Frits Spits - Het McCartney Interview

Dit heb je vast al wel gelezen denk ik.

Zit er trouwens copyright op een radio interview? Anyway, ik zal proberen een transcriptie te maken.

[Dit bericht is gewijzigd door Jane op 29-04-2003 23:00]

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PM: "Welcome listeners of Radio 2, KRO's Time For Two, and this is an hour with me. That's Paul McCartney. "

* Hello Goodbye

FS: "Back in the world. Hello goodbye. Luisteraars opnieuw goedemiddag. Het was bijna een surrealistische ervaring afgelopen vrijdagmiddag. Ik zou Paul McCartney ontmoeten. Lid van de belangrijkste popgroep die de wereld ooit heeft gekend. Held van mijn jeugd, van een generatie waarvan ik deel uitmaak. Hij is met Ringo Starr de enige Beatle die nog in leven is.
Ik moest lang wachten vrijdag. Ik werd keurig ontvangen door de perschef van McCartney en door de man die verantwoordelijk is voor de tour. Ik werd in een kleedkamer gezet die was gedrapeerd met donkerpaarse kleden met daarop in een driehoek naar beneden gerichte kleurrijke Indiase doeken. Het licht was gedimd. Er brandden kaarsen. Op de tafel stonden flessen met water, een fles Rioja wijn en een groot diep bord met nootjes. McCartney laat in elke plaats waar hij komt zijn kleedkamers precies hetzelfde inrichten. Daar zijn vier mensen acht uur mee bezig. Een waar circus is zijn tournee. 137 man zijn erbij betrokken en dat alles met een stilmakende professionaliteit. Alles gebeurt op tijd. Iedereen weet wat 'ie moet doen. Niemand komt de ruimte in die er niets te zoeken heeft.
Vorig jaar tourde McCartney met veel succes door de Verenigde Staten en dit jaar doet hij Europa aan. En hij was nu onderweg naar Arnhem, het Gelredome, Het was druk op de Nederlandse wegen vrijdag. In een witte limousine arriveerde hij tenslotte rond kwart over zes. Hij begon onmiddellijk aan een soundcheck. Een eerste huiver. Hij zong Lady Madonna. Op het levensgrote scherm achter hem lichtten zijn favoriete vrouwen op. We herkenden de gezichten van Marilyn Monroe, Aretha Franklin, Anne Frank... Zijn madonna's. Hij groette de luisteraars van Radio 2 die waren uitgenodigd, hij speelde op verschillende gitaren en hij klom achter de piano. Daarna werd ik naar zijn kleedkamer geleid.
Paul kwam binnen. Je zou hem geen zestig geven en hij had zo te zien geen kunstgrepen toegepast om dat voor elkaar te krijgen. Hij droeg een zachtgeel colbert en was geheel ontspannen. Meer ontspannen dan ik was, want ik realiseerde me ineens hoe belangrijk hij voor me is. Hij heeft mijn leven muzikaal ingevuld en veel van mijn radioprogramma's de moeite waard gemaakt. Enige dankbaarheid is toch wel op z'n plaats.
's Avonds zag ik een geweldig concert. Een jongensachtige McCartney die Hollands sprak zoals de Paus dat doet. Die voortdurend zijn eigen grootheid relativeert door potsierlijk met z'n gitaar te pronken en vuurwerk dat uitbundig knalt bij Live And Let Die belachelijk te maken. Af en toe stonden de tranen in mijn ogen. Ik zag delen van de soundtrack van mijn eigen leven en ik was niet de enige met dat soort gevoelens. De huiver sidderde door het uitgelaten Gelredome. Veel Beatleliedjes, sommige bracht hij voor het eerst in Nederland tijdens een concert. Liedjes van Sgt. Pepper's bijvoorbeeld, waaronder één van zijn allermooiste songs, She's Leaving Home. Maar ook de tributes aan John en George, de twee overleden Beatles en zijn overleden echtgenote Linda. En natuurlijk ook één voor zijn nieuwe liefde Heather Mills.
En veel te vragen. En natuurlijk veel te weinig tijd. Dit uur is een neerslag van het gesprek dat ik had met Paul en dat niet langer mocht duren dan 18 minuten en 16 seconden. Ik ga niet alles vertalen, maar in de aanloop naar de verschillende blokken zal ik aangeven waar ik het met hem over ga hebben.
[...]
Paul McCartney's muziek, zijn antwoorden. Ik begon met een nieuwsbericht van vrijdag in de Nederlandse kranten dat meldde hij de rijkste popmuzikant van Groot Brittannië is. Ik vroeg hem of hem dat wat kon schelen."

