October 18, 2023 • 25 mins
At the dawn of the Beatles’ dissolution, Paul McCartney and his wife, Linda, started to spend an increasing amount of time in the Scottish countryside. Sequestered at their farm near the Mull of Kintyre, McCartney found refuge in his family, his animals, and in fixing up their homestead. The ease and charm of country living was documented in “When Winter Comes” from 2020’s McCartney III. And in 1977 his ode to life on the family farm, “Mull of Kintyre,” became a massive hit for Wings despite the hold disco and soft rock had on the charts and the ascendance of punk and new wave.
“McCartney: A Life in Lyrics” is a co-production between iHeart Media, MPL and Pushkin Industries.
The series was produced by Pejk Malinovski and Sara McCrea; written by Sara McCrea; edited by Dan O’Donnell and Sophie Crane; mastered by Jason Gambrell with sound design by Pejk Malinovski. The series is executive produced by Leital Molad, Justin Richmond, Lee Eastman, Scott Rodger and Paul McCartney.
Thanks to Lee Eastman, Richard Ewbank, Scott Rodger, Aoife Corbett and Steve Ithell.
And thank you to Ally the Piper for her rendition of “Mull of Kintyre,” “inchadney” for their composition, “Bagpipes in Pitlochery” and Ross Fleming for voicing the 1966 news item.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
When we first got Mary and we're in a meeting
with my accountant. He said, now you've got to invest
in stuff, and I said, don't worry about it, just
putting the back leave it.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
So no, no, no, you can't do that.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
For some reason, I believed in and what I advised
to do is to buy something like he said, there's
this little farm, let's come up in Scotland. I ended
(00:54):
up taking advice and bought it a bit approachingly.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
That you lot beatle. Paul McCartney has bought a hill
farm on the remote Mull of Kintyre in the west
of Scotland. Farmer Brown said, last night I recognized mister
McCartney immediate. We showed them through the farmhouse and they
said they were delighted with it.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
But it was it's falling apart, you know, there was
nothing great about it. So I kind of left it
and didn't really bother But then when I met Londo,
she just said, you know, you're not fucking up in Scotland.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I said, yeah, but I'm not sure you'll like it.
She loved, Wow, we could fix it up.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I'm Paul will do. And I've been fortunate to spend
time with one of the greatest songwriters of our.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Era, and will you look at me? I'm going on
to it.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
That is, sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Actually, I'm a songwriter, my god, we'll let that.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Crept up on me.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
figures in popular music. In this episode, when winter comes
and mull of Kintar.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Well, winter comes, Aloiscus, We'll wanta two.
Speaker 7 (02:43):
Twesday.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
In just a couple of years ago, after we'd already
been having our conversations for some time, Paul McCartney was
preparing for a reissue of his nineteen ninety seven album
Flaming Pie. His archivists had sent him some options for
bonus extras, songs which would have been recorded at the
(03:07):
time of the original album but had yet to be released.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
But they just sent me some tracks for consideration as
bonus extras, And I'm listening to this one.
Speaker 8 (03:20):
I think, gosh, I mean it's good. I am actually
thinking of releasing it. It's very sort of hippie, almost
relates to living.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
On the farm.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
When summer's gone, We're gonna fly away.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
When winter Camas was recorded in nineteen ninety two with
George Martin at the mixing desk. It's a sweet, simple
song HARKing back to the time McCartney spent living on
his farm in Scotland. Nestled in the heart of the
(04:12):
Kntire Peninsula just thirty miles from the coast of Ireland
is High Park Farm, the one hundred and eighty three
acre property McCartney purchased in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I was greeted by our ext door neighbor, Ian mcdrugal,
whose very old doll course carry spoke with gallac and
was very old farmer in.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
A really total stereotype.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
He admitted to me as he walked over the grounds
that he had no knowledge of farming, although he wanted
to keep it as a farm. I told him that
it would be all right if he put a reliable
man in, and he seemed to agree. He has seemed
a very sensible sort of chap he.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Said, you'll be the new layered.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
What.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I could never understand him, but I've worked out the
system of having on to the last word in a sentence.
He said, I go, hie the sheep, find hi the
clipping I write.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
When McCartney bought the property, the old wooden farmhouse was
falling apart, the fences crumbling.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I will fight it out. This has stopped this place.
