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Paul McCartney: Run Devil Run

Jim Irvin, MOJO, October 1999

THE LURE had been the chance of a lengthy one-on-one with Paul McCartney discussing all his solo albums. "You could turn it into a book," said his publicist, graciously.

All I had to agree to was to begin with his latest recording, Run Devil Run, which wasn't a problem, as it was a really very decent collection of rock and roll covers, with a few new songs, recorded in a week, a year after the death of Paul's beloved wife Linda. After we'd talked about that, said the publicist, I could go on and talk about the rest, "once Paul is relaxed".

I smell a rat when I arrive, shake hands with Paul – who's looking fit and youthful, with only his suspiciously chestnut-coloured hair looking like it had received any cosmetic help – and pull out the CD sleeves of his complete works as an aide memoire for us both.

"I'm not signing that lot," he snaps.

"Erm, I didn't want you to, it's for the interview," I say.

"Oh, right."

It was odd being in the room with a Beatle after a lifelong relationship with his music, and Paul's demeanour showed that he gets that a lot, in fact he must get nothing else when he meets someone for the first time: an uneasy mix of nerves, warmth, respect and the kind of uncomfortable intimacy that comes with a meeting where one person knows everything about the other and the other knows nothing. Because he is used to this situation, Paul looks slightly bored by it. He knows it's easier, in the long run, to be friendly and cooperative with the press, and he wheels out a few well-worn techniques to put me at my ease. He is gracious and easy-going during our conversation, but there is always something steely in his countenance, you feel he could take offence easily. You can't forget he's Paul McCartney and neither can he.

Needless to say, after chatting about the new album, Paul seems surprised when I start to ask about his debut, the "bowl of cherries" album. I begin to suspect he hasn't been briefed about the supposed purpose of this interview. Some kind of signal is given, because as we get onto Ram, Paul looking increasingly restless, an assistant appears and announces there's someone in reception Paul has to see urgently. McCartney makes his excuses and leaves. The grinning publicist apologises and insists that we will reschedule for the rest of the chat, but I know it'll never happen. Strangely, I feel slightly relieved.

The interview that follows is just the material concerning Run Devil Run which, I realise later, is surprisingly rich in information about how the Beatles worked and how Paul recalls that period.

The cry of 'C'mon lads, we're going back to basics!' seems to be a bit of a refrain in your career. You like to do it every now and then.

Yeah.

What brought it on this time?

Linda was very keen. I'd said for years, "I'd love to make a rock'n'roll record." I'd talked of other things – an old standards, Fred Astaire, Cole Porter album – but this one was more than a whim. I thought, I've got to do it before the 20th century ends, so it was the next thing I was gonna do. Then Lin died, she was really keen that I do it, so that was enough motivation: I'd better get this done. No pissing around.

So how did you approach it?

I remembered early Beatle recording techniques. Because we weren't a famous act we were given a schedule of exactly how to make a record: You come in at 10 am, you set up your amp and your guitar or drums, you have a ciggie, cup of tea, get in tune, then by 10.30 you've got to be ready to go. You just had to be ready or the grown-ups would get annoyed.

We worked from 10.30 to 1.30, and we were expected to do two songs. We took an hour's lunch exactly, then [worked from] 2.30 to 5.30. Then you went home, went out to the pictures or the pub or something. So the next day, when you came in, you'd had a life. If you'd seen a great film it kind of informed you.

So I thought I'd do exactly that, book Abbey Road for one week only, get a bunch of guys together and go and do this thing exactly as we used to.

No rehearsals?

This really surprised me. I realised that on the Monday at 10.30 George Martin would say, "Okay chaps, what are we going to do?" and the only two people in the room who knew were me and John. George and Ringo didn't even know. And I thought, Shit, that's wild! None of this "demos up front, the producer's been working on it, he's got ideas." He didn't know what we were going to do. We could just throw anything at George Martin and we did: "It goes like this: Gir-ir-irl (intake of breath), wanna get a breathy thing going there." Engineer would start to work out how to get the breathy thing, put some compression on or something... bang, bang. Everyone thinking on their feet . Then we were off and running, the match would start.

