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   BILL HARRY. THE PAUL MCCARTNEY ENCYCLOPEDIA

La Luna

Paul travelled to the TVE TV Studios in Barcelona, Spain on Thursday 8 June 1989 to promote the Flowers In The Dirt album. He appeared on the La Luna programme. He mimed to 'My Brave Face', 'Distractions', 'We Got Married' and 'This One'. He was also inter viewed, during which he spoke some Spanish: 'Tres conejos en un arbul tocando et tambor; que si, gue no, que si lo be visto yo.' The rough translation is: 'Three rabbits in a tree playing the drum; why yes, why no, why yes, I have seen it.' He was to use this Spanish item in the Liverpool Oratorio. When the programme was aired, 'Distractions' had been edited out.

Laboriel Jr, Abe

An American session drummer who backed Paul on the Driving Rain album and tour. He is the son of the famous jazz bassist Abraham Laboriel.

Lady Madonna

Apart from writing the song, Paul also designed the press advertise ments to promote it.

The single was issued in Britain on Parlophone R5675 on 15 March 1968 and was the last Beatles single on that label. It was also the last American single to use the Capitol label.

The flipside was George Harrison's The Inner Light'.

While the number topped the charts in Britain it only reached No. 2 in Cashbox and Record World and No 4 in Billboard. There is a brass section of four saxophones, with jazzman Ronnie Scott leading Harry Klein, Bill Povey and Bill Jackson. The track was included on a number of compilations, including The Beatles 1967-1970, Hey Jude and The Beatles Box. A live version of the number is also included on Wings Over The World.

At the time of the original release, the Beatles mentioned that the arrangement of the number was based on an old song called 'Bad Penny Blues'.

Paul initially sat at a piano and attempted to write a bluesy boogie-woogie number and it reminded him of Fats Domino.

The song originally began as the Virgin Mary, and then became a working-class woman in Liverpool. Paul mentioned that he was brought up among Catholics and there were a lot of Catholics in Liverpool to whom the Virgin Mary was very important and he consid ered the number as a tribute to the ordinary working-class woman.

A live version of the number lasting 2 minutes and 31 seconds was recorded live at the concert in Atlanta, Georgia on 1 May 1993 and included on the Paul Is Live album.

Lady Madonna

The promotional film was premiered on BBC TV's All Systems Freeman.

Laine, Denny

A former member of the Moody Blues who joined Wings in 1971. Paul and Linda first hired drummer Denny Seiwell, who had performed on the Ram album. They then asked Denny Laine, who became the fourth member.

Born Brian Frederick Hines in Birmingham on 29 October 1944, he first met Paul when his band Denny &c the Diplomats were on the same bill as the Beatles at the Old Hill Plaza, Staffordshire on Friday 5 July 1963. Denny later found fame as a member of the Moody Blues and his vocal rendition of 'Go Now' with the band became a No. 1 hit in Britain. Denny had co-written the number with Bessie Banks.

After leaving the Moodies he tried a few projects, one of which was the Electric String Band, a group of classically trained violinists and cellists. Brian Epstein booked them to appear at the Saville Theatre, but they weren't a success.

In 1967 he wrote and recorded 'Say You Don't Mind', regarded as one of his best recordings, although it wasn't until Colin Blunstone had a hit with it in February 1972 that it was recognised as such. Later Denny joined bands such as Balls, and Ginger Baker's Airforce.

He then went to Spain and spent a year living in a shack and learning to play flamenco guitar.

When he returned to England he began putting together songs for a solo album, but was so broke he was sleeping on a mattress on the floor of his manager's office.

When Paul asked him to join Wings in August 1971, he'd already begun working on the solo album, but he dropped everything to go to

Scotland to rehearse with Wings and to begin recording the band's debut album Wild Life. Denny performed 'Go Now' on the Wings World Tour and it's to be found on the triple album Wings Over America.

Denny and Paul became close friends, Denny helping in the compo sition of 'Mull Of Kintyre'.

His solo album Ahh ... Laine didn't prove to be a big seller, but he continued with further solo ventures.

To celebrate the 1976 Buddy Holly Week Denny issued the Holly number 'It's So Easy' as a single. The following year saw the release of his complete album of Holly numbers Holly Days.

The tribute album by Paul and Denny was made at Paul's Rude Studios in Scotland. Denny sang lead vocals; Paul produced, played guitar and drums, and provided backing vocals with Linda. The album was issued in 1977. In Britain it was released on EMI 781 (LP) on Friday 6 May and in America on Capitol ST 11588 {LP) on Monday 19 May. The tracks were: 'Heartbeat', 'Moondreams', 'Rave On', 'I'm Gonna Love You Too', 'Fool's Paradise', 'Lonesome Tears', 'It's So Easy', 'Listen To Me', 'Look At Me', 'Take Your Time', 'I'm Looking For Someone to Love'.

With the American release, Capitol issued an interview with Denny:

Q: Whose idea was it to do an album of Buddy Holly songs?

DL: Originally, Linda's father, Lee Eastman, suggested it. It was my idea a long time ago to do something like that because I'd done one solo album just before I joined the band, and instead of this being just my second solo album, I wanted it to be a Buddy Holly album, or a folk album - something a bit different. But it's obvi ously not me leaving the group to do a solo album. You don't get that feeling about it. It was Lee's original idea, but as I say, it's always been in the back of my mind anyway. He just sparked it off.

Q: Why Holly?

DL: Because I like his stuff. We were playing it back in the good old days. It was the first stuff I listened to.

Q: How did you go about choosing the songs that you would do on the album?

DL: Well, the ones I liked, really. Also, the more obscure ones like 'Mood Dreams'. These are the songs that Paul had anyway, 'cause he's got Buddy Holly songs, a lot of them. So it was half to do with what they've got in the catalogue and half picking out the best ones.

Q: With great respect, do you not think some of the more cynical journalists would question your motives, knowing that Paul has the publishing of the Holly catalogue?

DL: I'm sure they will. I mean, I could say that I did a Buddy Holly album because we've got the copyright, but that's ridicu lous. I wouldn't do it if I didn't like his stuff. It's as simple as that, so they can say what they like.

Q: Do you consider this a solo Denny Laine album or a tribute to Buddy Holly by Denny Laine?

DL: It's a tribute to Buddy Holly really, because I got to know Norman Petty, who wrote most of the songs anyway. I got very friendly with the guy, you know. It was like I'd known him for years. He was one of those sort of guys. So that's what it turned out to be, a tribute. Originally, it was that I liked Buddy Holly songs. I wanted a package album, wanted to do a set album of a certain thing, not just all separate songs like it's away from the group. I knew if I did a solo album it would be, first of all, in holiday time, so I didn't fancy it. I'm busy enough, but I thought it would be a fun sort of thing if I did it at home. This is how this Holly thing was. It was just done in Scotland in a little shack, a place called Rude Studios.

Q: Why did you choose to do it in that form rather than going into a studio with the musicians?

DL: Because we were fed up with going into a studio. That's all we ever do. We always do it normally, twenty-four track. This is just a little four-track studio. Well, it wasn't a studio, it was a shack which we hired stuff for and gave it a name.

Q: And it was only yourself, Paul and Linda who were actually involved?

DL: Yes. Paul did the backing tracks, ninety per cent of them, and then I just did my ten per cent - little guitar bits and vocals, etc., with Linda on harmonies.

Q: Were you in Scotland at the time?

DL: Yes. It was a holiday idea to just do it rough and ready. It is probably the same environment that all groups start out with. As I said, we just had enough time to mess around in a regular studio anyway, but I didn't particularly want to do it that way, purely because of boredom, I suppose, or change.

Q: How long did it take?

DL: It took about three weeks, I suppose. It was certainly no longer. Paul laid down all the backing tracks before I went in to do the vocals. In the morning he would be working on the backing track and I would go over in the afternoon and help him finish them off and then do the vocals. Then we added more to the tracks in a bigger studio to make them a little more professional, stuff like strings, etc.

Q: What about that decision?

DL: We tried it on one track. It sounded good, so we did it with most of them.

Q: How is it working with McCartney as the producer?

DL: Well, I've worked with him for a long time. As a producer, he produces all the Wings stuff as well, so it was no problem.

Q: Do you think the album will cause a lot of criticism?

DL: Yes, because it's Buddy Holly, because of the hardcore fanatics. But they weren't there doing it. If you get fun out of it, that's it.

Q: When do you think you will start doing another solo album and what sort of project do you envisage?

DL: I envisage it to be probably a folk album or something in that vein. Something like the Buddy Holly things, rough and ready. It'll probably be the same kind of thing, but a different style of music. That's what I want to do, something different - different styles on each album that I put out. But I really don't have any plans.

Q: How did you come to join forces with McCartney originally?

DL: I knew him from the Beatles days. After the Moodies and String Band I was trying to make it again, but not really going out of my way as I was not getting the kind of results that I wanted. I started to make this Aah Laine album, but again it wasn't being believed. Let's put it this way, I am the sort of person that, if I'm not believed, I'll be stubborn to the point of being a maniac. It was just a mock-up to prove myself. Anyway, Paul just happened to call me up and it was the weekend that I had just finished some of the mixes from that album. So when he called me up I just said, 'Thank Christ for that. Now I have somebody to work with whom I don't have to explain everything to.' So that was the decider really ... just one of those things of fate. I think I've some idea of the way Paul feels about things. I know the kind of pressure he's under because I've been through a lot of the same stuff myself. The longer you go on, the tougher it is in a lot of ways. People expect more and more of you. For Paul, having been part of the best rock-'n'-roll band in history ... it must be very heavy. I admire him so much for the way he handles it and doesn't let it interfere with his music.

Q: It has been a remarkable relationship, to say the least.

DL: No problems. None whatsoever.

Unfortunately, Denny's relationship with Paul was soured by the fiasco of the cancelled Japanese tour and Paul's imprisonment in 1980.

Denny released a single called 'Japanese Tears' which pointed a crit ical finger at Paul. The flipside was a number he had recorded in 1978 with Steve Holly called 'Guess I'm Only Fooling'. The single was issued in 1980. The British release was on Scratch HS 401 and issued on Friday 2 May and the American on Arista AS 0511 was issued on Monday 5 May.

On Monday 27 April 1981, on the same day as Ringo and Barbara's wedding, Laine announced that he was leaving Wings, citing the absence of touring. The group were supposed to be appearing in concerts but due to the murder of John Lennon, Paul was reluctant to expose himself and Linda in public. Laine was already rehearsing with a new band and said, 'I wanted to go back on the road, but Paul is a studio person.'

Denny was to appear on George Harrison's tribute to John Lennon, 'All Those Years Ago' and also appeared with George on stage at Birmingham's NEC five years later for a 'Heartbeat' charity concert.

In 1982 Denny split up with his wife Jo Jo and moved to Spain for a time. In 1984 he wrote a series of articles for the Sun newspaper, ghosted by Dan Slater and called 'The Real Paul McCartney', which were highly critical of Paul.

On 30 October 1985 he released his first album since leaving Wings. 'Hometown Girls' was issued on President PTKS 1080, and among the musicians were two drummers - Zak Starkey, Ringo's son and Steve Holly, former member of Wings.

He was declared bankrupt at the London Bankruptcy Court on Tuesday 16 December 1986, with debts of £76,035. Since quitting Wings in 1981 he'd had no commercial success and had alienated fans with his series of articles knocking Paul and Linda in the Sun news paper.

Although co-author of 'Mull Of Kintyre', he had elected to receive £135,000 for his remaining rights in the song, but the money was swal lowed up in his divorce settlement and his company Denny Laine Ltd went into liquidation, leaving Denny penniless.

Denny continues to record, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with other artists.

Laine, Jo Jo

The ex-wife of Denny Laine. Jo Jo first met Denny in Cannes in 1972 when Wings were in the South of France. The couple lived together for a number of years and had two children - a son, Laine, born in Kintyre, then a daughter, Heidi Jo. The couple were married for a brief time but divorced in 1982.

As Denny's 'old lady', Jo Jo spent eight years travelling with him, often in the company of Paul and Linda, and she sold her memoirs to the Sunday People newspaper in a series published on 17 April and 1 May 1983. The series was illustrated with some raunchy shots of a bare-breasted Jo Jo, and carried headlines such as 'My Galaxy Of Pop Star Lovers' and 'Lust At First Sight'.

The main bulk of the series, however, concerned the private life of Paul and his family. Jo Jo seemed irked that Linda regarded her as a 'groupie' when she first began to go out with Denny - but she admits in the series that she slept around with a host of pop stars, including Rod Stewart, even during the time she was married to Denny. She complains of the Spartan conditions when they stayed at Paul's farm in Scotland, yet talks of the plush hotels and champagne life she had as the wife of a Wings member. She intimates that Paul was very mean with Denny,

yet talks of the mansion Denny bought in Laleham and how Denny's royalties on one album came to £50,000, and on another £100,000. She admits that Denny was treated like one of the family by the McCartneys, but continually refers to the fact that she personally didn't get on well with Linda.

Lane, Carla

A Liverpool-born comedy scriptwriter and animal welfare campaigner. She married in her teens and had two sons. In 1970 the first of her scripts, The Liver Birds was accepted for television and a successful series followed. Her other television series have included Solo, Mistress, Bread, Screaming and Luv.

Carla first met Linda at Chrissie Hynde's house. She became a close friend of Linda's because both were passionately concerned about animal welfare.

Carla asked Paul and Linda if they would appear in an episode of Bread. Paul told her, 'You write it, luv. I'll tell you then.' Carla then wrote a scene for Linda and one line for Paul. The episode was screened in October 1988.

In her autobiography Instead Of Diamonds, published in 1996, Carla wrote, 'As for Linda she, like me, carries the pain of knowing what happens in laboratories, in slaughterhouses, in dark corners where dehumanised people earn their living, sometimes their kicks, harming and terrifying creatures which ask no more than a little space on this planet.'

During the same year, in June, Carla was to say, 'Paul does so much to help animals that no one knows about. He buys land which he doesn't want or need just to stop hunting. He and Linda are the biggest "animal people" I know. They constantly rescue animals and if I can't take a particular animal for my sanctuary they will always take it. Linda is always being undermined, but she's the kindest, nicest, most humble woman I know.'

Her numbers 'Cow' and 'The White Coated Man' appear on Linda's Wild Prairie album.

Carla says, 'It was such a surprise to me that these songs were recorded in the first place. They both started off as poems that I'd written and sent to Linda. I was just passing on my thoughts to another animal lover.

'Out of the blue, I got a call from Linda asking if I'd like to pop over to Paul's recording studio for a chat. They sent a car for me, I arrived and discovered that she and Paul had turned my poems into these beau tiful songs.

'I didn't even realise what they had done at first. They began playing this song, I was thinking, "that's a lovely tune" and then I thought, "hang on, those are my words, my poetry, it's been transformed." The next thing I know, Paul's saying, "Come on, our kid, walk up to the mike, you're on, record your verse."'

Language Research Facility

Located in Atlanta, Georgia. Paul spent four hours there on 12 May 2002, performing a jam session for monkeys. Peter Gabriel, the former Genesis singer, had informed Paul about the facility, in which apes were being taught to understand English.

Paul sang 'Eleanor Rigby' and a new composition with the apes and said, 'The fact that they could recognise and understand eight hundred words was pretty astounding and we found ourselves actually commu nicating with them easily. We played some music. The male ape and I jammed a little and his sister joined in with us. He played keyboards and she played drums. It was wild.'

The jam session was filmed for inclusion in the Driving USA DVD set for November 2002 release.

Larry King Show, The

A CNN TV show in which Larry King interviews prominent guests. On Tuesday 12 June 2001, Paul appeared live on the show for one hour. Towards the end of the interview Heather Mills joined him to discuss their anti-landmine campaign.