I really didn't like it.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
He had no idea that years later it would become
a cherished setting for his life with Linda Eastman, or
such a whale of inspiration for his songwriting.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
Sweet like.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Gay.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
We're only really up there because of Linda's love of it.
When we went up so.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
She said, oh, this is frying fantastic.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
I love it. So she made me love it through
her eyes.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I went, oh, well that is a fine mountain.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
Gosh, he's covered in the heap. That's very beautiful, you know.
And so we brought up the kids.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
There in the early nineteen seventies. With the help of Linda,
McCartney came to see the lush, rolling highlands as romantic
and the dilapidated farm property as full of potential. After all,
(06:49):
the thing beyond repair in his life at the time
was not the Barns, but the Beatles, who were mired
in business disputes back down in London.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I was getting called into meetings in London in our
office in sabil Row. Well, you would have to sit
there and listen to an accountant or the manager and
talk about this boring or that even more boring. And
it was nothing that we did. It's nothing that we liked.
(07:22):
We liked playing music, we like making music like and
this was suddenly a deadly period where actually actually think
about money and stuff that we'd not't really given much
thought to. So I was going under kind of a bit
depressed the whole thing. And suddenly Linda and I just,
(07:45):
I don't know, we just sort of said, well, let's
let's go to Scotland. We're literally taking ourselves out of
the situation. So anyone needed me, they had to ring
me come into the meeting today. Sorry I can'tum in Scotland.
And so that freedom was just it's.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Great away from the dreary business meetings and the crumbling band. Paul, Linda,
their two children, and their English sheep dog Martha started
living a more simple pastoral life. On the farm. They
were inspired to eat more vegetarian food. Paul patched up
(08:30):
the fences and planted trees which could grow even in
the harshest of Scottish winters.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
It allowed me to be a man.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
If a picture needed hanging, I'm your boy. If somebody
needed doing on the farm, I'll do it. And so
it was very nice. It was quite a difficult period
because it was to do with the Beatles break up
and everything, but it allowed me to see another side
of myself because I'd grown up in Liverpool, not very
(09:05):
much the handyman. I'd gone on the road with the
Beatles around the world and round again, and now here
I was just on a farm in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
It was sensational.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
In contrast to their busy life in London. The Highlands
permitted the McCartneys to live at a slower piece.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
There wasn't a bath, for instance, in this little farmhouse,
but there was a big steel tub that they cleaned
the milking equipment in bloody cold in the winter, and
we'd run in and we'd jump in this bath, which
was not easy to get in, but we were young,
in virile and we'd jump in this path and have
(09:50):
this fantastic for a Japanese style bath. So those are
the kind of things we're doing that I'd never done
ever in my life, and it was liberating. So I
would fix fences, I would dig a drain. I would
keep some chickens. I would plant a vegetable garden.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
Fix the fence by the acre plot.
Speaker 7 (10:12):
Two young foxes have been nosing around the lambs and
the chigains. You'll safe until it's done. I musty a
drain by the carrot patch.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
The whole crop spiles if it gets too down.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
And where will we be with an empty store when
winter comes.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I think a lot of young people dream about that today.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
Still I sense a lot of people want that freedom.
Escaping the rat race.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Escaping the rat race entailed a great deal of manual labor,
but the McCartneys began to relish the simplicity of their
life on the farm.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I would get tradesmen from the village who would put
the roof on, and then then I'd painted. I talked
to them about how you paint the roof, it's all
you needed. So get the system. But we listened to
(11:30):
tighten up records. The two so it was reggae and
freedom and you know, Linda cooking, planting a little vege garden.
I was just it's pretty amazing. It was fus and
it was just what the boy was wanting.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Instead of wrangling crowds of Beatles fans, McCartney found himself
wrangling sheep with the help of a shepherd, Duncan Kern,
who would look after the property when the family was away.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I said, and I learned to share the sheep with
hand clippers.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
No one, that's hard. It is quite hard.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I did about fourteen to twenty in a day, and
Duncan would do like a hundred.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Just getting a sheep on its back is cool. And
that ended up as a cover of ram. But that
was real cheering time. And we did crazy things like
Linda took a portrait of every one of our flock, so.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
We have this, let's make it into something one day.
