McCartney channels inspiration into ‘Full’ slate

DETROIT - As far as Paul McCartney is concerned, words like “take it easy” are reserved for the Eagles.

During the past three years alone the ex-Beatle has released a pair of pop albums — the Grammy-nominated “Chaos and Creation in the Backyard” in 2005 and this year’s “Memory Almost Full” — as well as the 2006 classical piece “Ecce Cor Meum.” Sir Paul also collaborated on albums by Tony Bennett, George Benson and Al Jarreau and George Michael.

This fall McCartney released an expanded edition of “Memory Almost Full,” adding three bonus tracks and a second disc of videos and live footage, along with a three-DVD retrospective of his solo career, “The McCartney Years,” that’s loaded with rare and unreleased material. And he had a piece in the DVD rollout of the Beatles’ “Help.”

There are musicians a third his age (65) who aren’t working at nearly the same level, and we can rest assured that the days of “doing the garden, digging the weeds” are still a long way off for this knighted former mop top.

Q: What accounts for the creative spurt you seem to be on the past few years?

Paul McCartney: “It’s simple: I really enjoy what I do. And every so often I just get sort of inspired. I never know why or how, but I think one of the great things is that music is a great healer and it’s a great sort of therapy. Often if you’re going through something difficult — as you can imagine without me laying too much of a point on it, this last year’s been pretty difficult — to get into your music is a great thing. So I think the last couple years I’ve been very glad to have my music and I’ve been putting stuff into it that seems to have added up to something.”

Q: Do you feel like you’re getting inspiration as well as healing from these hard times?

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McCartney: “I think that’s true. You look at the lives of the great composers and they were not a lot of fun, some of them. Great painters, too; I was looking at a fantastic painting by Rembrandt the other day in a museum, and I was reminded by the blurb next to it that he died penniless and had a terribly bloody time, but he was one hell of a painter. So that’s why I say therapy; you’re feeling bad, you skulk off to a corner with your guitar and you write something, and somehow you seem to take yourself through it and you work through it with your music. I thank heaven for that. I feel very, very blessed. People always used to call it a gift, the gift of music, and I think that’s very much, more and more, how I see it.”

Q: That being said, “Memory Almost Full” isn’t exactly ”Blood on the Tracks,” is it?

McCartney: “That’s funny, isn’t it? I still seem to come out positive and optimistic. I think that’s my character. But (the divorce from Heather Mills) is something I don’t want to talk about, and really for one reason. I have a baby daughter ... a 4-year-old, and I do not want to excite the envelope in any direction whatsoever. I’m just sort of keeping the dignified silence.”

Q: So, how did “The McCartney Years” come about?

McCartney: “For a long time people have been saying to me, ’When can we get a hold of that video?’ or ’Is that video available? Is that released?’ And I just sort of thought, ’No ...’ I was always a little bit like, ’One day, yeah, I’ll do it. Don’t worry.’ But then a couple of guys got in touch with me and said, ’Look, we think it’s time. We want to work on it. Let us put forward a proposal of what we would do for you to look at.’

“It took a long time to put together. They started cleaning it all up, and then they cleaned the sound mixes up and then they started showing me, and that was like, ’Jeez, I’ve never heard it like this. I’ve never seen it like this.’ So I started to get excited and I fell for the whole idea. I just said, ’Go to it boys, let’s do it.”’

Q: What did you encounter in doing the project that really blew you away?

McCartney: “I think the short answer is, ’everything.’ Obviously, everything with Linda in it was particularly heartwarming, realizing her major contribution to everything once you see it all en masse. I hadn’t seen ’Tug of War’ in a while, which was lovely. It was good to see things like ’Say Say Say’ with Michael Jackson, and of course Linda and our daughter Heather make an appearance in that, so that was really cool.”

Q: You used Ringo (Starr) pretty liberally as a guest star in your videos.

McCartney: “Yeah, that was very good. ’Take It Away’ and ’Beautiful Night,’ he kindly agreed to be the drummer in those, especially as he’d (played on) ’Take It Away.’ It was just fabulous. (Beatles producer) George Martin even appears in one of them.”

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