PM: "No. (grinnikt) I read that too in the British newspapers. You know what it is... The London Times makes a list every year and they make it up. And I don't know whether that's true or not. Ehm, you know what... it's not what I'm trying to be. I'm trying to be a good musician. And if that happens on the way, then that's OK, but I'm not really interested in that side of it. But it's a good story for them, you know, they list everyone. "
FS: "But you don't care about that?"
PM: "No. Can't buy me love..."

* Can't Buy Me Love
* Jet

FS: "Paul McCartney, tegenover me in zijn speciaal ingerichte kleedkamer. Buitengewoon bereidwillig om mee te werken aan het interview.
[...]
Ik vroeg hem of hij de vele Beatleliedjes die hij zingt in het programma ook de allerbeste Beatleliedjes vindt."

PM: "No, you know what it is, within the Beatles there were my songs, there were John's songs, there were George's songs and there were Ringo's songs. And it mainly was, whoever sang them became your song. Ehm, with me and John, the ones I do it's mainly the ones I wrote. Mainly... So if I do something like Eleanor Rigby, that would mean I kind of worked on the song and brought it to John and he might have helped me. He did help me finish the song. But with something like Strawberry Fields, that was John's song and he would work on it, nearly finish it and bring it to me. And I might work on a little bit. So that became John's song. So the songs that I do in the show are all the songs that were kind of my songs from the Beatles, like Hey Jude, Let It Be, Can't Buy Me Love. Those are the ones that I sang in the Beatles. And it's not just.... I like plenty of John's songs but I wouldn't really do Nowhere Man or A Day In The Life."
FS: "Why not?"
PM: "Well, just 'cause it's John's song. And you know, it doesn't mean I couldn't at a future date, but I've got enough of my own.
FS: "Do you sing them in a different way?"
PM: "I'm sure I must do them differently yeah, because the thing is... I don't actually compare them. When we come to do this, I maybe, at the rehearsal, I'll maybe just listen to the record once. To just see how it goes and how fast it is. And just roughly how I sing it. But I don't analyse and concentrate to try to sing it exactly right. Ehm, I think I'm singing them exactly how I wrote them, but there's an awful lot of water gone under the bridge, so I'm probably not. I think analysts would say 'No you sing this...' But it seems the same to me."
FS: "All My Loving, a song you wrote, do you remember when you wrote that song?"
PM: "Yeah. I remember exactly. That was one of the only songs I've ever done where the words came first. And I was on a bus. A tourbus, with the tour. And I thought of these words like I was thinking of a little poem, kind of a little simple lyric. 'Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, tomorrow I'll miss you, dum dum dum dum" I was just thinking it on the bus and I couldn't wait to get to the gig so that I could get a musical instument. I didn't have an instrument on the bus. So I got to a guitar and started to put the tune to it when I got to the gig. But I actually wrote that on the tourbus.
FS: "And do you remember for whom you wrote that song?"
PM: "(zingt) 'Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, dum dum dum dum' No.
FS: "And when you finished the song, recorded it, do you remember first hearing it when it was ready?"
PM: "Yeah, I do, yeah. I'll tell you what, I mean, some songs I didn't write for a particular girlfriend. Some songs you write for, ehhh, the audience. So eh, you don't always write it for one person. You sometimes just write it for 'girls'. You know, a guy might write a song for 'girls', so any girl out there that age would have qualified for that. But I do remember when I heard the play back, liking the guitar part that John put on. (doet gitaar na) That thing was really nice. And then I particularly remember hearing it on the radio, where a DJ in England called David Jacobs played it and he said 'Oh, this is my favourite. I love this.' And it was one of the first times we had heard our stuff on the radio and he was going so overboard on it, that it was like 'Wow!'. I'll always remember that moment."
FS: "And do you still have those kind of moments when you hear yourself on the radio?"
PM: "Yeah, I do yeah. I was listening to the British charts about two weeks ago and I didn't know our album was on them. 'Cause you know, I didn't really keep up. But I knew it had been released and wasn't sure if we were on it, so I was listening to the charts. And they were going 'Number 20, number 19, 18' and all that, and round about number 12 our album was on there, so I went 'Yeahhhh. Great!'.
FS: "Still great?"
PM: "I love it. Sure. Yeah, why not?"