It's it's huge. It's just all these different sheep. But
we were doing stuff like that, you know, because because
we wanted to. It's genuine, you know, this is how
we were living.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
When Winter Comes chronicles the mundane chores of farm life,
fixing the fence, digging a drain. These little actions express
attention and care, both for the speaker's family and for
the natural world at large.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So this is it's someone like me upon a farm somewhere,
and he's looking after things. So I must fix a
fence by the acre plot. Two young foxes have been
nosing around the lambs, and the chickens won't feel safe
until it's done.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
I must dig a drain by the carrot patch.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Whole crop spoils if it gets too damp, and where
will we be with an empty store and winter comes?
Speaker 5 (13:51):
So these are things I'd learned. You've got to put
a fence up or the fox.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Will have your chickens, and you've got to dig a
drain because patch gets too wet, nothing will grow there.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
So this was me remembering.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
That when summer we're gonna fly away and find the
sun when winter comes.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
I really like this song.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I don't want to diminish it by saying it's a
series of thumbnail sketches.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I think you're right. I mean I don't think it
diminishes it at all.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
I think.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It's memories of actual, actual things.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
And each one makes up a nice little scene.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Fixing the fence for boxes that are a next one,
digging the trench a little planting trees.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
I must find the time to plant some trees in the.
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Meadow where the river flows, in time to come down,
make good shade for some poor song.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
In a matter where the river flows in time to come,
they'll make good shade for some poor soul. That was
a sort of rather wistful image that I liked.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
I'd never planted trees before.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
In fact, after that time, was remembering that time and
talking to my roady, my long time roady, and I
sort of said about a tree. You know, I said, well,
you know, you could buy a tree, and.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
What he said, you can buy trees.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
And the concept of buying a tree was fabulous, just
to see his his mine be blown by the idea
because he thought, no, trees are just trees.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
And they just grow.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And by this time in my life, when I'm writing
this song, I knew that these little one foot things
I'd planted in Scotland, and I planted them very badly.
I just lifted a sod, stuck them underneath it, and
plunked the sod back down. By now they were bloody
thirty foot giants. I fell into the trap that most
(16:11):
people fall into. If you're going to buy a plant
a tree, it's got to be a good six foot.
But then you start talking to our boialists and you
start talking to three people and they will say it's
best to plant and little mm hmm. But to me
(16:32):
it was like, I'll never see it grow, but of
course you do.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Do you still have the house in Scotland? Oh you
still have it?
Speaker 5 (16:43):
I do? Yeah?
Speaker 7 (16:47):
Of gin.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
In from Percy Bys.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
These as.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Of gins.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
As McCary was renovating his Scottish property throughout the nineteen seventies,
he was also renovating his songwriting, with Linda by his side,
working with their band Wings. He often drew inspiration from
the Highlands, as in Mull of Kintire, a surprise hit
on the peak of the punk era. Mull of Cantarre
(17:31):
was one of the UK's best selling singles of all time.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I was in Scotland a lot and it just suddenly
occurred to me that there were no new Scottish songs.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
There were lots of great old.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Songs the bagpipe fance played, but there was nothing new.
So I thought, that's an opportunity to see if I
fancy it or if I can, and then it'd began
a nice because the new Scottish song would have been
written by assassinak.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
I thought that that would be fun.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So long story short, I had the local pipe major
come up with his pipes to the house, to the house,
which was a very little house, and he played and
it was so loud that we I said, let's go
out into the garden, which again was a very little garden,
and we just sort of he played, and I got
(18:51):
some ideas. I got what cords would work with what
he was playing, what key was in because they can't
change key. So yeah, So I made the song and
enjoyed it, and they had a session up there and
it was funny evening and they loved it.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Oh it's a number one, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
And the big memory for me that was so cool
was talking about a sophistication and this love of not
non sophistication was if you were in an orchestral session,
the musicians will.