Paul revealed that his thirty-year relationship with Linda continued to place a strain on Heather. He commented, T think she's handled it particularly well. It's obviously not easy when someone's loved someone for thirty years. I think it's different if it was a divorce because you can say, "Ah, the old bird, get rid of her. Come on honey."'

He also talked about death and said he didn't fear it, despite the fact that John Lennon was murdered, an attacker had stabbed George Harrison and Linda had died of cancer. T don't worry because the moment the man upstairs wants me, I'm his. I know that,' he said.

'At one point I'm going to die so I don't worry about it. Of course, I try and avoid it! I'm not deeply religious, but I have a spiritual feeling about these things. I know Linda is still around me, in another dimen sion, but I feel her.'

He also mentioned the poems in his book Blackbird Singing, which were about Linda. 'We loved each other. Quite simple. We'd both sown our wild oats before we got together and we were kind of fed up with playing the field.'

He then talked about his new love, Heather. 'I was at an awards cere mony and Heather was giving a speech, I thought, wow, she looks good. It was a looks thing.'

Paul mentioned that he'd recently been to see George Harrison who had been recovering from surgery for throat cancer. 'He's great. He's gorgeous,' he said.

On the subject of Yoko Ono he commented, 'Some people are destined not to become great buddies. It's not that I don't get along with her, it's just that we don't talk to each other.'

He confessed that he couldn't read or write music, that unless he and John were able to keep the tunes in their head, they were lost for good. 'When we started it was before anything like the tape cassettes. I had to remember it. I can't read or write music. Me and John used to say, if we forget it, then it can't be much good. How can we expect others to remember the music if we can't?'

Heather wouldn't be drawn into questions about her personal life and said, 'I'm here to talk about clearing landmines, not our personal lives.'

See also, King, Larry.

Last Resort with Jonathan Ross, The

Paul appeared live on the Channel 4 programme on Friday 27 November 1987 in a 15-minute spot. With Steve Nieve and the Playboys he performed 'Don't Get Around Much Anymore', 'I Saw Her Standing There' and 'Lawdy Miss Clawdy'.

Clips from this performance appeared on a Jonathan Ross compila tion programme 'Phew! Rock 'n' Roll' on Sunday 24 April 1988 and also on the German television programme 'Ohme Filter' on Wednesday 30 March and Thursday 31 March 1988.

Last Temptation Of Elvis, The

A charity compilation album on behalf of the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre, originally available only in Britain by mail order via the New Musical Express from Saturday 24 March 1990. This contained a track by Paul, 'It's Now Or Never', from among the eighteen 'oldies' he recorded in London on Monday 20 July and Tuesday 21 July 1987, with most of the other tracks later being issued on the Russian release Choba В СССР. The album was released in America in April of that year.

Late Late Breakfast Show, The

A BBC 1 television show, hosted by Noel Edmonds. Paul and Linda made their first live television appearance in ten years when they appeared on the programme on Saturday 29 October 1983.

Edmonds introduced the pair, asked them some questions and then aired the promotional film of 'Say Say Say'.

The decision to arrange for Paul and Linda to do the show was taken following a problem with an original Top Of The Pops plan to air the video.

The video featuring Paul and Michael Jackson was due to appear on Top Of The Pops the week it was No. 10 in the British charts. Paul felt that the video soundtrack was not quite right and decided to postpone the Top Of The Pops appearance until the following week while he adjusted the promotional video soundtrack. It was ready the following week, but the record had slipped to No. 13. As it was the policy of Top Of The Pops never to feature a record that was slipping down the charts, it couldn't be shown.

MPL and the BBC had discussions resulting in the arrangement for Paul and Linda to appear on The Late Late Breakfast Show, which would also screen the promotional film. It had dropped to No, 14 in the charts, but following the show it leapt to No. 3.

Later With Jools Holland

A late night television music show hosted by Jools Holland and broad cast on BBC 2. Paul recorded four numbers live for the show at the BBC Centre in Wood Lane, London on 2 November 1999 and it was broadcast on 6 November.

The numbers were 'Honey Hush', 'No Other Baby', 'Brown Eyed Handsome Man' and 'Party'.

Paul was backed by the band who'd supported him on Run Devil Run: Dave Gilmour and Mick Green on guitars, Pete Wingfield on keyboards, Ian Paice on drums and Chris Hall on accordion.

Lawley, Sue

A popular British television newscaster. She interviewed Paul for BBC's Nationwide TV programme (no longer broadcast) at Abbey Road Studios where he had been completing the recording of Tug Of War with George Martin, late in 1981. He mentioned that he was working with different musicians on the album rather than with Wings. Sue asked him if Wings had disbanded, but he said they hadn't, that he was keeping it loose and they could be reformed should the need arise. At that moment he wanted a change and the opportunity to work with other people. She mentioned that he hadn't brought out a record for some time and Paul said that he and George were taking their time and not working to a deadline. Asked if John's death had made him think again about his fame, Paul said he had thought about it, but concluded: 'There's nothing you can do.' Sue asked if the murder had altered his lifestyle, and he said he'd continue as he was.

Lazy Dynamite

The second number of a four-number 11-minute 15-second medley that closed the Red Rose Speedway album. It was 2 minutes and 48 seconds in length with Paul singing lead vocal and playing piano, bass and Mellotron. Denny Laine was on harmonica and Henry McCullough on electric guitar.

Leaf, A

A classical composition by Paul, which he premiered at the Royal College of Music on Thursday 23 March 1995. EMI's classical division released 'A Leaf as a CD single and cassette on April 24 1995. The CD was issued on EMI Classics CD LEAF 1 (7243 8 82176 2) and on cassette on TC LEAF 1 (7243 8 82176 4). Although it was credited to Paul, Anya Alexeyev played the piece. The single was divided into seven movements: i) Andante semplice; ii) Poco piu mosso; iii) Allegro ritmico; iv) Andante; v) Allegro (man non tanto); vi) Moderato; vii) Andante semplice.

League Against Cruel Sports, The

An organisation that Paul supports. In July 1991 Paul and Linda paid £100,000 for 80 acres of woodland in Exmoor after an appeal from the league. This parcel of land had been used by the Devon and Somerset Staghounds to hunt deer. Once Paul and Linda had bought the land they announced that stag hunting would no longer be allowed on the land.

As the League Against Cruel Sports owned 135 adjoining acres, they agreed to manage Paul and Linda's land by employing wardens to prevent the hunters using it.

Leave It

A single by Mike McGear from the McGear album sessions, with 'Sweet Baby' on the flipside, both sides of which were produced by Paul and feature instrumental work by Wings. Paul wrote 'Leave It' and he co-wrote 'Sweet Baby' with his brother. The single was issued in Britain on Warner Brothers К 16446 on Monday 2 September 1974 and reached No. 36 in the British charts. It was issued in America on Monday 28 October 1974 on Warner Brothers 8037.

Lee, Peggy

A celebrated jazz singer, born Norma Engstrom in Jamestown, North Dakota on 26 May 1920. She had a number of hits in the 1940s and 1950s such as 'Manana', 'Lover' and 'Fever'. Paul had always admired the blonde-haired singer and was inspired by her 1961 hit "Til There Was You', a song from the musical The Music Man, which he performed during early Beatles gigs.

When Paul and Linda were invited to join Peggy Lee for dinner, Paul took along a song he'd written for her as a present. He also produced her recording it in June 1974, recording an album, Let's Love, on which there were two versions of the title song. It was issued in America on 1 October 1974 on Atlantic SD 18108 and in Britain on 8 November 1964 on Warner Brothers K50064.

Peggy was to say, 'Paul and Linda McCartney are two people I sincerely like. I remember once when I was playing London I invited them up to the Dorchester for dinner when Paul said to me, "I'm bringing you a song." It was called "Let's Love", and I was very thrilled about it.

'Anyway, when I got back to the United States, he and Linda came over to help record it with me, which was lovely. Later in the studio he played on the song for me and even conducted it; that whole side was all his. Unfortunately, due to an unexpected merger between my label Atlantic, and Electra Asylum, the tune never quite made it out as a single, but one thing's for sure, that man has loads of class and we had a wonderful time working together.'

Peggy was wrong on that score because the single 'Let's Love' was issued in America on October 7 1974 on Atlantic 3215 and in Britain on October 25 1974 on Warner Brothers К 10527.

Paul also wrote the foreword to the liner notes of the Peggy Lee CD Rare Gems And Hidden Treasures, issued in 2001.

Lennon and McCartney Songbook, The

A BBC Light Programme special recorded at Paul's Cavendish Avenue house on Saturday 6 August 1966. Derek Chinnery produced it and Keith Fordyce was the interviewer.

Paul and John discussed fifteen recordings by artists who had covered their work on record, including Ella Fitzgerald, Peggy Lee, the Mamas And Papas and the Band of the Royal Irish Guards. The inter view was broadcast on 29 August, Bank Holiday Monday, between 4.30 and 5.30 p.m.

A condensed version of the programme was pressed onto disc and sent to various overseas radio stations, although it had been cut to only thirteen minutes.

Lennon, John

John Winston Lennon was born at Oxford Street Maternity Hospital, Liverpool, at 6.30 p.m. on Wednesday 9 October 1940. Contrary to what has appeared in numerous books, he was not born during an air raid. The raids had ceased by 23 September and didn't resume until 16 October.

At birth he weighed seven and a half pounds and had blonde hair. His 27-year-old mother Julia had been in labour for thirty hours. His father, Alfred (a.k.a. Freddie), was a merchant seaman, currently at sea.

It was Freddie who chose the name John and Julia who chose the middle name Winston.

While Freddie was away on one of his voyages, Julia gave birth to a baby daughter by a Welsh soldier, Taffy Williams. She refused Freddie's attempts at reconciliation and began to live with another man, John Albert Dykins, with whom she had two daughters. Freddie wanted to bring up John himself and pondered emigrating to New Zealand; but, when John was five years old and asked whether he wanted to be with his father or mother, he first chose his father, then changed his mind and opted for his mother - and when he went with his mother she placed him with her sister Mimi Smith for her to rear him and didn't see her son until a number of years later.

When Julia and her new family moved into Blomfield Road, which was not a great distance away from Menlove Avenue, where he lived with his Aunt Mimi, John began to visit her more frequently.

At the time John was a student at Quarry Bank School, where he'd formed a skiffle group called the Quarry Men. A friend, Ivan Vaughan, brought Paul along to see John and his group, which has become a historic moment in music history.

John recalled: 'I had a group, I was the singer, I was the leader. Meeting Paul meant making a decision about having him in the line-up. Was it good to make the group stronger, by bringing in someone better than the ones we had, or to let me be stronger? The decision was to let Paul in and make the group stronger.'

That was John's recollection of meeting Paul for the first time. The occasion was the village fete at St Peter's Church, Woolton, Liverpool on 6 July 1957.

In a message sent to the organisers of the fortieth anniversary of that meeting on 6 July 1997, Paul set out his own memories of that first meeting:

Ah yes, I remember it well.

I do actually. My memory of meeting John for the first time is very clear. My mate Ivan Vaughan took me along to Woolton here and there were the Quarry Men, playing on a little platform. I can still see John now - checked shirt, slightly curly hair, singing 'Come Go With Me' by the Del Vikings. He didn't know all the words, so he was putting in stuff about penitentiaries - and making a good job of it.

I remember thinking, 'He looks good -1 wouldn't mind being in a group with him.' A bit later we met up. I played him 'Twenty Flight Rock' and he seemed pretty impressed - maybe because I did know the words.

Then, as you all know, he asked me to join the group, and so we began our trip together. We wrote our first songs together, we grew up together and we lived our lives together.

And when we'd do it together, something special would happen. There'd be that little magic spark.

I still remember his beery old breath when I met him here that day. But I soon came to love that beery old breath. And I loved John. I always was and still am a great fan of John's. We had a lot of fun together and I still treasure those beautiful memories.

Paul was also to recall: 'I was impressed with the band and with John's performance. So backstage, later that day in the church hall, I wrote down the words of various songs for John and showed him how I played "Twenty Flight Rock". I sang a couple of other old things.'

He bumped into John's friend Pete Shotton and says: 'Pete saw me cycling one day and shouted that John wanted me to join the band. It was as simple as that. I met them at a Conservative club and I was in. I goofed a big solo, on "Guitar Boogie". I couldn't play at all that night and became awfully embarrassed. This was the reason I was shifted over from lead guitar to rhythm in the group.'

When John was reunited with his mother Julia, she became an influ ence on his music. He recalled: 'The first tune I ever learned to play was "That'll Be The Day". My mother taught it to me on the banjo, sitting there with endless patience until I managed to work out all the chords. I remember her slowing down the record so that I could scribble out the words.' Julia also bought John his first guitar.

She taught both John and Paul some numbers and Paul recalled: 'Oddly, one of them was "Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine" while another was definitely "Ramona". Much later, during the Beatle years, John and I attempted to write a few songs with a similar feel, with "Here, There And Everywhere" coming immedi ately to mind.'

Recalling the origins of the songwriting partnership, John said: 'When we started off, we were uncertain as to exactly where our writing would take us. Paul was a rocker with one eye on Broadway musicals, vaudeville, and shit like that. I, on the other hand, was inspired by Buddy Holly's songwriting and was determined to show I was as capable as any Yank. To me Buddy was the first to click as a singer-songwriter. His music really moved and his lyrics spoke to us kids in a way no one ever bothered before. It was youth speaking to youth. Which was exactly what people said about the Beatles years later.'

In 1980, John recalled: 'Paul and I made a deal when we were fifteen. There was never a legal deal between us, just a deal we made when we decided to write together that we put both our names on it, no matter what.'

Paul was to observe: 'Which didn't mean we wrote everything together. When I first began writing songs I started using a guitar. "I Lost My Little Girt" is a funny little song, a nice song, a corny little song based on three chords: G, G78, and C. Later on we had a piano and I used to bang around on that. I wrote "When I'm Sixty-Four" when I was about sixteen. I was vaguely thinking it might come in handy in a musical comedy or something. I didn't know what kind of career I was going to take.'

In 1960 the group underwent various name changes, settling on the Beatles in August of that year on the eve of their first trip to Hamburg. The group now comprised John, Paul, George, Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best. They changed their image, began to wear black leather clothes and developed a dynamic style, which made its impact in Liverpool when they returned in December 1960.

They began to build up a loyal following at the Cavern club and John saw his work in print for the first time when the Mersey Beat newspaper was launched on 6 July 1961.

Once Brian Epstein took over the group, he smartened up their image, making them dispense with the black leathers that John loved so much. He was to say: 'In the beginning it was a constant fight between Brian and Paul on one side and me and George on the other. Brian put us in neat suits and shirts and Paul was right behind him. I didn't dig that and I used to try and get George to rebel with me. I'd say to him, "Look, we don't need these fucking suits. Let's chuck them out of the window." My little rebellion was to have my tie loose, with the top button of my shirt undone, but Paul'd always come up and put it straight.'

Their recording manager, George Martin, was to comment on the rivalry between John and Paul. 'The truth is, deep down they were very, very similar indeed. Each had a soft underbelly, each was very much hurt by certain things. John had a very soft side to him. But, you see, each had a bitter turn of phrase and could be quite nasty to the other.

'It was like a tug of war. Imagine two people pulling on a rope, smiling at each other and pulling all the time with all their might. The tension between the two of them made for the bond.'

At another time, Martin commented on Paul: 'He's the sort of Rodgers and Hart of the two. He can turn out excellent potboilers. I don't think he's particularly proud of this. All the time he's trying to do better, especially trying to equal John's talent for words. Meeting John has made him try for deeper lyrics. But for meeting John, I doubt Paul could have written "Eleanor Rigby".