* All My Loving
* Eleanor Rigby

FS: (over het net gedraaide nummer) "Het begon op de plaat en daarna lieten we horen hoe het live klonk en het is ongelooflijk wat hij live waarmaakt."
"Sir Paul McCartney. Geen kapsones. Geestig en af en toe een pestkop. Maar ook zeer betrokken bij de wereld en dat waren de Beatles natuurlijk ook al. Misschien was John Lennon daar nog meer een exponent van dan Paul, maar Paul doet eigenlijk niet voor hem onder. Hij schenkt een song, Calico Skies, aan War Child voor de kinderen in Irak. Hij praat zeer genuanceerd over die oorlog daar.
[...]
"Ik vroeg Paul McCartney ook of we hem beter zouden leren kennen als we onafgebroken naar zijn liedjes zouden luisteren"
PM: (grinnikt) "I don't think so, Frits. (ze lachen) No, I don't think so, darling. But no tongues, OK? (lachen)
FS: "So I don't get to know anything about your character?"
PM: "I don't know. The thing is, you may do. I think, I suppose you would get to know me better if that was all you were going to do. Because that's all you'd be listening to, so you'd be listening to my words, my music... you'd be listening to sort of... me... So I suppose if I'd read nothing but Charles Dickens novels, I suppose I'd get to know him better, yeah.
FS: "What kind of character would we get to know when we listen to your songs?"
PM: "With me? I'm a lover, I'm a family man, I believe in justice, I believe in peace, I like romance, I like melody, ehhm... and I like interesting fun ideas. So I suppose that's me, what you'd get to know.
FS: "You talk about peace. War and peace. You donated a song to War Child, as George Martin did also, for the children of Iraq. Why did you do that?"
PM: "For number one, I was asked to. Somebody said 'Would you do that?' and at first I thought that there wasn't gonna be time, because I thought they wanted me to write a new song and everything. But the morning we were doing a rehearsal, the guy rang me and he said 'No, it could be anything. We just want a track.'. And I said, OK, come over to rehearsal, 'cause we were recording some of the stuff we were doing at rehearsal. And there was one of the songs which speaks about anti-war, 'may we never be called to handle weapons of war we despise', which is a song called Calico Skies. So I said 'come on over' and I talked to the sound guy before the other guy got there and I said 'Have we got a good recording of that?' and he said yeah, so I said 'here you go' and gave it to him. But I did it because I thought it was a good cause, I liked the song and I liked the recording and.... Because I was asked to."
FS: "What's your opinion about the war in Iraq? Were you pro or contra?"
PM: "Ehm... I think it's too difficult to just say you were pro or contra. I'm against dictators like Saddam Houssein I think the difficulty was that after 9-11 America in particular was looking for someone to strike back at and they then chose terrorism as a whole. And I think then the next difficulty was that it was really a United Nations problem. 'Cause United Nations had told Saddam to disarm and Saddam wasn't disarming and he'd been ordered to by 'the club' as it were, you know. The World Club. So it was thought to be a good idea to get rid of him and to disarm him... and he did flaunt the rules.... I think it's a very difficult call... I think America and Britain going in early was a very difficult situation to call. It would have been better if we'd had a second resolution and everyone, the whole of the UN had agreed. But I think, having said that, I think it's a good thing that he's got rid of. And I hope, my best hope is, that it will be a good thing for the people of Iraq, you know. Particularly the women who may now get good educations, who may get to see some real freedom."
FS: "It gives hope..."
PM: "I think so. I hope for something better for Iraq. I think, I believe the people are probably great people."
FS: "Do you think pop musicians, like you are, have any political influence? Any political power?"
PM: "Ehm...probably on some things they do... I think John Lennon did with 'Give peace a chance' in the Vietnam war. I think that was a very strong influence. Ehm, I think there have been some things that we as the Beatles have done that have had some influence. I've done one or two things. I did 'Give Ireland back to the Irish' and, you know, unfortunately it hasn't been done, but hopefully someday it will and I would hope then that my little song had some influence. I think it's... you don't write it so much wanting to have influence. You write it wanting to give your point of view, as a personal point of view. It's a statement. And if you're a painter you make a painting for Amnesty or something and you're just making a statement. You are saying 'This is who I am'.
FS: "So, important enough. How global are you?"
PM: "Hmm, well you know, I think it is good really, I mean the Beatles never went to Russia, but their influence in Russia - maybe not one song - but the influence of the freedom that the Beatles stood for... I think.... I hear from some very high up Russian people and some people who knew what went on, that it was a lot to do.... That kind of thing, that kind of freedom that the Russians were seeing had a lot to do with the changes that we now see in Russia.and the fall of communism. Now communism is a great idea, but it's very difficult to make it work.