Speaker 9 (19:26):
Count one, two three for two to three three to
the counting the bars, but the Scottish pipeline doesn't. It
goes one, two, three, four, five, six, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
twenty three twenty four twenty.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
As I mentioned, Mull of Kintarn was released during the
punk era, when a rising Scottish melody might have seemed
an unlikely hit, a significant departure from the convention of
the day. On the other hand, what is more punk
than departing from convention.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
There's this little story where Lindr and I were in
traffic in London, in the West End somewhere, and there
was a big gang of punks who look very aggressive,
you know, the look was a grossure. And they comes
sort of stomping through in the sort of bobber boots
and they come with the car and we're kind of
(20:52):
crouching a little bit, trying to not get noticed, thinking Jesus,
what they're going to do. You know, they're going to
think we're the enemy kind of thing. And then they
noticed that one of them comes to the college. I
wound down the window a little bit.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
He goes, I got that monarching jars fucking right.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Through these songs. High Park took on a sort of
mythic quality in the public imagination, but for the most part,
the farm itself remained for the McCartney's alone, allowing them
to get away from public life. Did people follow you there?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Cell remote? Nobody could get there. A couple of people did,
and people would just shot out of the blue.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
They probably came to Campbelltown and asked and someone would
tell them up that road.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
But it was really hard.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It wasn't just easy to go that road, of that
road and of that track and then over that track.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
It was very remote. And then the photographer from Life.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Magazine found us, and I think I threw a boocket
of water on him, and then he said he was
going to use that photo, so fuck. So I sort
of followed him out in my landlord and said, look,
we'll do a pose for So we did a posal.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
They got all the cover of Life. I think yes.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
But we loved it because we were totally making it up,
and you think about it.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
We had a young baby. There were doctors in.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
The town, so we were ten minutes from a doctor,
but as far as we were concerned, we could be
completely cut off if we wanted, and it was pretty cool.
Speaker 6 (22:45):
When Winter Comes.
Speaker 7 (22:50):
Focuss we want.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
To Paul McCartney reworked When Winter Comes in twenty twenty,
twenty eight years after it was originally recorded. It was
a time when most of the were world was cut
off from public life in a very different way at
the beginning of the COVID nineteen pandemic, when his archivists
(23:19):
brought him the song as a possible bonus extra for
the reissue of Flaming Pie. The sentiment of the song
reconnecting with the natural world hunkering down for a season
of isolation resonated enough with McCartney that he decided to
unabashedly release it on his next original solo.
Speaker 7 (23:41):
Album, to stains.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Whensum's Gone.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
We're gonna fly away.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
And find the Sun when winds are Gone, And find
the Sun.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
When winds are gone, When Winter Comes from McCartney three,
released in twenty twenty and mull Offkin Tyre released in
nineteen seventy eight. In the next episode.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Under Milk would by Dylan Thomas.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Senter Paul Listening to the radio taught young McCartney the
art of creating sound images. Geez Penny Lean next time
on McCartney A Life in Lyrics. McCartney A Life in
(25:00):
Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia, NPL and Pushkin Industries.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
When we first got Mary and we're in a meeting
with my accountant. He said, now you've got to invest
in stuff, and I said, don't worry about it, just
putting the back leave it.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
So no, no, no, you can't do that.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
For some reason, I believed in and what I advised
to do is to buy something like he said, there's
this little farm, let's come up in Scotland. I ended
(00:54):
up taking advice and bought it a bit approachingly.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
That you lot beatle. Paul McCartney has bought a hill
farm on the remote Mull of Kintyre in the west
of Scotland. Farmer Brown said, last night I recognized mister
McCartney immediate. We showed them through the farmhouse and they
said they were delighted with it.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
But it was it's falling apart, you know, there was
nothing great about it. So I kind of left it
and didn't really bother But then when I met Londo,
she just said, you know, you're not fucking up in Scotland.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I said, yeah, but I'm not sure you'll like it.
She loved, Wow, we could fix it up.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I'm Paul will do. And I've been fortunate to spend
time with one of the greatest songwriters of our.
Speaker 5 (01:51):
Era, and will you look at me? I'm going on
to it.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
I'm actually a performer.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
That is, sir Paul McCartney. We worked together on a
book looking at the lyrics of more than one hundred
and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many hours
of our conversations.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Actually, I'm a songwriter, my god, we'll let that.
Speaker 5 (02:12):
Crept up on me.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
figures in popular music. In this episode, when winter comes
and mull of Kintar.
Speaker 6 (02:32):
Well, winter comes, Aloiscus, We'll wanta two.
Speaker 7 (02:43):
Twesday.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
In just a couple of years ago, after we'd already
been having our conversations for some time, Paul McCartney was
preparing for a reissue of his nineteen ninety seven album
Flaming Pie. His archivists had sent him some options for
bonus extras, songs which would have been recorded at the
(03:07):
time of the original album but had yet to be released.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
But they just sent me some tracks for consideration as
bonus extras, And I'm listening to this one.
