The folloing article appeared in "Beatles Color Pinup Album" which is a publication of the editors of Teen Screen magazine. This article is from the year 1964.The good-looking Beatle is Paul McCartney. Born in Liverpool the eighteenth of June 1942, his real name is James Paul McCartney. He has black hair, though some prefer to call it dark brown! He has hazel eyes and stands 5'11" tall. He like to wear high-collared shirts, tight trousers and black socks.
"Success hasn't changed him at all. He the unspoiled big-head he always was"...thinks George.
"He nearly ruined my career...started teaching my the guitar back to front!", says John.
"Ah, the left-handers are brainy...yes, in fact, he is the Brainy Beatle!", laughs Ringo.
All three of the other Beatles say..."he's a ridiculously good-humoured nit!!!"
Now, let's give Paul a chance to say something about Paul.
I've had a pretty good life. There were moments I do not relish. Yet all in all, life has been good.
You see, Mum died when I was fourteen. That was a big tragedy. She would have been so proud of us if she had lived to see us become famous. Aside from that, life has been great! Except when I was a kid and tried to learn everything back to front. Being left-handed, I used to write backwards.
Whenever school-masters would look at me, I could see the little fits they tried so hard not to let on to. There were difficulties outside school, too! I could never learn to ride my bike...because I kept pedalling backwards. Being quite convinced that mine was the right way, and everybody else's the wrong. Then, Dad would say. "Why is it that they are getting along the road fine, and you are still here?"
"That's a point," then I thought I might be wrong!
The one thing I could not cure myself of was lefthandedness. I do everything with my left hand, and no matter how I try, I can't change the habit.
A doctor once told me that I don't have to, because being left-handed has something to do with the brain. Maybe my brain is in the wrong way. Or maybe it has slipped!
While in the Liverpool Institute, George Harrison, it was not too active, my brain that is! During English lessons it came in left-handy. But math and geography! It just wouldn't function at all.
My main interest in school those days was the Boy Scout movement. From the first moment I joined the Cubs, I wanted to go to camp. Finally, at eleven, Dad and Mum said, "Yes, you may go!"
I loved being at camp. We would eat cooked bread. Afterwards was great too, we'd sit be the camp fire, bundled in blankets to keep warm, and sing songs to the banjo.
With the good comes the bad! Have you heard of the Great London Plague? Well, I developed the Great McCartney Rash!!!
My stay in the hospital lasted five weeks. They were not certain from what I was suffering.
John, George and I went on a hitch-hiking holiday, when I was fifteen. We hopped a lorry. George and John got on first, me being last, had to sit on part of the engine which was in the cab. After a few miles on my way, I thought out loud, "Cor, it's hot in hear!"
"You look red," John replied. "Maybe you got the Great Rash!", they both laughed. A few minutes later, I glanced down and saw my trousers were set afire. A started to rip them off!
"Just because you're feeling hot, do you have to run around stark naked?" asked John. "I'm on fire!" I screamed!
Instantly they were to the rescue. It turned out I had been sitting on the battery. One of the cables shorted with the snaps on my jeans, setting me afire.
Later, when we told Dad, he didn't half laugh!
One days I'm going to buy Dad a beautiful house. But my aunties object. They think a small house is bad enough with all my things littered all over! Shoes on the doormat, coats over the banisters, guitars on the landing!
Dad helped me a lot with my career. He likes our kind of music. But of course, it is a bit out of the way for a razzamatazz chap like him.
One day I'll get married, but I don't know when, I'll just wait until the right one comes along. Then it will just happen! Mostly I like girls with long hair and fine features. A kind nature is important. Anyway, she must at least like a fab house, with silk wallpaper and fitted carpets, and a swimming pool shaped like a guitar.
I'll come home at night from a show...she'll be waiting! The fire will be ablaze, and my wife will be curled up on our enormous couch! And I hope there will be some little McCartneys upstairs, waiting for a goodnight kiss. There is only one problem! I can't fit in the girl's face. Maybe she'll be an entertainer, or a journalist, or perhaps a fan. I don't know...and I will in the meantime keep my eyes on the front row.
Everybody likes to know what we like and dislike. In eating, I like cheese slices, steaks and chips; in music, any well-performed type. I like television, cars, Little Richard, and all girls who can make intelligent conversation. I love song writing and painting and girls. Shaving is not fab or gear to me!!
Most thrilling is back stage. Just before we go on! Someone says..."You're on", then the applause is thunderous. I get a tremendous kick out of the shouts and screams. It's great up there on the stage. We all four love it!
Sometimes we chat between songs...Ringo will shout..."On with the show"!!!! O.K.! as the second number comes up, the lights dim! We go the dressing room route.
We wait for the second performance. John lies on the floor singing to his feet. George listens to the radio. Ringo watches telly. Someone should tell him he is not a gun...then, maybe he wouldn't shout "BANG! BANG!" every few minutes. Me? I just think of the steak I shall eat after the second performance.
At last the curtain falls. The show has come to a close. We pick up our things...it's been a long haul! Loud guitars, throbbing drums, shrill shouts of love...as usual, I love every minute of it.
We go back to the hotel room, surrounded by security guard. Not because we like it that way. We don't! It's for our protection. We would like to go out and meet the fans one by one. But they tell us we would not last more than a few minutes. I can't agree with that. They would probably just tear our clothes to shreads.
So, once in our rooms, we have an occasional pillow fight, watch the telly or read! It is not too exciting! Often I wish we were back in the good old days of just doing a show in some small town...having a quiet date afterwards. But I am glad it is this way, too!
It isn't true, that because we are successful we are unapproachable. We are not.
Along with John, I write all the songs for the Beatles. We have turned out over one hundred tunes since the group was organized.
"I can't explain it, but when I meet some of the old mates, they don't seem quite the same. They have a different attitude towards me. Perhaps they think we've all gone big-time since getting into the charts, I don't know. But they're wrong.
I am still the same! I am still fond of art, and some day I hope to earn enough money so I can invest in my brother's hairdressing business. I got my diploma in art, and am still interested in the subject. I often sketch when we're on tour, that is, when not writing songs or go-karting!
John was playing with several other musicians, when I asked if I could sit in and that was the beginning. This was when I was fifteen. It must have been pure chance that I met John. My mother was a district nurse, and we used to move from time to time because of her work. One of our moves brought me in contact with John.
The sudden rise of the Beatles to fame is something I thought a great deal about. We were talking about this the other day. when you are about eleven, you begin to wonder what you are going to do. I've often thought about what would happen to me. My plans were to go on playing the clubs until I reach the ripe old age of 25. Then I plan on gong to John's Art College and hang on there for a couple of years.
I never dreamt about being discovered or anything like that. I always thought discovery was something you read about.
At present, Paul McCartney and the Beatles are being read about and studied. Paul realizes this but he can't answer why. One critic tried to explain their success by saying "They have a sound which can only be written as Whooo. It is today's version of the eternal cry of youth."
Paul McCartney said the Beatles have no message and aren't trying to deliver one. They have nothing new to say about girls; except, "we like them"!
About war, "They should put the politicans in the ring and let 'em fight it out"; or politics, "It's like beer=we don't like the taste."