine – you know, magazine-dropping, but –
LETTERMAN: I see.
McC: – and he had a rather high costume – swimming costume, trunks. And we all had the Speedo jobs. And we ended up kind of asking him what it was about. And he had scars on his stomach from that peritonitis thing. So he was very lucky to be here, you know.
LETTERMAN: And was there the chemistry – were you all four friends? Were two of you friends? Three of you friends? One loner? How did that work? Did it change, the dynamic?
McC: It changed a little bit from time to time, yeah. We were very good friends. I knew George from where I lived. So we were kind of friends in that kind of way.
LETTERMAN: Right.
McC: I knew John 'cause I joined the band and he was a friend of a mate of mine. And then Ringo came later so, you know, he was not the sort of guy we knew that well. We soon got to know each other. I mean, we just went in so many vans lying on top of each other, you had to get to know each other.
LETTERMAN: Yeah. To me – my impression of it, not that my impression counts for anything other than my impression – but it was four guys on a very, very long spring break. Just like the best time four guys could ever have.
McC: Well it certainly seemed like that, you know. Yeah. It was – yeah, it was definitely a great thing. I'd say because we sort of got popular in Liverpool, England, by the time we came here we were ready for it. So you know, we went – you say “spring break” – we went to Miami. The British car firm loaned us an MG each. And, you know, there was beach and sand and girls and, c'mon!