'Paul needs an audience, but John doesn't. John is very lazy, unlike Paul. Without Paul he would often give up. John writes for his own amusement. He would be content to play his tunes to Суп [Cynthia, his first wife]. Paul-likes a public' John appeared to be the dominant partner initially, speedily writing 'A Hard Day's Night' on a matchbox cover to beat Paul to the title song of their movie, commenting: 'There was a little competition between Paul and I as to who got the singles. If you notice, in the early days the majority of singles, in the movies and everything, were mine. And then only when I became self-conscious and inhibited did Paul start domi nating the group a little too much for my liking.'

Paul had the ability to write songs swiftly and said: 'I've developed a system of how to write "McCartney kind of stuff". I just sit down when I'm in the mood, grab a guitar and I get lucky. I'll hit some chord that interests me, and, in that, there is the opening chords. I've got a gift. If you said, "Do a tune now," I could go off; in five minutes I could guarantee I'd come back with a tune.'

John concurred: 'Paul has a special gift when it comes to making up tunes. I find myself using tunes which already exist and fitting my words to them. I realise I'm pinching an old American hit. With me, I have a theme which gets me started on the poetry side of the thing. Then I have to put a tune to it, but that's the part of the job I enjoy least.'

John married his pregnant art-school sweetheart Cynthia Powell on 28 August 1963, although the marriage was originally hushed up on the orders of Epstein. Cynthia gave birth to a baby boy, Julian, named after John's mother, on 8 April 1963. Their marriage came to an end after John had met Yoko Ono, a Japanese avant-garde artist, on 9 November 1966.

The affair was to change John as a creative artist. Influenced by Yoko, he became involved in a number of bizarre avant-garde films and was to document his romance in an almost obsessive fashion with a Beatles single called 'The Ballad of John and Yoko', the changing of his name to John Ono Lennon and albums such as Two Virgins and Life With The Lions. In his solo career, his singles appeared with Yoko Ono compositions and performances on the B-sides.

'The Ballad of John and Yoko' was recorded on Monday 14 April 1969 with only John and Paul participating, because Ringo was filming The Magic Christian and George was busy recording the Radha Krisha Temple. Paul played bass, drums and piano.

Two Virgins was an experimental album by John and Yoko, the sleeve of which featured the two of them in a full frontal nude pose. John and Yoko had to visit Sir Joseph Lockwood of EMI with the nude photos to ensure that he would allow their use and there wouldn't be any censorship problems. Although he personally didn't like the album or photographs, Paul accompanied the two of them to their meeting.

Sir Joseph thought that the fans would be outraged and the Beatles' reputation would be damaged, but Yoko told him: 'It's art.'

Lockwood said: 'Well, I should find some better bodies to put on the cover than your two. They're not very attractive. Paul McCartney would look better naked than you.'

Later, Sir Joseph was to say: 'Paul McCartney was not in favour of it, I'm sure. He just wanted to prevent me from blowing up with them, which I had no intention of doing.'

The break-up of the Beatles seemed imminent. The other members of the group, and George in particular, resented Yoko, who became omnipresent at their recordings and meetings. Paul was at odds with the other three regarding representation by Allen Klein. Ringo and George had both walked out on the group at one point and the rela tionship between John and Paul was becoming strained.

Paul would say: 'By the time we made Abbey Road, John and I were openly critical of each other's music. I felt he wasn't interested in performing anything he hadn't written himself.'

John was to say: 'We were never really close. We were working so hard and so long, that's all we were ever doing. I thought very highly of him, of course, but ours was the sort of relationship I imagine soldiers develop during wartime. The situation forces them together and they make the most of it.'

There now seemed to be a different sort of rivalry between John and Paul. Paul married Linda on 12 March 1969 and, as if in response to that, John and Yoko decided to get married a little over a month later.Their wedding took place in Gibraltar on 20 April 1969.

Paul, still adamant that he didn't want Klein to represent him, took his legal advice from Linda's father Lee Eastman, who was amazed to find that Dick James owned half of Northern Songs, and all four Beatles shared only what was left. He advised Paul to buy more shares in Northern Songs himself, saying: 'You should be reaping the rewards of your creativity, not anybody else.'

As a result, Paul began buying up shares in the company, but didn't inform John. He eventually owned 751,000 shares while John owned 644,000. Naturally, John was infuriated when he found out and felt that Paul had betrayed him.

Around the time of the break-up, when Paul released his solo album McCartney, John described it as 'rubbish'. The two then sniped at each other in some of their songs. In the Ram album they were 'Too Many People' and 'Dear Boy'. Paul said: 'OK, there was a little bit from my point of view, certain little lines, I'd be thinking: Well, this will get him. You do, you know, Christ, you can't avoid it. "Too Many People" - I wrote a little bit in that. He'd been doing a lot of preaching and it got up my nose a bit. It was a little dig at John and Yoko.'

Then John attacked Paul in song with 'How Do You Sleep?' on his Imagine album, saying that the only decent thing Paul had written was 'Yesterday'. A feud began in which Paul referred to John as 'a manoeu vring swine' and John called Paul 'Engelbert Humperdinck'.

Paul was upset by the feud. 'I hated it. You can imagine, I sat down and pored over every little paragraph, every little sentence. "Does he really think that of me?" Gradually I started to think: Great, that's not true. I'm not really like Engelbert: I don't just write ballads. And that kept me kind of hanging on, but, at the time, I tell you, it hurt me.'

To repair the damage, Paul wrote a song called 'Dear Friend' on his Wild Life album, commenting: 'It was written for John, to John. It was like a letter. With the business pressures of the Beatles breaking up it's like a marriage. One minute you're in love, the next minute you hate each other's guts. It's a pity, because it's very difficult to cut through all that. So you do what we all seemed to do, which was write it in songs. I wrote "Dear Friend" as a kind of peace gesture.'

In 1971 John wrote a six-page letter to Paul and Linda filled with swearwords and grammatical errors. John had been furious about comments made by Linda in a recent interview and in the letter, on Bag Productions notepaper, he wrote:

I hope you realize what shit you and the rest of my kind and unselfish friends laid on Yoko and me since we have been together. Linda, if you don't care what I say, shut up! Let Paul write or whatever.

I know the Beatles are 'quite nice people', I'm one of them. They're also just about as big bastards as anyone else, so get off your high horse.

The letter continued:

They ask me about Paul, and I answer I know some of it gets personal, but whether you believe it or not, I try to answer straight, and the bits they use are obviously the juicy bits. I don't resent your husband. I feel sorry for him.

Addressing Paul, John wrote:

Do you really think most of today's art came about because of the Beatles? I don't think you're that insane, Paul, do you believe that? When you stop believing it you might wake up. Didn't we always say we were part of the movement - not all of it?

Despite the rancour, he signed it, 'Love to you both, from us two'.

The letter was sold for £61,000 at a Los Angeles auction house on Saturday 3 December 1994.

Discussing their relationship with Tom Snyder on the American NBC-TV show Tomorrow on 28 April 1975, John said: 'We're very good friends and we'd known each other since we were fifteen, you know, and we'd gotten over all the actual fighting, you know, the real nitty-gritty dirty stuff, which had nothing to do with how popular we were. The same popularity, meaning Paul was always more popular than the rest of us, was going down in the dance halls in Liverpool, so it didn't come as any big surprise, you know. I mean, the kids saw him, the girls would go, "Ooh! Ooh!" right away, so we knew where the score was there, but it was the music that was interesting. It was impor tant. As long as we were going forward and going somewhere, it didn't matter.'

During an interview with David Frost in 1998 Paul discussed John and his reputation for having an abrasive manner. 'In public, his front would come down. I never needed it, because my family in Liverpool were quite comfortable, so I was always comfortable around people. But John always had to fight.

'He had this acerbic wit, so they call it, as a defence mechanism. When we were in private, he had no need of that. I could just as often be the baddie in a situation, and he could be a real soft sweetie, you know. He took everyone by surprise there.'

He also commented: 'It's not that John's home life wasn't happy: it was, in the circumstances - not living with his dad, then his uncle dying, then his mum being run over when she'd come to visit him and his auntie, who was a lovely lady called Mimi. They were more middle-class than any of us other Beatles had ever met. We thought of John as quite posh. Later, the image was, Oh, the Working-Class Hero! Power to The People - which he was, and which he believed. But his upbringing was quite posh compared to us. We'd live in council houses, and they owned their own house. How posh can you get?

'Aunt Mimi used to take the mickey out of me. She'd say, "Your little friend's here, John," and I'd say, "Thank you" - that was me. But she didn't like George at all - she thought John was scraping the bottom of the barrel there, for some reason!'

Paul had attempted to see John after John and Yoko had moved permanently to New York and received a rebuff when he turned up at the Dakota apartment block, where John and Yoko lived, and was told, 'We're not in Liverpool any more. Do you mind calling before you come round next time?'

Paul persevered and was to recall: 'I happened to be on my way to the Caribbean, so passing through New York I rang John up. But there was so much suspicion even though I came bearing the olive branch. I said: "Hey, I'd like to see you." He said: "What for? What do you really want?" It was very difficult. Finally he had a great line for me: he said: "You're all pizza and fairy tales." He'd become sort of Americanised by then so the best insult I could think of was to say: "Oh, fuck off, Kojak!" and slam the phone down. That was about the strength of our relationship back then, very, very bitter, and we didn't get over that for a long, long time.

'At the very end we suddenly realised that all we had to do was not mention Apple if we phoned one another. We could talk about the kids, talk about his cats, talk about writing songs. The one paramount thing was not to mention Apple. I remember he once said to me: "Do they play me against you like they play you against me?" Because there were always people in the background pitting us against each other. And I said: "Yeah they do. They sure do." '

Bridges were made and John was to say: 'He visits me every time he's in New York like all the other rock 'n' roll creeps. He comes over and we just sit around and get mildly drunk and reminisce.'

Paul and Linda dropped round to visit John and Yoko at their Dakota apartments on Saturday 24 April 1976. They all watched Saturday Night Live on TV together, during which the producer, Lome Michaels, made a tongue-in-cheek offer for the Beatles to turn up and appear at the programme performing three numbers. Paul and John felt tempted to take a cab to the studio and surprise everyone, including the 22 million viewers of the show, but then decided they were too tired, missing out on what could have been a historic piece of television. The following day Paul decided to visit John again, but was surprised to receive a rejection.

John recalled the incident in his Playboy interview: 'That was a period when Paul just kept turning up at our door with a guitar. I would let him in, but finally I said to him, "Please call before you come over. It's not 1956, and turning up at the door isn't the same any more. You know, just give me a ring." That upset him, but I didn't mean it badly. I just meant that I was taking care of a baby all day, and some guy turns up at the door with a guitar.'

John and Paul were never to meet each other again. Yet it was also reported that on that last meeting John patted Paul on the shoulder and said, 'Think about me every now and then, old friend.'

Paul recalled his last telephone conversation with John. 'He was padding around his apartment, feeding the cats. That was very John. He was a great cat lover, like my son. I'm not. I'm a dog person.'

Admitting that John and he had a stormy relationship, Paul said: 'I'd go through it all again and have him slagging me off again just because he was so great; those are all the down moments. There was much more pleasure than has really come out. I had a wonderful time, with one of the world's most talented people.'

The 1970s hadn't been a very productive decade for John and he spent five years being a house-husband for his son Sean, almost as if in atonement for the fact that he'd deserted and ignored his elder son, Julian.

He then began to have the confidence to return to music and recorded the album Double Fantasy, although, even here, Yoko insisted on having a number of her tracks on John's album.

Tragically, John was shot to death outside the Dakota building on 8 December 1980.

In Liverpool it was 9 December at the time of John's murder. Paul was quoted as saying: 'It's a drag', which drew criticism. He was to explain: 'When John was killed somebody stuck a microphone at me and said: "What do you think about it?" I said, "It's a dra-a-ag" and meant it with every inch of melancholy I could muster. When you put that in print it says, "McCartney in London today when asked for a comment on his dead friend said, 'It's a drag.' " It seemed a very flip pant comment to make.'

He was also to recall: T talked to Yoko the day after he was killed and the first thing she said was, "John was really fond of you." The last telephone conversation I had with him we were still the best of mates. He was always a very warm guy, John. His bluff was all on the surface. He used to take his glasses down, those granny glasses, and say, "It's only me." They were like a wall, you know? A shield. Those are the moments I treasure.'

In 1983 Paul said: T would not have been as typically human and standoffish as I was if I knew John was going to die. I would have made more of an effort to try and get behind his "mask" and have a better relationship with him.'

Paul discussed John in a series of articles in the Daily Star tabloid newspaper in June 1992. He mentioned that John 'wanted me to bore a hole in my head; he had been reading about trepanning, boring holes in the skull, which is supposed to relieve stress.' He also revealed that 'he once wanted to jump off a cliff - and suggested that I should try it as well.'

When Paul emerged publicly as a painter in 2000 he mentioned that John was often the subject of his work, commenting: 'John is a central figure in my life. I will always be grateful for having so much intimate time with him. The more distant his stuff becomes, the greater it seems. I used to do caricatures of John. He was the only person I knew with an aquiline nose. When I painted him recently, I found myself saying: "How did his lips go? I can't remember." Then I would think: "Of course you know, you wrote all those songs facing each other." '

On the anniversary of John's death in 2001 Paul was in Abbey Road Studios recording. He says he was there 'because it's what we always enjoyed best together. It is shocking to think that John was killed twenty years ago. If he were alive, I'd be chuffed to let him know that his album has gone to No. 1 in twenty-eight countries. I know he'd be tickled by that. I'll be thinking of all the great times that we had together, and I'll be remembering him with all the love in my heart.'

In the 100th edition of Mojo magazine in 2002 Paul nominated John as his ultimate hero. He said: 'I've got a few heroes, but if I really have to plump for one, well how's about John?'

Lester, Dick

Film director Richard Lester was born in Jenkinstown, Philadelphia in 1932. He moved to Britain in 1955 and was to direct the two Beatles feature films A Hard Day's Night and Help!

The idea of filming Paul's 1990/91 World Tour was Lester's. He said he wanted to climax his 25-year relationship with Paul by. filming his return to the road.

Lester became involved in the tour from the very beginning and made the 11-minute film that began each concert. It was shown on a giant split screen behind the stage and included documentary archive and McCartney home footage of Paul's career from the 1960s until the present day. Intercut with the footage of Paul with the Beatles and Paul and Linda with Wings, Lester included images of significant world events of the previous thirty years.

Lester also developed the theme of balancing Paul's music against images of his times for the film.

He was to say, 'What I most wanted to put on film was the genuine connection between Paul McCartney and his audience, who obviously had such a highly emotional response to him.

'There was such a wonderful sense of exuberance, such good spirit between each member of the band, and between the band and the audi ence that my primary aim became to convey that.

'I used to say that this had to be a kind of love affair, a love story.

'Paul's audience brings a lot of romantic and nostalgic baggage with it and with the use of 25 years of music, including classic Beatles songs, and the extraordinary newsreel footage that we were able to obtain, we tried to recreate that feeling of romantic nostalgia that hopefully makes the film work well on an emotional, as well as a musical, level.'

On its release, the film was called Get Back.

Let 'Em In

The first track on the album Wings At The Speed Of Sound, 5 minutes and 10 seconds in length. It was also issued as a single in Britain on Parlophone R6015 on Friday 23 July 1976, where it reached the No. 2 position. The flipside was 'Beware My Love'.

It was also included on the Wings Greatest compilation. In America the single was issued on Capitol 4292 on Monday 28 June and reached the No. 3 position. It was performed on the 1975/76 Wings tour and a live version can be heard on Wings Over America. Joe English had given the doorbell heard at the beginning of the song to Paul and Linda as a present.