* Back In The USSR
* She's Leaving Home _{(voor Frits het hoogtepunt van het concert)}

FS: "We lieten de live opname overgaan in de plaatopname uit '67 van het onvergetelijke album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Die liedjes van dat album zong Paul McCartney voor het eerst in Nederland live en tijdens zijn Amerikaanse tournee sowieso voor het eerst op de buhne.

"Vrijdagavond, Gelredome Arnhem. Een uur voor het optreden in gesprek met Paul McCartney. Hij sprak al over zijn Beatleliedjes, zijn politieke betrokkenheid en tenslotte spreek ik met hem over zijn inspiratie."
[...]
"Maar ik begin over de plek waar hij werkelijk woont, immers hij is een man van de wereld."
PM: "My home is England"
FS: "England?"
PM: "Uhuh"
FS: "Arizona, or..."
PM: "No, England. Arizona's not in England, Frits!"
(ze lachen)
PM: "Come on, man!"
FS: "I know..."
PM: "It isn't, no, but I live in England."
FS: "Do you write your songs at home?"
PM: "I write some songs at home. I often write songs on holiday. 'Cause that's the most sustained period I get when I'm sort of doing nothing. And there's no office, and there's no rehearsals, and there's no touring. So when I'm on holiday, I kinda like... like I was just in the Maldives after new year, this year. So in the morning I'll have a swim and we... eh... you know do all the normal things you do. But in the afternoon when it quiets down I may take an opportunity to write a song then. "
FS: "You still have the inspiration?"
PM: "Oh yeah. Yeah, I love it. It's something I love to do. I think it's magical. It's a magical thing you know."
FS: "What is the magic?"
PM: "I think the mystery is what's magical. Because... I love just picking up a guitar and playing. It seems magical to me that that sound comes out of a guitar. So I still have a sense of wonder about that. And then if some words or a little tune or a title ore some idea comes out and I'm able through my years of sort of... this craft that I have... if I'm able to put that into a song it seems like magic to me."
FS: "Do you still surprise yourself?"
PM: "Yeah, I do. It always surprises me."
FS: "What was the most surprising song you wrote?"
PM: "Yesterday. Because I woke up with it. In my head. I dreamed and I woke up one morning and I had this tune (neuriet) I thought 'What is that?' you know. I had a piano by my bed so I started playing the piano with it, and put some chords to it and then over the next couple of weeks I wrote the words. But I took it to John and said 'What is this?' and he said 'I don't know, but it's OK', took it to George Martin and said 'What is this?' and he said 'I don't know, but it's OK', took it to a lot of friends and they said 'No...' In the end I thought I must have written it, but I just dreamed it. I woke up and it was in my head, (grinnikt) That's magic, you know. If you do that, and it has a succes - Yesterday has been covered by over 3000 people - I put that down to magic.
FS: "You're 61, almost 64..."
PM: "Yeah...wait a minute, I'm not 61 yet. I'm 60, soon to be 61. And then 64, and then 65..."
FS: "But you once sang about 64..."