So, no homework allowed. The other thing we outlawed during the week was thinking. If someone went, "I wonder if I did this..." We'd say, "You're thinking!" It became the joke of the week. "This is rock'n'roll, you're not allowed to think, just do."

So how did you select the songs?

I just kind of dredged my memory and came up with a very arbitrary list, coz I've got millions of rock'n'roll songs that I love. I got most of them on tape and did what I used to do. Got a bit of paper and a pencil and [transcribed the lyrics]. That was a great buzz because I literally hadn't done that particular exercise since I was a kid, felt like I was 15 again sitting there copping the lyrics to Chuck Berry songs, Buddy Holly, Fats Domino.

So I got this bunch of lyrics, there's actually still one deliberate mistake on the record – find it – there's one line I never could find out, I wrote it down phonetically, "yer be livin' in spe...", turned out to be something quite different "If you do it again" and I thought I'd fill that in before the session but I forgot to do it. It was all like that, kind of spontaneous and instant. I got nostalgic for that way of working. [The Beatles] really did some good stuff like that, Revolver and Rubber Soul, all those early ones...

That way of working went right up to Revolver did it?

Way past Revolver, Rubber Soul. (I raise an eyebrow. Pause.) That's past Revolver isn't it?

Er no. Revolver's the one before Pepper.

Was it? Okay. (Pause) I was in the Beatles was I?

Yeah. Bass, I think.

(Chuckles) Basically I was. Yeah. So I thought, I'll sing and play bass at the same time, if there's anyone in the world who's had practice at that it's me. It's a bit like that (patting his head and rubbing his stomach) you've learnt how to do that, so do that. Don't get too precious. I had a bit of a funny moment on the Sunday night [before the session] because I hadn't sung for a year since Linda died, I didn't actually know if I could. I'd been writing stuff, but it had been little introspective stuff (he mimes singing softly). I was nervous [but once we started] I realised it was gonna work and I was singing good. The other thing, because I hadn't done any of these songs before either, I had no idea what the bass parts were. Then I thought, if it was good enough for George and Ringo not to know how the songs went, it's good enough for you. A little dangerous, this is good, getting dangerous. So I went in on the Monday morning with this big manila envelope full of all me words, scrappily on the back of envelopes, and flicked through them – 'Searchin'' by the Coasters, nah, didn't fancy that, 'Hippy Hippy Shake', nearly... 'Fabulous', Charlie Gracie? Yeah!"

I don't know that one.

It actually didn't end up on the album, but I remember it from the fairground. It reminded me of the Waltzer and us trying to pick up birds – which we could never do – me and me mate in our drape jackets with the flap pockets and the fleck, which was 'It.'! Whenever I got a buzz off a number I'd pull it out and say to all the guys – Dave Gilmour, Mick Green on guitars, Pete Wingfield piano and Ian Paice on drums – "Anyone know 'Fabulous'? No?" So I'd get me acoustic guitar, in five or ten minutes these guys had picked it up, get on me bass, okay, 1,2,3,4, do a take, go up and listen to it, quickly organise it, do another two takes, say, and Chris (Thomas) the producer would go "That sounds good." Great, next song. And we just did that all week. Most of the songs they didn't know. They'd know 'All Shook Up' or 'Ready Teddy' – which didn't make the album – or 'Rip It Up', but 'No Other Baby', 'Shake A Hand' and 'Coquette', nobody knew.

How did you get to know them, then?

Those songs were like where The Beatles would show up in the early days at the Aintree Institute, say, and there'd be three or four bands on the bill. We'd be due on third and the band who was second would go on and do our entire act! 'Blue Suede Shoes', 'Long Tall Sally', 'What'd I Say', there's the act gone. There was this terrible moment, "Fuckin' hell, what do we do?" "Well we'd better play them better." But [to avoid that] we started to look for B-sides – things like Bo Diddley's 'The Old Grandpappy' and 'If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody', which was off a James Ray record that George had – we started to find these lesser-known songs that the other bands wouldn't have. And that's the reason John and I started writing, a surefire way [other bands] couldn't access our songs. For a while we didn't really write anything much good – at The Cavern I used to do something called 'The Pinwheel Twist', which was dreadful but worked for the time, some terrible lyrics about fireworks, probably, but it's lost in the mists of time.