Speaker 8 (03:20):
I think, gosh, I mean it's good. I am actually
thinking of releasing it. It's very sort of hippie, almost
relates to living.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
On the farm.
Speaker 6 (03:33):
When summer's gone, We're gonna fly away.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
When winter Camas was recorded in nineteen ninety two with
George Martin at the mixing desk. It's a sweet, simple
song HARKing back to the time McCartney spent living on
his farm in Scotland. Nestled in the heart of the
(04:12):
Kntire Peninsula just thirty miles from the coast of Ireland
is High Park Farm, the one hundred and eighty three
acre property McCartney purchased in nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
I was greeted by our ext door neighbor, Ian mcdrugal,
whose very old doll course carry spoke with gallac and
was very old farmer in.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
A really total stereotype.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
He admitted to me as he walked over the grounds
that he had no knowledge of farming, although he wanted
to keep it as a farm. I told him that
it would be all right if he put a reliable
man in, and he seemed to agree. He has seemed
a very sensible sort of chap he.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Said, you'll be the new layered.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
What.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
I could never understand him, but I've worked out the
system of having on to the last word in a sentence.
He said, I go, hie the sheep, find hi the
clipping I write.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
When McCartney bought the property, the old wooden farmhouse was
falling apart, the fences crumbling.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
I will fight it out. This has stopped this place.
I really didn't like it.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
He had no idea that years later it would become
a cherished setting for his life with Linda Eastman, or
such a whale of inspiration for his songwriting.
Speaker 5 (05:51):
Sweet like.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Gay.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
We're only really up there because of Linda's love of it.
When we went up so.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
She said, oh, this is frying fantastic.
Speaker 5 (06:10):
I love it. So she made me love it through
her eyes.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I went, oh, well that is a fine mountain.
Speaker 5 (06:18):
Gosh, he's covered in the heap. That's very beautiful, you know.
And so we brought up the kids.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
There in the early nineteen seventies. With the help of Linda,
McCartney came to see the lush, rolling highlands as romantic
and the dilapidated farm property as full of potential. After all,
(06:49):
the thing beyond repair in his life at the time
was not the Barns, but the Beatles, who were mired
in business disputes back down in London.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
I was getting called into meetings in London in our
office in sabil Row. Well, you would have to sit
there and listen to an accountant or the manager and
talk about this boring or that even more boring. And
it was nothing that we did. It's nothing that we liked.
(07:22):
We liked playing music, we like making music like and
this was suddenly a deadly period where actually actually think
about money and stuff that we'd not't really given much
thought to. So I was going under kind of a bit
depressed the whole thing. And suddenly Linda and I just,
(07:45):
I don't know, we just sort of said, well, let's
let's go to Scotland. We're literally taking ourselves out of
the situation. So anyone needed me, they had to ring
me come into the meeting today. Sorry I can'tum in Scotland.
And so that freedom was just it's.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Great away from the dreary business meetings and the crumbling band. Paul, Linda,
their two children, and their English sheep dog Martha started
living a more simple pastoral life. On the farm. They
were inspired to eat more vegetarian food. Paul patched up
(08:30):
the fences and planted trees which could grow even in
the harshest of Scottish winters.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
It allowed me to be a man.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
If a picture needed hanging, I'm your boy. If somebody
needed doing on the farm, I'll do it. And so
it was very nice. It was quite a difficult period
because it was to do with the Beatles break up
and everything, but it allowed me to see another side
of myself because I'd grown up in Liverpool, not very
(09:05):
much the handyman. I'd gone on the road with the
Beatles around the world and round again, and now here
I was just on a farm in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
It was sensational.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
In contrast to their busy life in London. The Highlands
permitted the McCartneys to live at a slower piece.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
There wasn't a bath, for instance, in this little farmhouse,
but there was a big steel tub that they cleaned
the milking equipment in bloody cold in the winter, and
we'd run in and we'd jump in this bath, which
was not easy to get in, but we were young,
in virile and we'd jump in this path and have
(09:50):
this fantastic for a Japanese style bath. So those are
the kind of things we're doing that I'd never done
ever in my life, and it was liberating. So I
would fix fences, I would dig a drain. I would
keep some chickens. I would plant a vegetable garden.
Speaker 6 (10:09):
Fix the fence by the acre plot.