PM: "Yeah. 'When I get older, losing my hair, many years from now' (grinnikt) But I still have it. I wonder will I still have it when I'm sixty four. Who knows folks? But yeah, 64 seemed... you know what it was, it was one year before retirement age. 65 in England is the official... you retire. So if you work in a factory, at 65 you stop. And you just go into the garden or somewhere. And for me 64, when I was probably about 24 ... In fact I wrote the words when I was about 24, but I wrote the tune when I was about 16. Before the Beatles and everything. So yeah, it seemed a long long way away. It's getting closer all the time. Haha. But you know, to me age doesn't matter. I don't mind."
FS: "You go on"
PM: "Well I don't know about that, but I think it's a frame of mind. You know, I don't feel any older now than when I felt when I was 30. Ehm, and you know I do these songs and I don't do them any slower or I don't lower the key. It's exactly the same as I used to do them. So I'm very lucky. I'm touching wood here, knocking on wood as we talk (klopt op tafel o.i.d.) because you know I think it's very lucky and I think I'm very blessed. Because if you had asked me when I was 24, would I still be singing and still be succesful I might have said 'No I don't think so. I'll probably have retired by then'. But I don't want it really. I like what I do. I LOVE what I do. And I think if you come to the show tonight you'll see it's a love thing. (Amerikaans accent) It's a love thang, baby! And we love what we do, you know. The band loves it and the audience love it. So that's it. It's a passion for me."

* Yesterday

FS: "Songwriting is magic, en dat was het dan. Toen meldde de persman van Paul McCartney dat het gesprek echt afgelopen moest zijn. En dan is het ook afgelopen. En toen ging 'ie nog wel even met me op de foto dus binnenkort hopen we die foto op internet te kunnen zetten. (lacht) Enne...dat was het dan. Ik zal het in ieder geval nooit vergeten..."

* The Long And Winding Road

[Dit bericht is gewijzigd door Jane op 30-04-2003 03:32]

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Op woensdag 30 april 2003 03:03 schreef webfreak het volgende:
Mijn dank is groot!

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Heb je 'm zo onthouden?

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had 'm tot nu toe nog niet gevonden.

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Op woensdag 30 april 2003 03:22 schreef webfreak het volgende:
Maar ik ga 'm uitprinten nu, m'n ogen beginnen te branden .

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Welterusten alvast!

Ik heb de uitzending helaas ook gemist, maar leuk om te lezen.

http://www.kro.nl/tijdvoortwee/natafelen.asp

Voor wie het (nog) eens wil beluisteren (en kijken of ik het allemaal wel goed heb opgeschreven ).

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Op woensdag 30 april 2003 10:30 schreef Seborik het volgende:
Bedankt Jane!

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Op woensdag 30 april 2003 10:27 schreef Zander iets zonder Matrix icoontje:

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Op donderdag 15 mei 2003 20:59 schreef SunChaser het volgende:

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Toch bedankt voor de moeite, iig.