'No Other Baby' is fantastic.

That's probably the most obscure. I knew the song but we couldn't find out who did it, Alan here (at mpl) did a bit of research and it turned out it was by the Vipers Skiffle Group. I was talking to George Martin about this album and said "We did some really remote things, one called 'No Other Baby' by The Vipers." Then I said, "Wait a minute George, you produced them didn't you?" I sang it to him and he goes "Oh yes, I remember that now." So talk about full circle.

I didn't even have the record of that but it just embedded itself in my memory. I used to do it in soundchecks on tour. That came out nice. One of the guys said that if these songs were film stars 'No Other Baby' would be Dennis Hopper. It has a chilly, Blue Velvet feel about it which I like.

You sound very angry in places.

That's just me singing. I don't know if I was angry or not, can't remember. When you've got to stand up and play bass live and sing too, there's no time to think of anything else, apart from, How does the bass part go? It was just the spirit of the week. As I said, we outlawed thinking.

A lot of great rock'n'roll records are great "records" rather being great songs. It's often down to the atmosphere of the recordings, isn't it?

Yeah. One or two of the songs when I looked at them I thought, Bloody hell this isn't much of a song, but I love it from the Waltzer or whatever so it doesn't matter. What I tried to communicate is my love of them, this joy at doing these numbers, and anyone who loves rock'n'roll loves doing these songs.

Fair enough on something like 'No Other Baby' that's not so well known, but it must be really hard trying to make 'All Shook Up' your own. It'd be like someone trying to do 'Day In the Life'.

Yeah, those were the challenges. What I decided was not to do 'All Shook Up' like Elvis, then it would be a pale imitation. I decided to bring it up more towards my Little Richard range, scream it more, give it a meanness, put a new interpretation on the words.

'Lonesome Town' too. I'd always liked Ricky Nelson's version, but on the way to the studio I suddenly thought, I can't do it the way Ricky did it, because I'll like his version better – I loved that, that was my teenage years – it'll just be an impression of him, so again, I thought if I take it higher I could put a more intense feel behind the words, a bit more bluesy. So I did it in C an octave above Ricky, which was fine until the middle when it became too Mickey Mouse so I said to Dave Gilmour, "Hey Dave, you do the melody and I'll go above you and do a harmony" very much like what John and I would have done, and that allowed me stay in that persona.

Did you try to make it authentic sonically, use vintage gear?

No, we decided to make it like a modern record. If your ears have become attuned to modern radio, an old rock song can sound a bit woolly and fluffy. We didn't put any old-fashioned echo on anything except 'Blue Jean Bop', Gene Vincent, that I had to do with echo because that was my memory. Again, I learnt something making this: These guys wrote for echo. (singing with tight staccato) "Be bop a lu-la she ma ba-by." That kicks the echo into a rhythm. When we had the two guitars in, it was too jangly and it didn't swing, so I was talking to Ian and singing it to him with the echo on, just me on bass and him on drums. Wait a minute, this is the way to do it, this sounds enough.

Tell me something about the three new songs.

I had one already called 'What It Is' that was sort of bluesy that I thought might be good to try. It was actually one I'd written for Linda so there was a sentimental attachment to that. I thought I'd throw it at them and try a version. Chris Thomas thought it was a good idea to try some new ones but thought it would be tricky to make them fit. While we were making the album, as we were playing 'Run Devil Run' back one of the guys said, "Who's record was this, man?" so that was a good sign, proof that it fitted.

What made you write that one?

I was in Atlanta recently with one of my kids and we went down to the funky area of town and found this shop that sold various kind of potions to stop evil, "Put this in your bath and it'll chase the devil out" seemed a bit voodoo to me, sprinkling powder for your floors...

Shake and vac the devil away...