Speaker 7 (10:12):
Two young foxes have been nosing around the lambs and
the chigains. You'll safe until it's done. I musty a
drain by the carrot patch.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
The whole crop spiles if it gets too down.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
And where will we be with an empty store when
winter comes.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I think a lot of young people dream about that today.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
Still I sense a lot of people want that freedom.
Escaping the rat race.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Escaping the rat race entailed a great deal of manual labor,
but the McCartneys began to relish the simplicity of their
life on the farm.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I would get tradesmen from the village who would put
the roof on, and then then I'd painted. I talked
to them about how you paint the roof, it's all
you needed. So get the system. But we listened to
(11:30):
tighten up records. The two so it was reggae and
freedom and you know, Linda cooking, planting a little vege garden.
I was just it's pretty amazing. It was fus and
it was just what the boy was wanting.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Instead of wrangling crowds of Beatles fans, McCartney found himself
wrangling sheep with the help of a shepherd, Duncan Kern,
who would look after the property when the family was away.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I said, and I learned to share the sheep with
hand clippers.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
No one, that's hard. It is quite hard.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
I did about fourteen to twenty in a day, and
Duncan would do like a hundred.
Speaker 5 (12:28):
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
Just getting a sheep on its back is cool. And
that ended up as a cover of ram. But that
was real cheering time. And we did crazy things like
Linda took a portrait of every one of our flock, so.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
We have this, let's make it into something one day.
It's it's huge. It's just all these different sheep. But
we were doing stuff like that, you know, because because
we wanted to. It's genuine, you know, this is how
we were living.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
When Winter Comes chronicles the mundane chores of farm life,
fixing the fence, digging a drain. These little actions express
attention and care, both for the speaker's family and for
the natural world at large.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So this is it's someone like me upon a farm somewhere,
and he's looking after things. So I must fix a
fence by the acre plot. Two young foxes have been
nosing around the lambs, and the chickens won't feel safe
until it's done.
Speaker 5 (13:42):
I must dig a drain by the carrot patch.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Whole crop spoils if it gets too damp, and where
will we be with an empty store and winter comes?
Speaker 5 (13:51):
So these are things I'd learned. You've got to put
a fence up or the fox.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Will have your chickens, and you've got to dig a
drain because patch gets too wet, nothing will grow there.
Speaker 5 (14:04):
So this was me remembering.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
That when summer we're gonna fly away and find the
sun when winter comes.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
I really like this song.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
I don't want to diminish it by saying it's a
series of thumbnail sketches.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
I think you're right. I mean I don't think it
diminishes it at all.
Speaker 5 (14:31):
I think.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It's memories of actual, actual things.
Speaker 5 (14:37):
And each one makes up a nice little scene.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Fixing the fence for boxes that are a next one,
digging the trench a little planting trees.
Speaker 7 (14:49):
I must find the time to plant some trees in the.
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Meadow where the river flows, in time to come down,
make good shade for some poor song.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
In a matter where the river flows in time to come,
they'll make good shade for some poor soul. That was
a sort of rather wistful image that I liked.
Speaker 5 (15:14):
I'd never planted trees before.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
In fact, after that time, was remembering that time and
talking to my roady, my long time roady, and I
sort of said about a tree. You know, I said, well,
you know, you could buy a tree, and.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
What he said, you can buy trees.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
And the concept of buying a tree was fabulous, just
to see his his mine be blown by the idea
because he thought, no, trees are just trees.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
And they just grow.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
And by this time in my life, when I'm writing
this song, I knew that these little one foot things
I'd planted in Scotland, and I planted them very badly.
I just lifted a sod, stuck them underneath it, and
plunked the sod back down. By now they were bloody
thirty foot giants. I fell into the trap that most
(16:11):
people fall into. If you're going to buy a plant
a tree, it's got to be a good six foot.
But then you start talking to our boialists and you
start talking to three people and they will say it's
best to plant and little mm hmm. But to me
(16:32):
it was like, I'll never see it grow, but of
course you do.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
Do you still have the house in Scotland? Oh you
still have it?
Speaker 5 (16:43):
I do? Yeah?
Speaker 7 (16:47):
Of gin.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
In from Percy Bys.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
These as.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Of gins.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
As McCary was renovating his Scottish property throughout the nineteen seventies,
he was also renovating his songwriting, with Linda by his side,
working with their band Wings. He often drew inspiration from
the Highlands, as in Mull of Kintire, a surprise hit
on the peak of the punk era. Mull of Cantarre
(17:31):
was one of the UK's best selling singles of all time.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I was in Scotland a lot and it just suddenly
occurred to me that there were no new Scottish songs.