Paul had immortalised his own Aunty Jin in the song by mentioning her in the lyrics, in addition to his 'brother Michael', 'Phil and Don' of the Everly Brothers, 'brother John' Lennon and 'Uncle Ernie', a char acter Ringo Starr played in Tommy, the Who rock opera. Paul had originally composed the number with Ringo in mind.

The single was also issued in Germany on Capitol 1C006-98062, in France on Parlophone 3C006-98062 and in Japan on EMI EPR-20070.

Let It All Fall Down

A single by James Taylor, issued in America on Monday 22 July 1974 on Warner Brothers 8015. Paul provided backing vocal on the track.

Let It Be (album)

The Beatles' final album issued in Britain on PXI on 8 May 1970 as part of a special boxed set which included the book The Beatles Get Back. The album sans the book was then released on PCS 7096 on 6 November 1970. It was released in America on AR 34001 on 18 May 1970.

The album had the highest advance orders of any album up to that time - 3,700,000.

Originally, the album title was to be Get Back, a reference to the Beatles returning to their roots and producing an album with basic sounds. Initially, a release date of August 1969 had been planned, but there were numerous hours of tapes to edit and the Beatles seemed to lose heart in the project, although they did commission engineer Glyn Jones to edit a 44-minute master tape. Then, Allen Klein intervened and brought Phil Spector on board. This pleased John, George and Ringo but dismayed Paul.

The album tracks were - Side One: 'Two Of Us', 'Across The Universe', 'I, Me, Mine', 'Dig It', 'Let It Be' and 'Maggie May'; and, Side Two: 'I've Got A Feeling', 'One After 909', 'The Long And Winding Road', 'For You Blue' and 'Get Back'.

Let It Be (song)

A song that Paul dedicated to his late mother, actually mentioning her by name in the lyric, and on which he took lead vocals. It was released as a single in Britain on Apple R5833 on 6 March 1970 and went to No. 1, and in America on Apple 2764 on 11 March 1970, also reaching No. 1. The version on the eponymous album (released in May 1970), mixed by Phil Spector, was a contributing factor in the group's eventual split.

A version of this number lasting 3 minutes and 54 seconds was included on the Tripping The Live Fantastic album. It was recorded live at the Joe Robbie Stadium, Miami, Florida on 14 April 1990 during the 1989/90 World Tour.

Let Me Roll It

A Wings number, 4 minutes and 47 seconds in length, which was included on the album Band On The Run, issued in December 1973.

Paul was to comment, 'I wrote that up in Scotland one day. It was a nice day. I was just sitting outside, plonking my guitar and I got this idea for a song. We took it off to Lagos and put down a backing track with Linda playing organ, me playing drums and Denny playing guitar. Then we overdubbed the big guitars you can hear right the way through it, going through a PA amp, not a guitar amp, but a vocal amp, which was a big powerful amp.'

In an interview with Timothy White for the 17 March 2001 issue of Billboard magazine, Paul commented that the number 'was a riff, orig inally, a great riff to play, and whenever we played it live, it goes down great. We'd play it on two guitars, and people saw it later as a kind of John pastiche, as Lennon-ish, Lennon-esque. Which I don't mind. That could have been a Beatles song. Me and John would have sung that good.'

A live version of the number, lasting 4 minutes and 12 seconds, which was recorded in Boulder Colorado on 6 May 1993, appears on Paul Is Live and it was covered as a B-side by Grapes Of Wrath.

Letter To Paul

A novelty disc by Arlen Sanders issued in America on Faro 616 in 1964 with 'Hopped Up Mustang' on the flip.

Letting Go

A Wings single that was issued in Britain on Capitol R6008 on Friday 5 September 1975 where it reached No. 41 in the charts. It was issued in America on Capitol 4145 on Monday 29 September 1975 where it reached No. 39 in the charts.

'You Gave Me The Answer' was on the flipside. The single was also issued in Germany on Capitol 1C600-96940 and in France on Capitol 2C006-96940.

Life

A major American news magazine that, in June 1967, featured an interview with Paul that caused a controversy on both sides of the Atlantic. They asked him whether he used the hallucinogenic drug LSD and he admitted he'd taken it. The story was splashed across the national press in Britain and Paul had to make an appearance on a TV news programme in Britain to explain what he'd meant.

Life And Times Of Little Richard, The

Little Richard's biography, penned by Charles White and published by Harmony Books in America in October 1984.

Paul was asked to write the foreword in which he said, 'I have these fantastic memories from a very early age, singing "Tutti Frutti" at school - it was a big rave at the time. The first song I ever sang in public was "Long Tall Sally" in a Butlin's holiday camp talent competition. When the Beatles were first starting, we performed with Richard in Liverpool and Hamburg and we became close friends. Richard is one of the greatest kings of rock 'n' roll. He's a great guy and he's my friend today.'

Light Comes From Within, The

One of Linda's last recordings, which was included on her posthumous Wide Prairie album. 'The Light Comes From Within' was the second single to be released from the album, but when it was issued in January 1999, radio and television stations were reluctant to feature it because it contained some swear words. Paul considered that the record was 'universally banned' and took out advertisements in national newspa pers complaining about the ban.

Paul wrote: 'PARENTS! We need your guidance. In what age are we living? Is this the nineties or the twenties? Should you decide that your children must not hear this record, we would be grateful for your wisdom and good sense and will put our fingers in our ears whenever we hear it played.

'If, on the other hand, you feel that no harm will come to your chil dren by being exposed to this song, give the guidance so sorely needed and tell them it's OK to do so.'

Radio One disc jockey Chris Moyles commented, 'I feel sorry for Paul, and I was upset when Linda died, but these are stupid lyrics and we can't play it for that reason alone.'

Like Dreamers Do

A song Paul originally wrote in 1960. It became part of the Beatles repertoire and they continued to perform it until 1962. It was one of the few original numbers from their repertoire that they performed during the recording for their Decca audition on 1 January 1962.

In 1964 the Applejacks, a group from Solihull, Birmingham, recorded it. The single was issued on Decca F11916 on 5 June and reached No. 20 in the British charts. Interestingly enough, Decca A&R man Mike Smith recorded their audition session in which the number was included - and he was also the person who recorded the Applejacks version of the number.

Limehouse Studios

Studios situated at 128 Wembley Park Drive in Wembley, London which were formerly used by Redifusion Television for the recording of TV shows such as Ready, Steady Go! Paul had appeared there with the Beatles and returned to the studios for the first time in twenty years on Thursday 13 December 1990 to perform at a five-hour session before a live audience of members of Wings Fun Club for a series of overseas TV shows, which were later screened in Italy, Denmark, Spain and Japan. Paul and his band performed three numbers, 'Let It Be', 'The Long And Winding Road' and 'All My Trials'.

Blair Cunningham had replaced Chris Whitten in the drum seat.

When the Dutch show Countdown was broadcast in Holland on NED 2 TV on Tuesday 18 December it also included an interview with Paul by Jerone Van Inkel and a promotional video of the number 'Once Upon A Long Ago'. RAI UNO in Italy also screened the recording on the programme Fantastico on Saturday 22 December, and it was shown by TVE in Spain on Wednesday 26 December and in Denmark on the same day. It was also broadcast on the Japanese programme Beat UK on Sunday 20 January 1991.

Paul returned to Limehouse Studios on Friday 25 January 1991 to once again record before an invited audience. This time it was for the MTV series Unplugged.

Linda

A four-hour CBS Television mini-series starring Elizabeth Mitchell as Linda and Gary Bakewell as Paul. Mitchell had previously starred in the television soap Loving and the TV movie Gia, while Bakewell featured as Paul in the film Backbeat in 1993. The other main charac ters included George Segal as Lee Eastman, Tim Piper as John Lennon, Chris Cound as George Harrison and Michael McMurty as Ringo Starr. Armand Mastroianni directed the biography.

The TV movie began filming in Vancouver, Canada early in 2000 and moved on to Britain. It was based on the biography, Linda by Danny Fields. Paul was not consulted about the film and a spokesman said, 'Sir Paul can't comment as he has not seen it nor been asked for any input.'

The series made its debut in America on 21 May 2000.

Linda (song)

Linda's father Lee Eastman represented a number of show business clients, including songwriter Jack Lawrence. In lieu of a bill, Eastman asked Lawrence if he would write a song dedicated to his daughter Linda, who was then six years old. Together with Ann Rochell, Lawrence penned 'Linda'. The number was included in the Robert Mitchum movie The Story of Gl Joe in 1945 and was recorded by former member of the Benny Goodman Band, Buddy Clark. Perry Como and Charlie Spivak and his Orchestra also recorded versions and it was a hit for Jan and Dean in 1963. The record was covered in Britain by a number of artists, including Jimmy Young, later to become a prominent disc jockey, and Dick James, later to become the Beatles' music publisher.

Paul recorded the song for Linda's 44th birthday in September 1986. He composed and recorded two versions of 'Linda', which he then had pressed as a double-sided single. There was a Latin-style arrangement on one version and a Big Band version, with fifteen session musicians, on the other. Paul had one copy pressed for Linda and it was a record he declared he wasn't going to issue commercially.

The number was played at Linda's memorial service on 8 June 1998.

Linda McCartney Centre, The

A section of the Royal Liverpool Hospital dedicated to cancer research, established after the death of Linda, which raised £4 million in dona tions. Among the donors was photographer Jorie Gracen, who donated more than 20 of her photographs of Paul and Linda to the hospital.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's wife Cherie Blair QC officially opened the centre on Friday 24 November 2000. Roger James of the Royal Liverpool University Hospital read out a letter from Paul, who couldn't attend, but wrote, 'Fellow Scouser Cherie will do a good job.'

Linda McCartney: Behind The Lens

A one-hour BBC television documentary screened in 1992 covering Linda's career as a photographer. It included interviews with her and Paul, plus friends and associates, and showed a selection of her rock photos of the Beatles, Doors, Stones, Hendrix, Who, Joplin and others.

Lindiana

A number recorded on Saturday 1 December 1984, a day when Paul also recorded 'We Got Married'. 'Lindiana' was originally considered as the flipside of 'Figure Of Eight', but remained unreleased although, like many of Paul's unreleased numbers, it can be found on various bootleg albums.

Listen To What The Man Said (single)

A Wings single recorded in New Orleans in 1975. It was issued in Britain on Capitol R6006 on Friday 16 May 1975, with 'Love In Song' on the flipside, and reached No. 6 in the charts. It was also the first record to include the MPL logo on the label.

The number was included on Venus And Mars.

The same single was issued in the States on Capitol 4091 on Friday 23 May 1975, where it reached No. 1. A live version appears on Wings Over The World.

The single was also issued in Germany on 1C006-96638 and in France on Capitol 2C06-96638.

Listen To What The Man Said (tribute album)

This was a tribute album issued on 9 October 2001 by Oglio Records in America. This was one of two Paul McCartney tribute albums issued by the company in a project to raise funds for the Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, the other album being Coming Up, issued on 23 October 2001.

The full title of the album was Listen To What The Man Said: Popular Artists Pay Tribute To The Music Of Paul McCartney. The track listing was: 'Band On The Run', Owsley; 'My Brave Face', SR-71; 'Junk', Barenaked Ladies, Steven Page, Kevin Hearn, Stephen Duffy; 'Jet', Semisonic; 'No More Lonely Nights', the Merrymakers; 'Let Me Roll It', Robyn Hitchcock; 'Too Many People', Finn Brothers; 'Dear Friend', The Minus 5; 'Every Night', Matthew Sweet; 'Waterfalls', Sloan; 'Man We Was Lonely', World Party; 'Coming Up', The John Faye Power Trip; 'Maybe I'm Amazed', Virgos; 'Love In Song', Judybats; 'Warm And Beautiful', Linus of Hollywood; 'Ram On', They Might Be Giants.

The Finn Brothers, who recorded 'Too Many People', were Neil and Tim Finn of the band Crowded House. Tim was to comment, 'I fell in love with the Beatles and let them change my world. Falling in love tends to do that, and Paul and Linda's love story was one for our times.'

John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants, who recorded 'Ram On', was to say, 'It is daunting to try and reinterpret any McCartney song. I was always a huge fan of the first couple of McCartney solo albums because, like the Stevie Wonder albums of the same era, they were great examples of the intensity of home-made recordings. You can hear a lot of the experimentation and discovery right in the tracks, and that makes the recordings a kind of event in themselves.'

Listen To What The Man Says (radio)

A two-hour programme broadcast on Radio One from 10 a.m. on Sunday 22 December 1985. Liverpool disc jockey Janice Long inter viewed Paul and excerpts from a number of his records were also played.

Little Bare, A

This is the title Bill Harry gave to a Mersey Beat item published in September 1962. This was another excerpt from a letter that Paul had written to him. It recounted the time the Beatles backed a stripper in a club run by Lord Woodbine.

Paul wrote this epistle while the period was still fresh in his memory and referred to the striptease artist as Janice.

Paul's letter read:

John, George, Stu and I used to play at a Strip Club in Upper Parliament Street, backing Janice the Stripper. At the time we wore little lilac jackets ... or purple jackets, or something. Well, we played behind Janice and naturally we looked at her ... the audi ence looked at her, everybody looked at her, just sort of normal. At the end of the act she would turn round and ... well, we were all young lads, we'd never seen anything like it before, and we all blushed ... four blushing red-faced lads.

Janice brought sheets of music for us to play all her arrange ments. She gave us a bit of Beethoven and the Spanish Fire Dance. So in the end we said, 'we can't read music, sorry, but instead of the Spanish Fire Dance we can play the Harry Lime Cha-Cha, which we've arranged ourselves, and instead of Beethoven you can have "Moonglow" or "September Song" - take your pick ... and instead of the "Sabre Dance" we'll give you "Ramrod".' So that's what she got. She seemed quite satisfied anyway ....

The Strip Club wasn't an important chapter in our lives, but it was an interesting one.

Little Eddie

The title of an unfinished song that Paul wrote. The title was the name of one of his dogs and is also known as 'There You Go Eddie'. It has appeared on bootleg albums.

Little Lamb Dragonfly

A track from the 1973 album Red Rose Speedway. The song was orig inally inspired by the death of one of Paul's sheep on the farm. This was actually recorded during the Ram sessions and features Hugh McCracken on guitar. Paul had also considered the number as a track for his planned Rupert album. Denny Seiwell is said to have aided Paul in composing the number, but went uncredited.

Little Pieces From Big Stars

An exhibition that opened at the Flowers East gallery in Hackney, London on 27 September 1994. Fifty celebrities donated items which were to be auctioned off in aid of the War Child charity which aimed to raise money for an arts and music therapy centre in Sarajevo. Paul's contribution was a piece of wood sculpture entitled Wood One while Linda donated one of her photographs. Other stars contributing items included Kate Bush, David Bowie, and U2's the Edge.

When the auction was held at the Royal College of Art on Tuesday 4 October, Paul's sculpture raised £12,500, the highest amount in the auction.

Little Willow

A track on the Flaming Pie album which Paul had written as a tribute to Ringo's late ex-wife Maureen. He said, 'I wanted to somehow convey how much I thought of her. For her and her kids.'

He contributed the track to Diana - A Tribute, a double-album in honour of Princess Diana, which was issued on 1 December 1997 by V2 records. Other artists who also contributed tracks included Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, U2, George Michael and Queen.

'Little Willow' was penned by Paul and is 2 minutes and 58 seconds in length. Engineers were Geoff Emerick and Jan Jacobs, assisted by Keith Smith. Recording began on 21 November 1995 and Paul was on lead vocal, backing vocals and played bass guitar, acoustic guitar, Spanish guitar, electric guitar, piano, harpsichord, harmonium and provided Mellotron percussion effects. Jeff Lynne provided backing vocal and electric spinet harpsichord.

Recalling that the song was a message to Maureen's children after her death, Paul commented, 'The morning I heard the news I couldn't think of anything else, so I wrote this to convey how much I thought of her. It's certainly heartfelt and I hope it'll help the kids. Instead of writing a letter I wrote a song.'