Yeah! It actually said that on there, "Stop troublesome neighbours, evil relatives, get rid of bad people from your life, put some of this in your bath and then carry a piece of white cloth anointed in this oil and repeat the Lord's Prayer." All a bit superstitious, and one of these products was called Run Devil Run and I thought that was good rock'n'roll title. The album cover is the shop where I found the stuff.

You said you discussed this album with Linda. Why was she into the idea?

She was surprised when we met that I liked to sit at home and play loud guitar. I'd have the AC30 in the living room and crank it up with me Epiphone and just (makes rockin' noise) and she'd say "Oh, I love that. You should do that." She wanted me to play guitar solos like Neil Young does now, living the dream, doesn't give a shit and he's rocking. Linda knew I could do that and was always encouraging me to. And when she died I thought Right, can't put it off, gotta do it.

And the nice thing now is, people are expecting a certain kind of record from me after Linda's died, I've heard it from a few sources, "I wonder what he'll do now, it'll be very introspective, sad songs for Linda," and it's quite nice to go against the current. Though I've not done that on purpose, it's like when 'Give Ireland Back To The Irish' was banned and I happened to do 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' as the next record and people said, "Oh that's two fingers up to the people who banned that, they can't ban this one." and that wasn't true. I didn't do it for that reason but it was perceived like that.

Somebody said about Run Devil Run that it's as if Linda's on it – there are a couple of tracks that sound like she's there. I don't know what that's about.

It does sound like there's a female voice at some points.

There isn't.

On 'Run Devil Run's' chorus...

Yeah, that's what she would have done. She's found her way on. She's a clever girl. I got a post card from her 14 days after she died, from Arizona. Funny postcard, very cute. She was always thinking ahead. I got a birthday present last year from her in June and she died in April. She was that kind of girl, "I know, I'll get that made for his birthday." The kids gave it to me all rather (pulls apprehensive face) "I'm not sure you'll want this, but this is from mum." Do I want it? Not half.

People are going to read stuff into 'Try Not To Cry' aren't they?

Yeah, I hadn't realised that that was 'appropriate'. You don't always realise the meaning of things as you write them, you're just throwing stuff out and sometimes it's only when it lands that you're able to get objective. There are some little references in there inevitably. But I'm writing some other stuff currently and that probably is more to do with it, to do with her.

What were you searching for in the old songs as you went through the manila envelope?

Just heart, passion, something that actually made me go warm when I thought about it. 'She Said Yeah', I remember how I turned Mick Jagger on to that in the '60s. I'd always been meaning to do it and I never got around to it. I was up in the music room one day and Mick came round and I was playing some records to him and I remember Larry Williams' 'She Said Yeah' – and dancing around to it – and 'Aint Too Proud To Beg', The Tempations, he loved 'em. He actually [covered] both of them.

There was this one particular bar in Hamburg that had a jukebox and [The Beatles] used to go there and play pool with Derry and the Seniors, that was their hang-out. This jukebox had two great tunes on it, 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' by The Platters and 'Shake A Hand' by Little Richard and any time I was there I'd get a beer, play a bit of pool and listen to those two records. I could never find 'Shake A Hand' though, I never got the record. It's a gospel song, in America they know it by somebody else.

'Honey Hush' was a great memory for me. John and Stuart had an art student flat in Gambia Terrace, a big old-fashioned terrace with high-ceilinged rooms and the view out of the window was the Liverpool Cathedral. The first time George and I stayed out all night was there when I was about 15. And there was nothing there, we were used to beds and there was a mattress and John and Stuart were sleeping there and we were having to kip in chairs, undoing these Benzedrine inhalers because we'd read somewhere that if you undid them and chewed them they had an upper in them and we ended up talking all night. It was very frugal. It remembers better than it was, actually, no sleep, eyes burning, all that. But I remember in the morning John leaning out of this mattress, reaching over, yawning, you know, in his vest and underpants, and just putting this little Dansette on that was beside the bed and it was 'Honey Hush': "Come into this house, stop all of that yakety yak."

So it wasn't always the song or how good the singer was, it was how good my memory of it was, whether it was a really glowing hot ember of a memory.

Was it therapeutic for you to go back to this stuff?

Yeah, it was actually. Brilliant. I really felt great at the end of the week.

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