Speaker 5 (18:06):
There were lots of great old.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Songs the bagpipe fance played, but there was nothing new.
So I thought, that's an opportunity to see if I
fancy it or if I can, and then it'd began
a nice because the new Scottish song would have been
written by assassinak.
Speaker 5 (18:25):
I thought that that would be fun.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
So long story short, I had the local pipe major
come up with his pipes to the house, to the house,
which was a very little house, and he played and
it was so loud that we I said, let's go
out into the garden, which again was a very little garden,
and we just sort of he played, and I got
(18:51):
some ideas. I got what cords would work with what
he was playing, what key was in because they can't
change key. So yeah, So I made the song and
enjoyed it, and they had a session up there and
it was funny evening and they loved it.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Oh it's a number one, you know.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
And the big memory for me that was so cool
was talking about a sophistication and this love of not
non sophistication was if you were in an orchestral session,
the musicians will.
Speaker 9 (19:26):
Count one, two three for two to three three to
the counting the bars, but the Scottish pipeline doesn't. It
goes one, two, three, four, five, six, nine, ten, eleven, twelve,
twenty three twenty four twenty.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
As I mentioned, Mull of Kintarn was released during the
punk era, when a rising Scottish melody might have seemed
an unlikely hit, a significant departure from the convention of
the day. On the other hand, what is more punk
than departing from convention.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
There's this little story where Lindr and I were in
traffic in London, in the West End somewhere, and there
was a big gang of punks who look very aggressive,
you know, the look was a grossure. And they comes
sort of stomping through in the sort of bobber boots
and they come with the car and we're kind of
(20:52):
crouching a little bit, trying to not get noticed, thinking Jesus,
what they're going to do. You know, they're going to
think we're the enemy kind of thing. And then they
noticed that one of them comes to the college. I
wound down the window a little bit.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
He goes, I got that monarching jars fucking right.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Through these songs. High Park took on a sort of
mythic quality in the public imagination, but for the most part,
the farm itself remained for the McCartney's alone, allowing them
to get away from public life. Did people follow you there?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
Cell remote? Nobody could get there. A couple of people did,
and people would just shot out of the blue.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
They probably came to Campbelltown and asked and someone would
tell them up that road.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
But it was really hard.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
It wasn't just easy to go that road, of that
road and of that track and then over that track.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
It was very remote. And then the photographer from Life.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Magazine found us, and I think I threw a boocket
of water on him, and then he said he was
going to use that photo, so fuck. So I sort
of followed him out in my landlord and said, look,
we'll do a pose for So we did a posal.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
They got all the cover of Life. I think yes.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
But we loved it because we were totally making it up,
and you think about it.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
We had a young baby. There were doctors in.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
The town, so we were ten minutes from a doctor,
but as far as we were concerned, we could be
completely cut off if we wanted, and it was pretty cool.
Speaker 6 (22:45):
When Winter Comes.
Speaker 7 (22:50):
Focuss we want.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
To Paul McCartney reworked When Winter Comes in twenty twenty,
twenty eight years after it was originally recorded. It was
a time when most of the were world was cut
off from public life in a very different way at
the beginning of the COVID nineteen pandemic, when his archivists
(23:19):
brought him the song as a possible bonus extra for
the reissue of Flaming Pie. The sentiment of the song
reconnecting with the natural world hunkering down for a season
of isolation resonated enough with McCartney that he decided to
unabashedly release it on his next original solo.
Speaker 7 (23:41):
Album, to stains.
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Whensum's Gone.
Speaker 5 (23:49):
We're gonna fly away.
Speaker 6 (23:53):
And find the Sun when winds are Gone, And find
the Sun.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
When winds are gone, When Winter Comes from McCartney three,
released in twenty twenty and mull Offkin Tyre released in
nineteen seventy eight. In the next episode.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Under Milk would by Dylan Thomas.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Senter Paul Listening to the radio taught young McCartney the
art of creating sound images. Geez Penny Lean next time
on McCartney A Life in Lyrics. McCartney A Life in
(25:00):
Lyrics is a co production between iHeartMedia, NPL and Pushkin Industries.
Host
Paul McCartney
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