The promotional video was shot at Lydd Primary School with sixty children appearing it in. The school was presented with £1000 to buy musical instruments.

Little Woman Love

Linda and Paul co-wrote this song. It was issued as the flipside of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'. Wings performed the number on their British tours in 1973 and 1975 where it was included in a medley with 'C Moon'.

The number had been recorded in New York during the Ram sessions and was included on the Wild Life album. A stand-up bass sound was provided by Milt 'The Judge' Hinton.

Live Aid Concert, The

One of the most spectacular concerts in the history of popular music, which took place simultaneously on Saturday 13 July 1985 at Wembley Stadium, London and John F Kennedy Stadium, Philadelphia, the two venues linked by satellite.

There was a live audience of 90,000 at the Wembley event.

It was organised by Bob Geldof to raise money for the Ethiopian famine appeal. The concerts were televised throughout the world to over one billion people and raised almost fifty million pounds to help the starving people of Ethiopia.

Paul's name was not included in the first bill presented to the press, but Geldof talked him into appearing, arguing that if Paul were to make an appearance he would be able to arrange for the concert to be beamed to more countries than had originally been planned.

Paul was the closing act at the Wembley concert and took to the stage shortly after ten o'clock in the evening. He sang 'Let It Be', but unfortunately, the sound system was acting up and the vocals of the first half of the song couldn't be heard properly, severely reducing its impact. By the time the mikes were in order, various stars and the entire audience had joined in the big singalong with Paul. This was followed by the rendition of the Band Aid hit 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' in which most of the stars appeared on stage and Paul and Pete Townshend hoisted Geldof onto their shoulders in an emotional finale.

Live And Let Die (song)

A song that Paul wrote for the James Bond movie of the same name, the first to star Roger Moore. This was the eighth Bond movie and, traditionally, it was generally a female vocalist who had sung the theme song over the credits.

Paul had originally been asked to pen the theme for the 1971 Bond film Diamonds Are Forever, starring Sean Connery, but it didn't work out.

Paul said he would only compose the number if his version, recorded with Wings, was used in the film.

George Martin played Paul's finished version of the number for producer Harry Saltzmann. Saltzmann thought that the record was a demo and suggested that Thelma Houston should record the number. Martin assured him that the number was a finished production by an ex-Beatle. It was agreed to use Paul's version, although a version by singer Brenda Arnau was introduced at the end of the film.

Paul called on George Martin to help score and produce the song with the George Martin Orchestra supplementing the Wings track. The film producers then asked Martin to compose a score for the entire film.

'Live And Let Die' was included on the movie soundtrack album, issued in Britain on United Artists UAS 28457 on 6 July 1973 and in America on United Artists LA 100-G on 2 July 1973. The American album rose to No. 17 in the charts, but the British album didn't chart at all.

A few days before the soundtrack release, the Wings single had been issued on Apple R5987 on Friday 1 July, reaching No. 9 in the British charts. In America it had been released on Monday 18 June on Apple 1863 and reached No. 2.

The number was nominated for an Oscar and George Martin was awarded a Grammy for his arrangement.

'I Lie Around' was on the flipside. The number had been written by Paul but sung by Denny Laine.

Paul was to comment, 'I liked doing the Bond music. I'm rather like Bach, really. I mean, he was asked to write especially for a medium. His was the church, mine is the cinema. Very little difference when you come to think about it.'

The single was also issued in Germany on EMI Electrola/Apple 1C600-05365.

A version of this number lasting 3 minutes and 12 seconds was included on the Tripping The Live Fantastic album. It was recorded live at the Scandinavium, Gothenburg, Sweden on 28 September 1989 during the 1989/90 World Tour.

Another live version, lasting 3 minutes and 51 seconds, recorded in Boulder, Colorado on 26 May 1993, was included on the Paul Is Live album.

Live At The Cavern

A DVD released by Aviva International on IX0384MBXD in June 2001. The release came with a four-page booklet and 14 scenes: 1. Opening Party/'Honey Hush'. 2. 'Blue Jean Bop'. 3. 'Brown Eyed Handsome Man'. 4. 'Fabulous'. 5. 'What It Is.' 6. 'Lonesome Town'. 7. 'Twenty Flight Rock'. 8. 'No Other Baby'. 9. 'Try Not To Cry'. 10. 'Shake A Hand'. 11. 'All Shook Up.' 12. 'I Saw Her Standing There'. 13. 'Party'. 14. End Credits/'Run Devil Run'.

The DVD contained a number of extras: 1. A 17-minute 12-second interview with Paul conducted by Jools Holland. 2. A 21-minute 59-second documentary on the making of the Run Devil Run album. 3. The Cavern Club - a basic history and list of the artists who have appeared there. 4. The 'Brown Eyed Handsome Man' promotional film. 5. The 'No Other Baby' promotional film. 6. Biographies of the band members - Dave Gilmour, Ian Paice, Chris Hill, Peter Wingfield and Mick Green. 7. 'Run Devil Run'.

Live In The New World

The title of a full-length live concert by Paul that was televised on primetime American television on Tuesday 15 June 1993. It was filmed at the last gig of Paul's American tour that took place at the Blockbuster Pavilion in Charlotte, North Carolina. The two-hour show was broadcast on the Fox Network television station with simul taneous stereo sound on the Westwood One radio network. Due to the fact that there were advertising breaks on the television, several of the numbers weren't transmitted.

Paul's official sponsor for his tour, Blockbuster Entertainment Corps, presented the extravaganza, which was the first time Paul had performed a full-length concert on television.

Being on network television, it was free to viewers, unlike previous filmed concerts such as the Rolling Stones 'Steel Wheels' tour and Michael Jackson's 1992 TV concert, both of which were screened only on cable channels and had to be paid for.

Paul's manager Richard Ogden commented, 'Paul wanted as many people as possible to have access to this show, which is the biggest rock and roll production of his life. With the support of Blockbuster, we're going prime-time on a network, and you can't get any bigger than that.'

Due to the fact that a number of the songs were edited out due to the amount of commercials on American television, a longer version of the show, including the missing songs and with a remixed sound, was featured on Channel 4 in Britain on Saturday 13 November.

Three of the numbers from the show, 'Robbie's Bit (Thanks Chet)', 'Good Rockin' Tonight' and 'Paperback Writer' appeared on the album Paul Is Live.

Live-In World Anti-Heroin Album, The

A charity double album, proceeds of which went to the Phoenix House charity for heroin recovery centres. It was issued in Britain by EMI on AHPLP 1 (LP) and TC-AHPLP 1 (double cassette) on Monday 24 November 1986 and contained thirty tracks. Paul contributed a specially composed song 'Simple As That' which lasted 4 minutes and 15 seconds, which he produced alone following the completion of the Press To Play album.

Liverpool Institute

A former High School for boys, situated in Mount Street, Liverpool. It was founded in 1825 as a Mechanics Institute and was officially opened as a school on 15 September 1837.

Charles Dickens lectured there in 1844 and famous pupils have included Sir Charles Lamb, Lord Mersey, Sir Henry Enfield and Sir Macalister of Talbert.

In 1890 one half of the school became an art college and brick walls were built to separate the two buildings internally.

The Institute was changed from a fee-paying school and became a free grammar school in 1944, making it the oldest grammar school in Liverpool.

The school motto was 'Non Nobis Solum, Sed Toti Mundo Nati\ which means, 'Not for ourselves alone but for the whole world were we born'.

Paul entered the Institute from Joseph Williams Primary School when he passed his 11-plus exams.

His brother Michael was also to gain entrance to the 'Innie' and the two used to travel to school by the No. 86 bus. George Harrison also became a pupil of the school and others included Colin Manley and Don Andrew, who formed the Remo Four, Neil Aspinall, who became the Beatles' road manager and MD of Apple, Les Chadwick who joined Gerry 8c the Pacemakers, Bill Kenwright who became a theatre impre sario, Stephen Norris who became a prominent politician and Peter Sissons who became a newscaster.

In September 1957 Paul took two О level exams and passed in Spanish, but failed in Latin. He took six further subjects in order to move up into the Sixth Form in 1958. He passed in five and seemed to have a penchant for languages - apart from Spanish, he also has О levels in German and French.

On his last day at the Innie, Paul stood on his desk and performed 'Good Golly Miss Molly'.

Bertram Parker was the incumbent headmaster of the Liverpool Institute in 1979 when Wings performed a free concert for pupils and faculty of the school at the Royal Court Theatre on 23 November.

Mr Parker had been Paul's geography teacher when he attended the school in the 1950s. Pupils had nicknamed him 'Blip' and during the Royal Court concert, Paul was to announce from the stage: 'Hello "Blip" - nice to see you.'

Jack Edwards, the previous headmaster of Liverpool Institute, died at the White House nursing home in Formby on 8 January 1992. He was 95 years old. His memory was immortalised by Paul in his 'Headmaster's Song' in Liverpool Oratorio.

After the school had closed down, Paul became determined to turn it into an internationally recognised 'fame' school, the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts. At the close of 1994 he was to express his feelings about the project.

The whole idea of LIPA was first born in my mind a few years back after the inner-city riots that we had in Liverpool. I was at a party and I got talking to this black guy from Toxteth, the area of Liverpool where all the riots were, and he said, 'You know, what Liverpool needs is a 'Fame' school.'

That got me thinking about maybe there was some way in which I could help give something back to my home town. You see, after the riots, various people had suggested to me that I should help the city by taking the kids off the street in some way. But none of these ideas sounded right to me - somebody suggested I should open a car factory but what do I know about making cars? That wouldn't have worked and Fd have just created more unemployment.

But this thing about a 'Fame' school - like the school in the TV series, Fame - really did appeal to me. The idea was particularly attractive because my old school, the Liverpool Institute, had been closed down by the City Council in the 1980s and this wonderful building, which was built in 1825, was becoming derelict.

So I figured that if we had this 'Fame' school housed in my old school, at the very least we would be saving this great old building.

Four years ago, just before a gig we did in Liverpool, I announced the plan to build LIPA and we started fund-raising. We needed to raise about £13 million to open the school. I didn't want

to get like Paul Getty and just provide the school because I figured that if it was going to work, Liverpool had to want it. We all had to work together to achieve this if it was going to be worthwhile.

Anyway, I put in some money to get it going and we got a lot of help from a lot of different people - Eddie Murphy sent us some money, so did Jane Fonda and Ralph Lauren, David Hockney and Chevy Chase, Apple helped us, as did the Queen. I wrote to Buckingham Palace and I got this letter back with a cheque from the Keeper of the Privy Purse.

We also got a lot of money from Grundig and the EC and, what was also heartening, little kids from Liverpool sent us their pocket money.

So, now, we're opening our doors to audition the first students, be they from Liverpool, Long Island or Tokyo or whatever. The great thing about LIPA is that it will be open to all kids from wher ever they live in the world.

For me, doing all this is kind of strange because when I was actually at this school, I didn't want to be there at all. I was pretty lazy at school and all I really enjoyed was playing round and sagging off to bolt across the road to the cathedral and sunbathe and have a kip on the gravestones there.

When I first went to the Institute, I was living in a working-class area of Liverpool. I'd have to catch a bus to school and all the other kids would call me 'college pudding'. It was just a jibe; anyone who went to a grammar school, a posh school like that, was called a college pudding. So that was me. I'd be off to school and all the kids would be shouting, 'Get off the bus, you,' at me.

I was just like the schoolboys I wrote about in the Liverpool Oratorio, overtired, overworked, overhomeworked. I remember scuttling around the bus depot with my mates, collecting cigarette packets that people'd dropped and hoping there would be a couple of ciggies left inside. That was my introduction to the exotic world of smoking.

Anyway, as I said, I was pretty lazy at school and apart from liking a couple of subjects like English and art, I just loved playing around. I just wanted to mess about with my mates. There were a thousand boys at the school then and some nuthouse that was. We used to mess around throwing water bombs ... well, not exactly water bombs. These days you see kids doing that, filling a balloon and throwing them. I hate to tell you what we filled them with, guys.

And now, all these years on, I'm going to go back to the building and now I'll teach a lesson or two. Although I'm not quite sure yet how I'm going to do that. I know how I won't be doing it, though. When I was at school there were a couple of teachers I liked but the rest were just maniacs with punishment complexes who would whip you and cane you.

I remember this one guy, a big guy, he had a huge sneaker and boy, he used to take it out of your ass! I used to get whacked with that just for something like talking out of line. But I don't believe in all that corporal punishment. I don't think it does you any good. All it does in the end is to get some guys liking to be punished but I've never been into that.

Now it may be that I may teach a class in songwriting but I won't be telling the kids how to do it because I don't know how to do it. I really don't know how to write songs. I can't notate songs. To me, music is something much more magical than simply a series of black dots on a page.

John Lennon and I taught each other when we wrote songs and if I'm teaching a class in songwriting, that's how I'll want to do it with the students. I'll walk in the classroom and say 'Good morning. I don't know how to do this.' Because I think it is part of my skill that I don't know exactly how to write a song and the minute I do know how to do it, I'm finished. Every time I sit down to write a song, it's a new occasion for me and I value that fresh ness. The minute I know how to do it, it'll get boring.

So, I would want to explain to the students that I don't agree that there is an accepted method of writing a song. I certainly don't want to dictate to them. If I got like some of the teachers who taught me, that would be the end. There's no way I would walk into a class and say, 'Sit down. Take your notebooks out. Write this down: Paul McCartney was a great composer. He was born in Liverpool in 1942,' like dictation. My God, that would be mind-numbing.

The way I would want to do it is to tap their talent, and the excitement for me would be if I can learn while they are learning. I'm not particularly interested in my students learning how to write a song in the style of somebody else. I'll tell them that what I'm interested in is the style of you.

And, as I say, I don't believe there's an accepted method of teaching songwriting. I'll tell the students that if they want, they can write a song called 'Shit' and I won't have a problem with that. Or they could write a song called 'Love' and I won't have a problem with that. The spectrum will be pretty broad with me and it won't matter how simple their song is. It could be just a couple of words, just a tune three seconds long that they put on a loop to make a song, and then we'll discuss that. Basically, I want to find out what they want.

Of course, you can pass on a few tricks. For instance, when I write, I start by getting a chord that I just fancy that day; and then you get a chord structure and you strum for a bit to see what sort of mood you're in and then babble for a bit and then you get the odd word coming out of this babbling and then you're beginning.

But, as I say, I'd want them to do it their way. Now, that may mean that they want to collaborate with a partner. And that's OK with me, too. Well, it would be - when I worked with John, he was such a witty and clever guy that he'd turn you on so much that we wrote all those Beatles songs in an afternoon, none of those songs took more than three hours to write - except, I remember, 'Drive My Car', we really got stuck for a while on that one. We started out writing it about golden rings - 'I can give you golden rings', but that seemed so bad to us so we had another ciggie and another coffee and John was getting all impatient which is good for the creative process, and out of sheer desperation we got into this surreal image of this woman who didn't actually have a car but who wanted a chauffeur. And once we got into that surreal land, we finished it in half an hour.

It's not as easy now to write a song as it was to write with John, nor was it as easy for him to write without me. But then, I don't know of any collaborations that were as good as John and me. I was the one in the room with him and I know how easily it came to us and although I wrote a lot of Beatles songs on my own, like 'Yesterday' and 'Hey Jude', there was always that thought that John was there if I got stuck and we'd be able to find a way to do it.

But I hope that in a lot of ways, collaboration will be what this performing arts school will be all about. What was good about the Fame series was the crossover, where the synthesiser player got with the dancer, got with the comedian and they got a show on together.

In the same way, I entertain a little romantic idea that our students at LIPA can do that - but the difference will be that because we'll have all these other courses in the behind-the-scenes side of performing, at our show, the student lighting engineer will be there and the prospective manager will be there, all working on it.

We're not trying to just have a school of stars at LIPA. If you want to go into the performing industries, then there's a lot of other things you can do besides dance or sing or play a guitar. And we want our students to have the opportunity to learn about the others sides of the business.

And there's a lot of other sides to it. For instance, if I take my band on a world tour - as I have been doing over the past five years - then we take about 140 guys with us in the crew. That's 140 guys doing their job to put six of us on stage. And those 140 jobs are all proper, professional jobs and necessary to putting on the gig. So it's an interesting prospect that we may be able to teach our students some of the new skills that you need for these jobs now, like knowing computer skills to run the lighting, because it's not just a matter of pointing a spot any more.

In fact, we are actually going to train roadies at LIPA. Now that makes some of my friends smirk because you've really arrived in the nineties when there are roadies schools. But it's going to be needed; people think of roadies and they may think of Spinal Tap, but it's actually a lot more complicated than that now.

As far as the students needing certain qualifications for LIPA goes, we'd like them to have them but John Lennon didn't have any and I only had a smattering that would have only got me to teacher training college. I didn't get music. I didn't pass my music exam. And so I can't sit down and teach someone the violin but I will have certain uses and there will be people at LIPA with degrees in music who can basically balance my insanity.

So, we'll have auditions for the students and what we want to be is flexible. For instance, if someone shows at the auditions that he is a hell of a dancer but has no qualifications, then that will be noted. Similarly, if some girl has got a hell of a voice but hasn't got perfect pitch or can't play an instrument, then that will be noted. What we're essentially looking for is some form of talent.

As I've said, although I'm not in the prospectus, I'll certainly teach a class and I want to get other people who actually do it to turn up and tell our students how they do it. I've asked Elvis Costello and he's said yes and I want to ask a lot of other friends in the business, not just performers but promoters and directors, too.

And I'm very optimistic about this school. I think there's a lot of interesting talent out there that we can help.

Of course, some may say, 'Do we need another music college?' and that's like saying do we need another baby in the world. The official answer may be no but the real answer is yes.

There may be people who doubt what we're trying to do but a lot of what I've done has been pretty good and I won't let the doubters discourage me. It's too easy to be discouraged. What you've actually got to do is grab ideas like this by the balls and say we're going to do it.

In December 1994 Paul even appeared in a television commercial to promote LIPA, dressed in Shakespearian costume, a painter's smock and a school headmaster's mortarboard and gown.

Following a refurbishment costing £12 million and seven years of planning, LIPA opened on 8 January 1996 with the first 200 of a planned 700-student intake. Paul held a special event on 30 January before an audience of special guests, patrons and the world's media in which he related the history of his dream.

There were over 200 fans outside the building that mobbed his car when Paul arrived. His son James, his press agent Geoff Baker and his assistant John Hammell accompanied him.

The inauguration ceremony opened in the Paul McCartney Auditorium when a short film about LIPA was screened, with Paul's 'C'Mon People' on the soundtrack.

Chief Executive Mark Featherstone-Witty was the first to speak and George Martin, who had been one of the main supporters of the LIPA project, followed him.

Martin said, 'I'm absolutely delighted to be here today at the inau guration of the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts. I think that it is a marvellous project, and I know that it will do a great deal for Liverpool - and not only Liverpool, but the whole country.

'You know, there has always been a popular misconception about our business, the entertainment business, that it's an easy place to be. I suppose the feeling is, well, a bit of talent, we've all got that, haven't we? A little bit of luck and anybody could be Sean Connery or even Paul McCartney. It's easy stuff.

'But it's not like that at all, it really isn't. It's a lot of hard work. Of course, there's fame and there's glamour and money at the end of it. But it doesn't happen to everybody, and the difficult thing is that it does need a lot of talent, a lot of hard work and a lot of dedication, plus the resilience to take knocks when they come - and plenty come!

'Above all, though, it takes education and experience, and I can't think of a finer place for getting that than this place, LIPA. I think that it is going to do a great deal for the young people of this country, and eventually for the country as a whole, because these young people are going to carry the torch in the future.

'I should add that this business of talent that we should be nurturing is something that I'm lucky enough to have been involved with my whole life. A few years after he was a student at this school, an extraor dinary man whose talent turned into genius became a friend of mine and we worked together for many years.

'And it was his inspiration and his generosity that led to LIPA. Of course, I'm talking about Paul McCartney. Together with his mates, he altered the perception of the British performing arts around the world. And he made a breakthrough in the United States that remains today. I should add that as a result of that breakthrough, many billions of pounds of foreign exchange was earned for this country, and our music business continues to be a vital part of British industry.

'So to all of the students who are going to pass through these doors, I'd like to say good luck to you all, in continuing that work, and may you all do well and prosper.'

Paul then took the stage to say, 'I haven't got a speech, you're prob ably glad to know! But I've got a lot of memories of this place. When I first came here, I sat up there somewhere (pointing to the left side of the stage upstairs). I was aged about eleven in 1953, and I was filled with awe. There were a thousand boys going to this school and I realised that I was going to get quite a special education. And that's what really

happened, the school gave me the kind of chance that a boy of my background was not really likely to get.

'So I've got memories, as I say. Just out here was the Headmaster's office (he pointed to a door on his left) - one or two painful memories there!' (He was referring to canings, an action which he mimed.)

He noticed newscaster Peter Sissons, a former pupil, and remarked, 'I'm glad to see one or two mates of mine who went to the school, old boys, back here today.

'On the whole it was fantastic, and looking back at it at this great, venerable age that I am now, it was very, very special. It gave me the idea that I could succeed, and that I could go from a place like Speke, where I was brought up, and go and conquer the world, if you had enough love, enough passion, in what you were going to do, and you were prepared to put in enough hard work.

'Obviously, one of my great feelings now is how proud my mum and dad would have been if they could have been here. But I won't go into that, or I'll start crying. So let's just look to the future, let's say to all these kids and all of the people who come through these doors, from me, from everybody who's supported us, all these wonderful people here - the very best of luck. You will need it, but keep at it. Even though it was a hard day's night, as someone said earlier on, we can work it out.'

A short press conference followed and then Paul and James mingled with the guests. They included Apple's managing director Neil Aspinall, Mike and Rowena McCartney, Gerry Marsden, Joan Armatrading, Ben Elton and Wayne Sleep.

Joan Armatrading had also been quoted in the LIPA souvenir programme, stating, 'I wish I had some training because it would have made life easier, instead of searching all the time. If there had been training, I would definitely have gone for it, in both the guitar and the piano. Understanding contracts is also very important. I signed my first contract but I couldn't tell you any part of what I signed, because the artist is the innocent party at this stage, everyone else has the knowl edge and they keep it to themselves.'

Paul had also contributed to the souvenir and was quoted as saying, 'The word that comes to mind when I try to sum up my feeling about LIPA is - PROUD. Jim and Mary, my parents who are unfortunately no longer with us, would have been extremely proud to see this day arrive. Being born in Liverpool, I, myself, was very proud to go to the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys, the original school on this site. And I'm also very proud of the team, led by Mark Featherstone-Witty, who have put in so much hard work to help make this dream come true.

'The Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts - sounds a bit lofty, perhaps, but the idea is that it won't be. As I see it, LIPA is going to help those with talent, in various fields, realise and develop it. LIPA is here to help realise the dreams of many people working in many different areas of study.

'There's more to creativity than being young and having success. I come across so many people who simply love being involved in the arts and entertainment and don't realise the breadth of employment and tasks that exist. They also don't realise that there are many forms of success.

'I like the idea of being involved with a place which opens people's eyes and ears and where skills and experiences can be passed on -lessons which have been learned the hard way. I see LIPA as being that place.

'I'm proud that my old school is now back in use helping the next generations. It's exciting that once again my home town will be the world's target for tomorrow's talent.

'To those who get a place at LIPA, I want to say: good luck, trust your instincts and follow your passion and enjoy yourselves. I feel sure that the students attending this wonderful new school will make us all proud by their efforts and the eventual success I hope many of them will have.'

George and Olivia Harrison were believed to have made a very large financial contribution to the school and other patrons included: Peter Sissons, Wayne Sleep, Andre Previn, Ronnie Scott, Richard Branson, Lenny Henry, Melvyn Bragg, Dr Jonathan Miller, Paul Scofield, Michael Crawford, Dudley Moore, Judi Dench, Victoria Wood, George Martin, Carly Simon, Vangelis, Mark Knopfler, Toyah Willcox and Glyn Johns.

On Friday 7 June 1996, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts. Paul had first announced his dream of such a venue in 1990. Over 2,000 individuals had made private donations to the school, including the Queen.

The Chief Executive was Mark Featherstone-Witty. Paul and Featherstone-Witty showed the Queen around the building and she watched a performance by the Salvations, one of the school's rock bands. The Queen was also taken to a recording studio, saw a 15-strong contemporary dance class and heard a choral recital in the Paul McCartney Auditorium which included Stephen Sondheim show tunes and Paul's 'Blackbird'.

Paul was to say, 'She was very impressed and she was very enter tained by all of it.'

The Queen unveiled a plaque commemorating the opening and also signed the visitors' book.

Featherstone-Witty was to comment, 'The motto of Paul's old school - and this, his new school - remains the same: "Not for ourselves alone, but for the whole world were we born".'

Paul was to add, 'This is a very proud day for me. It's exciting that we have saved this fine old building of my school, and that Her Majesty

has taken such an interest in our new school. I'm also proud that so many people have helped in so many ways to make this dream come true, and I'm sure that the students will one day make us proud by the eventual success that I hope many of them will find. LIPA has been built to help those with talent realise their dreams. I hope that LIPA will become the finest school of its type in the world and, if it does, it'll be with thanks to all the many people - especially the people of Liverpool - who have helped us work this out.'

Paul also attended the first LIPA graduation ceremony at the school on Tuesday 21 July 1998, accompanied by his daughter Mary and son James, saying, 'This is just one day I couldn't miss.'

After making a speech he shook hands with each student and presented them individually with a special commemorative pin.

Liverpool Lou

A folk song by Domenic Behan. Paul produced the number in June 1974 for his brother Mike's group the Scaffold. It was issued on the Warner Bros label in Britain on K16400 on Friday 24 May 1974. It reached No. 7 in the British charts, but didn't have much luck in America where it was issued on Warner Bros 8001 on Monday 29 July 1974. The flipside of the disc was a number penned jointly by Paul and Linda called 'Ten Years After On Strawberry Jam'.

The number was also included on the Scaffold album Sold Out, issued in Britain on Friday 7 February 1975 on Warner Brothers К 56097.

Liverpool Oratorio

Brian Pidgeon, the general manager of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic commissioned Paul McCartney and Carl Davis to compose The Liverpool Oratorio.

When Davis had originally approached Paul to suggest they collabo rate on the venture and base it around a character similar to Paul himself, Paul asked what an oratorio was. It is defined as 'a dramatic but unstaged musical composition for soloists, chorus and orchestra, based on a religious theme'.

The work was then given its world premiere at Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral on Friday 28 June 1991 before an audience of 2,500 as part of the Orchestra's 150th anniversary celebrations (although their 150th anniversary actually fell on the previous year).

A second performance took place at the cathedral on Saturday 29 June.

The first performance, which lasted for ninety minutes, was recorded and issued in the UK on 7 October and in the US on 22 October.

A videotape of the performance was also issued in Britain on 28 October, followed by a laser disc version on 9 December (LDB 99 1301 1). A single 'The World You're Coming Into'/'Tres Conejos' was issued only in Britain on 20 September. A second single 'Save The World'/'The Drinking Song' was released in the US on 12 November and the UK on 18 November.

The television premiere of the performance took place on the PBS network in America on 30 October and in Britain on Channel 4 on 14 December.

The American premiere took place at Carnegie Hall, New York on Monday 18 November 1991. Paul and his family were in the audience. The performers were basically the same as those from the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral debut with the exception of Kiri Те Kanawa who was replaced by Barbara Bonney.

Since its debut, during a period of five years, the Oratorio was performed 99 times in 20 different countries: Eire, Hungary, Sweden, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Spain, Poland, Norway, Slovakia, Japan, the Czech Republic, South Africa, New Zealand, France, Britain, Canada, Finland, Venezuela and in 14 states of America: Colorado, Iowa, Arizona, New York, California, Minnesota, Indiana, Rhode Island, Florida, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan and Texas. The one hundredth performance took place at the Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool on Saturday 21 September 1996. Paul was in attendance. The performers were: Carl Davis, conductor; Anne Dawson, soprano; Bernadette Cullen, mezzo soprano; Bonaventura Bottone, tenor; Michael George, bass; the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra; the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir and the Liverpool Cathedral Choristers.

Paul and Carl Davis had worked on and off for eighteen months on the work which began with the words 'поп nobis solum sed toti mundo nati'. The Liverpool Institute motto, 'Not for ourselves alone but for the whole world we were born'.

It told the story of 'Shanty', born in Liverpool during the Second World War in the middle of an air raid. This was the first movement, called 'War'. At the age of eleven, Shanty sags off school to sunbathe in the graveyard of Liverpool Cathedral. This is the movement called 'School', during which Shanty, his schoolmates and teachers all cele brate the fact that they were born in Liverpool.

The teenager Shanty goes to a church dance in the crypt where he meets Mary Dee, who is to become his wife. He tells her that his father has died. This is the movement called 'Crypt'.

Shanty comes to terms with the loss of his father in the movement called 'Father.' A few years later Shanty marries Mary in the movement called 'Wedding'.

Mary runs an office staffed entirely by women and has a heavy schedule and then discovers she is pregnant in the movement called 'Work'.

A drunken Shanty rows with his wife and says he doubts her love for him. She runs out on him, telling him she is pregnant, and is knocked down by a car and taken to hospital. Shanty prays that she will be saved, saying that he will change his ways if she is.

The Oratorio has a happy ending with Shanty, Mary and their child happily reunited in a movement called 'Peace'.

The Guardian newspaper published a critical review of the work, which led to Paul writing in his defence in a letter published in the paper on 4 July.

'Thank you for your review of the Liverpool Oratorio. I fear there is some danger of misleading your readers with some of the remarks made by your critic, so I would like to make the following points. He states that the music is "afraid of anything approaching a fast tempo". This is nonsense and a quick perusal of the score will prove my point (Movements 2, 3 and 6 in particular). He goes on to suggest there is "little awareness of the need for recurrent ideas that will bind the work into a whole".

'Having spent two years putting this together I can assure him further study will reveal a plethora of recurrent themes throughout the piece, two examples being the Narrator's theme and "Ghosts Of The Past" which recur often.

'Happily, history shows that many good pieces of music were not liked by the critics of the time so I am content to point out the afore mentioned errors and let people judge for themselves the merits of the work.'

Liverpool Oratorio (film)

The film of the 28 June Liverpool premiere of Paul's Liverpool Oratorio was issued on home video in the UK by PMI on Thursday 28 November 1991. It was also screened in the northwest of England on Granada Television on Tuesday 12 November and nationally on Channel 4 on Saturday 14 December between 8.00 and 9.55 p.m.

Liverpool Sound Collage

A 58-minute CD issued on 21 August 2000 on EMI's Hydra LSC 01.

It was compiled by Paul for Peter Blake as a soundtrack to his exhi bition 'About Collage' that ran at the Tate Liverpool until 4 March 2002.

The cover of the CD also features a collage by Paul called 'The World', which contains images of a screaming man, a cow, a corridor, a dog, a murder victim and a photograph of a young girl. The images are combined to form the shape of a cross.

Commenting on both the soundtrack and the collage, Blake said, 'I think both works are very good and complement each other. Paul surprised me with his offer to do something for this show. Although he is a keen painter, he had never done a collage before.'

Titles on the five-track album were: 'Plastic Beetle' by Paul, which included outtakes from Beatles recording sessions from 1965-69, mixed with unheard cuts of Beatles guitar work; 'Peter Blake 2000' by the group Super Furry Animals and the Beatles, a collaboration with the Welsh indie stars who Paul invited to remix the Beatles material; 'Real Gone Dub Made Manifest In The Vortex Of The Eternal Wheel', by Youth, Paul's collaborator on The Fireman; 'Made Up' by Paul and the Beatles and 'Free Now' with Paul, the Beatles and Super Furry Animals.

The CD featured recordings made on the streets of Liverpool where Paul interviewed shoppers, chatted with LIPA students and even talked to 'the lady who gets me chips when I'm back in the Pool'.

There were also two promotional discs issued, each featuring the song 'Free Now'. The CD was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Alternative Music category.

Liverpool Suite

A classical collaboration by Paul and Carl Davis. It is basically a distil lation of the most melodic and song-like segments of Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio. The nine-minute piece incorporates 'School', 'Save The Child', 'Let's Have A Drink!' 'Spanish Dance' and 'Finale' from the Oratorio. Its world premiere took place in December 1992 in Stoke, with a performance by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Carl Davis. It then made its London debut in St John's Church, Smith Street, SWI on 11 December and a third performance took place on 16 December 1993 at the Royal Northern College Of Music, Manchester where it was performed by the Northern Choral Orchestra.

London Tonight

An ITV programme focussing on current events in London. When Paul turned up at Waterstone's bookstore in Piccadilly on Wednesday 13 December 2000 to attend a signing session for his new book Paintings, he gave a brief interview to Ken Andrew of London Tonight, which was broadcast that evening, along with footage of the book-signing. The interview went:

Ken Andrew: People might not know you've got this string to your bow.

Paul: It's something I've been doing in a closet for about seven teen years.

Ken: The Beatles number 1 is selling like hot cakes.

Paul: Not doing too bad.

Ken: You've got a future in this business.

Paul: I know, I think I'm going to stick with it.

Ken: You're back in the recording studio. What sort of stuff are you doing at the moment?

Paul: Just new music. I did a little thing with an orchestra the other day, some new songs. Enjoying it, that's the main thing.

Ken: And you're still bringing Piccadilly to a standstill after all these years.

Paul: I know. We were round the block there and there's people in Jermyn Street. We said, 'What are you queuing for?' I thought it was a market or something.

London Town (album)

A working title was Water Wings, because it had partly been recorded on board a yacht.

The actual work on the album initially began on Monday 7 February 1977 at Abbey Road Studios, where Wings began recording the tracks 'London Town' and 'Deliver Your Children'. The weather in London at the time was cold, windy and dismal and Paul decided they should choose a warm and sunny clime in which to record, so he arranged for Wings to travel to the American Virgin Islands.

He recalled, 'We originally started the recordings here at Abbey Road Studios in London, coming in for the usual album sessions, and it was pouring rain as usual and things were becoming a bit boring. Geoff Emerick, our engineer, had just returned from Hawaii where he'd been working on America's latest album, and he was telling us how beautiful and sunny it had been around those parts. So we got a bit jealous about the weather and I thought maybe we could fix a little excursion and record in a foreign place.'

On Saturday 30 April, a yacht The Fair Carol set off from St Thomas, the capital, to Francis Bay on the island of St John, where it awaited the arrival of Wings. The yacht had been equipped with a 24-track recording system, which had been converted by the Record Plant in New York, and was joined by two other vessels, the Samala and the El Того.

The Samala was a converted British minesweeper which the group were to use for eating and sleeping and the El Того was reserved for the McCartney family.

Later in the year the group returned to Abbey Road to complete the album on Tuesday 25 October on sessions lasting until 14 December.

During November 1977, Paul discussed the making of the album with Chris Welch of Melody Maker.

He commented; 'We hired a charter boat that people use for holi days. The captain went spare when he saw all the instruments. We remodelled his boat for him, which he wasn't too keen on.

'We converted his lounge into a studio and we turned another deck into a sound control room, and it was fantastic! We had a recording boat and two others we stayed on. We didn't have any problems with salt water in the machine or sharks attacking us. At night, there was much merriment, leaping from top decks into uncharted waters and stuff. I had a couple too many one night and nearly broke something jumping from one boat to another. But then you always break yourself up on holiday. The studio worked out incredibly well and the very first day we got a track down. There was a nice free feeling. We'd swim in the day and record at night.

'We've come back to Abbey Road here to finish it all off. We're over-dubbing and putting on main vocals.'

To promote the album on its release, Wings held a press reception on a boat sailing from Charing Cross Pier to Tower Bridge and back again on Wednesday 22 March 1978. The album was issued simultaneously in Britain and America on Friday 31 March 1978.

The Capitol Records press release produced a commentary on the individual tracks:

The title track is a mid-tempo number with pensive lyrics talking about ordinary people and everyday life in London.

'Cafe On The Left Bank' is a straight-ahead rocker describing an evening on the town in Paris, and the guitar work on the track is simply ripping.

T'm Caring' is an acoustic ballad backed with beautifully arranged strings, and it's about someone who is taking gifts of love to a lover after they've been away from each other for a long time.

Paul is the 'Backwards Traveller', a punch rock-'n'-roll number with a retrospective storyline, and after a connecting synthesiser passage, the funky 'Cuff Link' instrumental completes the two-song medley.

'Children Children' is a bright, nicely textured acoustic tune with a bit of Caribbean flavour about children playing hide-and-seek in a forest by a waterfall.

'Girlfriend' is a mid-tempo rocker, and the lyrics are about a girl who belongs to another guy, but not for long. Paul sings the first couple of verses in falsetto, and the instrumental break features some great guitar and synthesiser lines.

Side One closes with 'I've Had Enough', a driving rock-'n'-roll tune that lyrically describes an artist's ultimatum to the tax man, a self-serving manager, or both.

'With A Little Luck' opens Side Two. It's a bouncy pop number that's lyrically an update on the 'We Can Work It Out' theme. Nearly six minutes long, 'With A Little Luck' has a nice classically influenced synthesiser passage before the final chorus.

'Famous Groupies' is a crazy tongue-in-cheek number talking about the real stars of rock - the groupies. Turnabout's fair play, you know.

'Deliver Your Children' is instrumentally a bit of English folk-rock, with acoustic rhythm guitars and an acoustic solo guitar.

'Name And Address' is Wings rockabilly, believe it or not - a really wild track featuring a Sun Records-style echo effect used on Paul's Elvis-flavoured lead vocals. The neo-Medieval tones of 'Don't Let It Bring You Down' follow, it's an acoustic contrast to the previous track. It's about never giving up. Very pretty vocal harmonies on that one.

The album closes with 'Morse Moose And The Grey Goose', a funky rocker with hot and nasty guitar lines and intense lead vocals by Paul as he tells a mystical sea story.

London Town (promotional film)

The promotional film was shot at Twickenham Film Studios on 21 March 1978 with Paul, Linda and Denny Laine and was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg. It also included an appearance by Victor Spinetti, who mimed his part.

London Town (single)

The opening track on the London Town album, issued in March 1978. The number, which lasted 4 minutes and 10 seconds, was co-written by Paul and Denny Laine.

Paul had originally conceived the number while in Perth, Australia, although it wasn't about London then, as he'd only worked on the opening line. He developed the number in Scotland and London and roughly finished it during a holiday in Mexico. He then had Denny Laine work on it with him for the completed version.

It was also issued as a Wings single in Britain on Parlophone R6021 on Saturday 26 August 1978 and in America on Capitol 4625 on Monday 21 August 1978 - it was Paul's final single for Capitol.

The flipside was 'I'm Carrying'. The title track from the album only reached No. 60 in the British charts and No. 39 in the American.

It was also issued in Germany on EMI Electrola 1C600-61540 and in France on Parlophone 2C008-61540.

Lonely Road

A track from the Driving Rain album. It lasts for 3 minutes and 16 seconds. It was written in Goa, India in January 2001 and recorded on 16 February 2001.

Lonely Road (promotional film)

The promotional video for 'Lonely Road' was directed by Jonas Akerlund and featured Paul driving a fiery red Ford Thunderbird convertible. The promotional film was initially screened by VHI on 8 April 2002.

Lonesome Town

A track from the Run Devil Run album, lasting 3 minutes and 31 seconds. It was a number originally recorded by Ricky Nelson and was a hit in 1958. Paul's version was produced at Abbey Road Studios on Wednesday 3 March 1999. It featured Paul on lead vocal and bass guitar, Dave Gilmour on electric guitar and backing vocal, Mick Green on electric guitar, Pete Wingfield on piano, Geraint Watkins on piano, Ian Pake on drums and Dave Mattacks on percussion.

On 10 April 1999, at the Linda tribute at the Royal Albert Hall, Paul made an unannounced appearance on stage and performed three numbers, 'Lonesome Town', 'All My Loving' and 'Let It Be'. Commenting on 'Lonesome Town', he said the song was 'one Linda and I used to listen to - I was in Liverpool, she was in New York, we both listened to it in the fifties.'

Long And Winding Road, The

Paul's composition from the Let It Be sessions on which he sings lead vocal.

Recordings initially began on Sunday 26 January 1969 and again on Friday 31 January 1969. Further recordings were made in March 1970.

The number was featured in the Let It Be film and Paul had OKed this version for release. However, Allen Klein gave the tapes of the recording sessions to Phil Spector for remixing. On 'The Long And Winding Road' track Spector included an orchestra with violins, a harp and female choir.

Paul was to comment, T couldn't believe it. I would never have female voices on a Beatles record.'

George Martin was to say, It was a very good McCartney song, but when it came back from being handled by Phil Spector, it was laden down with treacle and choirs and the scoring and so on.'

In an interview with Paul Gambacchini in 1973 Paul remarked, 'I'm not struck by the violins and ladies' voices on 'The Long And Winding Road'. I've always put my own strings on. But that's a bit of spilled milk. Nobody minded except me, so I shut up.'

The number was first featured on Let It Be and then on the The Beatles 1967-1970 and the Love Songs compilations. Paul performed a new version on the Wings 1975/76 tour, which was included on the Wings Over America album and he also re-recorded the number for his Give My Regards To Broad Street movie project.

The live version from his tour was issued as a single in Germany on Parlophone 066-2041747 with 'C Moon' on the flip on Friday 4 January 1991.

A version of this number, lasting 4 minutes and 19 seconds, was included on the Tripping The Live Fantastic album. It was recorded live at the Maracana Stadium, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 21 April 1990 during the 1989/90 World Tour.

Long Haired Lady

A track from the Ram album. Paul had joined together 'Long Haired Lady' with another song 'Love Is Long' to produce the longest track on the album.

Long Tall Sally

The first number Paul ever sang on stage. While holidaying at a Butlin's camp in Wales, Paul and his younger brother Mike were asked up on

stage by a cousin-in-law who was a redcoat (an official camp steward). The duo sang the Everly Brothers hit 'Bye Bye Love' and then Paul went solo, singing Little Richard's 'Long Tall Sally', a number which he had already practised singing 'in one of the classrooms at school'.

In issue No. 214 of Record Collector, Paul discussed the Backbeat film in which they had John singing 'Long Tall Sally'; 'There's revi sionism as we speak,' Paul said. 'Yeah, I was really pisssed off when the John character sang "Long Tall Sally". There's no need for that. I sang "Long Tall Sally". There are a million songs that John sang just as well, which they could have given him. But they just didn't bother ... it was just slack of them, really. It's not too clever, a young kid watching that will think, "Yeah, John did sing 'Long Tall Sally'. Great!" It's a bit of a nuisance ... they're robbing you of your history.'

Paul performed the number at the Prince's Trust concert on 20 June 1986 and the live recording was issued as a free bonus single, together with 'I Saw Her Standing There' with the Prince's Trust Tenth Anniversary Birthday Party album issued by A&M Records on A&M FREE 21 on 24 April 1987. The free single wasn't included with the album when it was issued in America on Monday 11 May 1987, although it was available in Germany on A&M 390 190-7.

The song had originally been penned by Enotris Johnson, Richard Penniman (Little Richard) and Robert Blackwell under the name 'The Thing'. They then changed the title to 'Bald Headed Sally' and finally to 'Long Tall Sally'.

The Beatles recorded it in a single take at Abbey Road Studios on Sunday 1 March 1964.

Looking For Changes

A number penned by Paul and lasting for 2 minutes and 45 seconds that was the second track on the Off The Ground album. It was a protest song about Paul's passion for animal rights.

A live version of the number lasting 2 minutes and 41 seconds, which was recorded in Kansas City on 31 May 1993, was included on the Paul Is Live album.

Loup (First Indian On The Moon)

An instrumental track on the Red Rose Speedway album lasting 4 minutes and 23 seconds. Paul was on bass guitar, Moog and chant, Linda on organ and chant, Denny Laine on electric guitar and chant, Henry McCullough on electric guitar and chant and Denny Seiwell on drums and chant.

Love Comes Tumbling Down

A song written by Paul. The track was co-produced by Paul and Phil Ramone at Paul's home studio in March 1987 and issued with the CD singles of 'Beautiful Night' in December 1997.

Love For You, A

A number that Paul recorded during the Ram sessions.

Love In Song

The flipside of 'Listen To What The Man Said' single and a track on the Venus and Mars album. This track wasn't recorded during the New Orleans sessions of Venus And Mars, but had been recorded at Abbey Road in 1974 with Geoff Emerick as engineer. Paul used the Bill Black stand-up bass he'd acquired on this track - it was the same one used on Elvis Presley's recording of 'Heartbreak Hotel'.

Love In The Open Air

A theme tune for the film The Family Way which Paul wrote and passed on to George Martin to embellish, score and record. It was the first piece of music to bear only one name from the Lennon and McCartney songwriting partnership.

The George Martin Orchestra single 'Love In the Open Air'/'Theme From The Family Way\ was issued in Britain on 23 December 1966 on United Artists UP 1165 and in America on 24 April 1967 on United Artists UA 50148.

In March 1967 Sounds Sensational issued a cover version of the number.

'Love In The Open Air' was voted the year's best instrumental theme at the Ivor Novello Awards in March 1968.

Love Is Strange

A track on the Wild Life album. The number was originally written and recorded by Mickey and Sylvia, a husband-and-wife duo and then recorded by the Everly Brothers, who had a hit with it in 1966. There was even a posthumous Buddy Holly version issued in 1969.

Paul and Linda sang it on this track.

They had recently returned from Jamaica and gave the number a reggae flavour.

EMI and Apple wanted to issue a single from the Wild Life album with 'Love Is Strange' as the A-side and 'I Am Your Singer' on the flip. The single was even given the catalogue number Apple R 5932, but Paul objected and the idea was dropped. At the last minute he'd decided to rush-release his one and only protest song 'Give Ireland Back To The Irish'.

Love Me Do

The Beatles' first Parlophone single. Paul wrote the main structure of the song in 1958 when he sagged off school; John later helped him a bit with the middle part. An initial version was recorded on 4 September 1962 at Abbey Road. George Martin wasn't too happy with the drum sound and the Beatles hadn't realised that what they could play on the studio floor sounded different in the control room. At that time recording managers used session drummers a lot because, as George Martin admitted, it didn't matter too much about the vocals and guitars, but there had to be a certain drum sound in the studios. This was actually used as an excuse to sack Pete Best, although when they went into the studios on Tuesday 4 September to record the number with Ringo, neither Paul, nor George Martin, nor Ron Richards liked Ringo's drumming and they booked yet another session for Tuesday 11 September, hiring Andy White to play on drums.

When the single was released on Friday 5 October 1962 it was rumoured that Brian Epstein had bought 10,000 copies for his store. This is untrue. Epstein denied this ever took place and it's strange that this silly rumour has continued because a single store buying 10,000 copies of one particular record wouldn't affect its position in the charts because of the system by which the charts were devised in those days -and Brian Epstein, being a record store manager, would have been aware of this at the time.

There were three basic British national charts at the time, one compiled by Record Retailer, another by the New Musical Express and a third by Melody Maker. The single went straight to No. 1 in Mersey Beat.

Together with 'PS I Love You' it is the only Beatles number which Paul's MPL company owns the copyright to.

Love Of The Loved

This was one of the earliest of Paul's compositions. It was even included in the repertoire of the Quarry Men skiffle group. The Beatles also performed the number during their Decca Records audi tion.

At Liverpool's Blue Angel club one night Bill Harry asked John Lennon if he had a song for local singer Beryl Marsden to record. John said that there was a number called 'Love Of The Loved' that would be ideal for her. A few days later he told Harry that Brian Epstein had vetoed him giving the number to Beryl as Epstein wanted to utilise the Lennon and McCartney numbers for his own acts. Epstein gave the song to Cilia Black as her debut record and Paul attended the recording session.

The single was issued on Parlophone R 5065 on Friday 27 September 1963. The highest position it reached was No. 30 on Saturday 19 October 1963, and then it began to drop down the charts. 'Shy Of Love' was on the flip.

Cilia was to say, 'I'd heard the song many times in the Cavern and I was ever so disappointed when I got into the studio and heard this jazzy brass sound. Paul did the same thing with 'It's For You' later on. He sounded great on the demo he gave me and then turned it into a jazz waltz by the time I came to record it. Still, I can't complain because

both records were successful for me in the end even if they weren't Number Ones.'

The review in Disc read: 'Cilia Black is a young woman with a hard-trumpeting vocal manner that's not unlike the sound of Shirley Bassey at times. It's a song with an urgent strut to it - as if it's in a hurry to reach the best sellers. Which it may.'

Lovely Linda, The

A song dedicated to Paul's wife, and his first love song to her, which was recorded in December 1969. It was the first track on his solo debut album McCartney, issued in April 1970. The acoustic number on the album only lasted for 20 seconds, with Paul claiming that it was 'a trailer to the full song, which will be recorded in the future'. The number was reworked and included on the Working Classical album.

Lovely Rita

Commenting on his inspiration for this song, Paul has said: 'I was bopping about on a piano in Liverpool when someone told me that in America they call parking meter women meter maids. I thought it was great and it got to be "Rita, Meter Maid" and then "Lovely Rita, Meter Maid", and I was thinking it should be a hate song, but then I thought it would be better to love her and if she was freaky too, like a military man, with a bag on her shoulders. A foot stomper, but nice.'

In Paul's song, the narrator sees Rita filling in parking tickets and notices that she has an almost military look with her cap and bag. He invites her out to tea, and then takes her out to dinner - although Rita ends up paying the bill. He then takes her home, but doesn't quite make it with her as his two sisters are sharing the sofa.

Visually, artists interpret Rita as a very sexy woman. In the David Bailey colour photograph in The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics, she is a slut tish figure, smoking a cigarette, her cap askew, face heavily made up and her left hand pulling aside her jacket to reveal an ample cleavage. The Robert Rankin illustration in Behind the Beatles Songs depicts her clothed only in a hat and black stockings.

The number was featured on the Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Several other artists, including Fats Domino and Roy Wood, have recorded it.

Lovers That Never Were, The

A track on the Off The Ground album, lasting 3 minutes and 41 seconds, which was co-penned by Paul and Elvis Costello.

Low Park Farm

A farm that Paul bought in 1970 to add to his Scottish acres and to stop trespassers gaining access to the adjacent High Park Farm.

Low, Mr

A Merseyside journalist, first name unknown, who Paul wrote to in 1959.

The Beatles had met a journalist called Low in a public house and Paul, always conscious of the value of publicity, wrote him a letter about the group, although facts had been altered to make himself seem more colourful.

There is no record of whether Low ever replied, nor any details of which paper he worked for, although it seems likely that it was the Liverpool Echo or Liverpool Daily Post, neither of which would have entertained the idea of writing about an unknown local rock group.

Paul had still retained notes from his original letter, although there were gaps. Parts of it read:

Dear Mr Low,

I am sorry about the time I have taken to write to you, but I hope I have not left it too late. Here are some details about the group:

It consists of four boys: Paul McCartney (guitar), John Lennon (guitar), Stuart Sutcliffe (bass) and George Harrison (another guitar) and is called the ...

This line-up may at first seem dull but it must be appreciated that as the boys have above-average instrumental ability they achieve surprisingly varied effects. Their basic beat is off-beat, but this has recently tended to be accompanied by a faint on-beat; thus the overall sound is rather reminiscent of the four in the bar of traditional jazz. This could possibly be put down to the influence of Mr McCartney who led one of the top local jazz bands (Jim Mac's Jazz Band) in the 1920s.

Modern music is, however, the group's delight, and, as if to prove the point, John and Paul have written over fifty tunes, ballads and faster numbers during the last three years. Some of these tunes are purely instrumental (such as 'Looking Glass', 'Catswalk' and 'Winston's Walk') and others were composed with the modern audience in mind (tunes like 'Thinking Of Linking', 'The One After 909', 'Years Roll Along' and 'Keep Looking That Way').

The group also derive a great deal of pleasure from rearranging old favourites ('Ain't She Sweet', 'You Were Meant For Me', 'Home', 'Moonglow', 'You Are My Sunshine' and others).

Now for a few details about the boys themselves. John, who leads the group, attends the College of Art, and, as well as being an accomplished guitarist and banjo player, he is an experienced cartoonist. His many interests include painting, the theatre, poetry, and of course, singing. He is nineteen years old and is a founder member of the group.

Paul is eighteen years old and is reading English literature at Liverpool University. He, like the other boys, plays more than one instrument - his specialities being the piano and drums, plus of course ...

Lowe, John

A former member of the Quarry Men, nicknamed 'Duff, who was with the group when they recorded their first record 'That'll Be The Day'/'In Spite Of All The Danger' at Percy Philips Studio in Kensington, Liverpool. The group only bought one copy of the disc, which was passed around to each of them and Lowe was the last to receive it. He rediscovered the disc in a drawer and put it up for auction in 1981. Paul took out a High Court writ to ban the sale and was successful. He then paid Lowe an undisclosed sum for the original.

Lucky Spot

The name of an Appaloosa stallion that Paul bought for Linda in 1976. The Appaloosa is a native American steed of the Nez Perce Indian tribe. Wings were touring America and they were in Texas on the way to a gig when Paul and Linda saw the horse grazing by the roadside. They were so struck by the animal that they immediately made enquiries. Paul bought the horse as a surprise for Linda and had the stallion flown to Britain.

Linda said, 'When we were on our farm in Scotland, I looked out of the window one day and there was Lucky Spot.

'Some people could look at him and think he looks like a puppy dog compared to a great thoroughbred, but I say, "I could trade you for any horse in the world, I could trade you for the greatest hunting thoroughbred or whatever - but it's you I want."'

Lulu

British singer born Marie MacDonald McLaughlin Lawrie on 3 November 1948 in Glasgow, Scotland.

Her numerous hits have included 'Shout', 'The Boat That I Row', 'To Sir With Love' and 'The Man Who Sold The World'.

Paul was a guest on Lulu's national lottery show 'Red Alert' on Saturday 13 November 1999. He was promoting his Run Devil Run album and was backed by the same team who had backed him on the album, with the exception of Dave Gilmour, who was unable to appear. The house guitarist from the show took his part.

Paul and Lulu sang a duet on 'Brown Eyed Handsome Man' and "Party' and the band backed Paul on 'No Other Baby'.

Paul was later to team up with Lulu to record a track for her come back album in 2002 in which she recorded duets with a number of other artists including Cliff Richard, Elton John, Sting, Joe Cocker, Bobby Womack, Samantha Mumba, Westlife, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight and Marti Pellow. The number she performed with Paul is 'Inside Thing', which runs for 5 minutes and 2 seconds and was produced by Lukas Burton. It's a club-style dance track based on 'Let 'Em In'.

The album Lulu Together was released on 20 May 2002 on Mercury 063021 2.

Lulu was also one of Paul's guests when he hosted a party at Cavendish Avenue on Saturday 7 July 2001.

Lunchbox & Odd Sox

A number recorded for the Venus And Mars album during the Los Angeles recording sessions in February 1975. It didn't find its way onto that album but was released as a track on the flipside of the 1980 single 'Coming Up'. A second version of 'Coming Up', which had been recorded in Glasgow, had been placed on the flipside and was followed by the 3-minute 47-second 'Lunchbox & Odd Sox'.

Lutton, Davy

A drummer who played on the recording session for Linda's 'Seaside Woman' in France in 1972. Paul, Linda, Denny Laine and Jimmy McCuIloch were also on the session. Lutton later auditioned for the drum spot in Wings, but didn't get it.

Lyceum Theater, New York

A theatre in the Broadway district of New York where Paul held a press conference and rehearsals on 24 August 1989.

The conference began at 2.30 p.m. and Paul and the Paul McCartney Band previewed some numbers from their forthcoming tour, performing 'Figure Of Eight', 'This One' and 'Coming Up' before 400 reporters and around 20 camera crews. Following the performance he returned to the stage for a question and answer session which lasted for approximately 40 minutes.

Paul revealed that he had thought of having young bands from each city he visited opening up the concert, but decided against it. He mentioned that he'd asked director Richard Lester to compile a film retrospective of his career that would be shown on large screens prior to his performance. He talked about performing Beatles numbers such as 'Hey Jude' and 'Sgt Pepper', commenting, that what was 'interesting about some of the Beatles stuff was that I'd never actually performed it on stage before, something like 'Sgt Pepper', we only recorded that and we never got to do it with the Beatles 'cause we'd stopped touring at that time. And I didn't realise that when I chose them and then we'd get up on stage and I'd say, "I've never done this one before." So that's nice, because they're fresh for me even though they're older songs.'

Discussing the lawsuit he'd filed against the Beatles to dissolve the partnership and his current relations with the surviving members, he said, 'I think we're settled. Everything's there, ready to be signed, and we finally, after about twenty years, have sorted it all out. So we're hoping to sign that very soon.'

With the tour, Paul had given a forum to Friends Of The Earth to present their views with literature and merchandise at the concerts. A 100-page colour souvenir booklet would be available free of charge and the name 'Friends Of The Earth' would appear on all tickets and merchandise.

He also mentioned that he was looking for a sponsor for the tour, which would cost in the region of $24 million. 'We're really looking around for a sponsor that kind of fits rather than just taking the first one that comes along and says we'll offer you a lot of money,' he said. 'On this tour, we're offering a platform to these people in England called Friends Of The Earth in an effort to make the tour mean some thing. You know, once we've been round this world, I'd like to kind of get back and think, well, we said a few important things rather than just "drink this product". So it's not that we're against sponsors. I just want to find somebody who we're kind of proud to be associated with rather than just sheer commercialisation.'

Paul discussed merchandising. 'We'll do merchandising and stuff. Because the idea is, if you don't, there'll be people at the gig who will have it and it'll be just cheap, shoddy stuff. So you've kind of got to do it. But the booklet we're giving away is just an idea that was cooked up by my manager when we were planning the tour. It's basically that you're just going to have on everyone's seat a free kind of groovy programme. And in it we can sort of address certain issues, tell them about the band and stuff. We're just going to see if it works. I think it's quite a nice idea, myself. You know, rather than having to buy a $10 programme. There's just one there. It's included in the ticket price.'

He was asked about the possibility of performing in Russia. 'Yeah, I'd like to go to Russia and there's every chance of getting over there, particularly now that we've released the album over there and it did well. We looked into doing dates there, but it's the weather. It really is. It's like Napoleon and Hitler both had the same problem. We opted for Italy instead. It's just warmer! But one of these days we'll get there when they have a warm spell.'

Paul was also asked if he'd have any guest performances during the forthcoming tour. 'It's really down to who shows up. If somebody like Elvis Costello shows up at a gig, or even Elvis Presley ... no, no, come on, that's a cheap shot. But he's been spotted you know ... I'll play with anyone who wants to sort of get up and have a bit of fun, but there's no plans for that. That just happens of its own accord. At one point we were thinking of doing some dates with an orchestra. It's something I've never done and I'd quite like to do it, some of the songs would lend themselves to it, but we decided not to do that on this tour. We just may later do one or two special gigs, you know, like Carnegie

Hall with George Martin and orchestra would be good. But we haven't got plans for that. Maybe in the future.'

Regarding the songs he'd picked for the tour repertoire, he said he'd sat down and asked himself: 'What would I like to see him play if I was just somebody coming to the show ... and I wrote a list of about 35 songs that were what I considered to be some of my best songs. And we just chose from that. So, basically, we chose from the rock-'n'-roll period: pre-Beatles, then Beatles period, Wings period and then the new album.'

A 6 p.m. rehearsal concert took place at the theatre with an audience of 800. They included a hundred people who'd been queuing outside the theatre, together with members of the Wings Fun Club. They joined celebrities, radio contest winners and Capital Records personnel. Celebrities included Axl Rose, Raquel Welch, Ralph Laurel and Lome Michaels.

Paul and his band played 18 songs during an 80-minute rehearsal and the numbers were: 'Figure Of Eight', 'Jet', 'Rough Ride', 'Got To Get You Into My Life', 'Band On The Run', 'We Got Married'. Paul then played acoustic guitar on 'Put It There' and 'Hello Goodbye'. He then played lead guitar on 'Summertime' and shared lead with Robbie Mclntosh on 'Can't Buy Me Love'. He played his Hofner bass on 'I Saw Her Standing There', with Hamish Stuart on lead. 'This One', 'My Brave Face' and 'Twenty Flight Rock' followed and then Paul played piano on 'The Long And Winding Road', 'Ain't That A Shame' and 'Let It Be'. During 'Let It Be' he sang 'Julie Andrews comes to me' rather than 'Mother Mary comes to me'. He encored with 'Coming Up'.

Lympne Castle

A medieval castle, which overlooks the English Channel, built near to an old Roman fort in Kent. Paul and Wings recorded tracks for their Back To The Egg album at the castle between Tuesday 11 and Thursday 20 September 1979. They recorded 'We're Open Tonight' in the well of an old stone spiral staircase and Steve Holly's drums were situated in the fireplace of the great hall. A number of songs were recorded in the kitchen and Paul performed an acoustic guitar solo at the foot of a spiral staircase.

Other numbers recorded there included 'Love Awake', 'After The Ball' and 'Million Miles'. The castle's owners at the time were Harold and Deirdre Margary who made several literary readings that were also recorded and their voices were mixed in with two group instrumentals, 'Reception' and 'The Broadcast'.

Paul and the band returned to Lympne Castle for further recordings in May 1979.

Lynne, Jeff

A musician/record producer born in Birmingham on 30 December 1947. His first band was Mike Sheridan and the Nightriders, followed

by the Idle Race and the Move. In the bands a co-member was Roy Wood, who he teamed up with to form ELO (the Electric Light Orchestra). During the 1980s he began to involve himself more in studio production and produced albums for various artists, a break through coming in 1987 when he was asked to produce George Harrison's comeback album Cloud Nine. He also produced albums by artists such as Tom Petty and Roy Orbison and was also a member of the Travelin' Wilburys.

Lynne was asked to produce the new Beatles singles 'Real Love' and 'Free As A Bird'. Later on, this led to Paul McCartney requesting him to work with him on the album Flaming Pie and Jeff co-produced eight of the tracks with him. He also produced Paul performing the Buddy Holly number 'Maybe Baby' in Los Angeles in 1999, a number used in the film soundtrack of Maybe Baby.

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