- Paul McCartney is reminiscing about his past with The Beatles on his podcast "A Life in Lyrics."
- In a new episode, McCartney describes his first impression of his late bandmate John Lennon.
Paul McCartney recently opened up about his first impression of John Lennon — a meeting that would yield the most celebrated songwriting partnership in history.
The 81-year-old rocker launched a podcast last month titled "Paul McCartney: A Life in Lyrics," in which he reflects on his career as a musician and songwriter.
In a new episode that airs Wednesday, he discussed the song "Here Today," which is structured as an imagined dialogue between McCartney and Lennon. It was featured on McCartney's 1982 solo album "Tug of War," the first he released since his former bandmate's murder in 1980.
"The first time I ever saw John Lennon, he got on the bus," McCartney recalled in the episode, per Rolling Stone. "He was like this slightly older guy with this sort of rocker hairdo — lots of grease — black jacket, sideburns, sideboards as we call them."
"And I just remember thinking, 'Well, he's a cool guy. No idea who he is,'" McCartney added.
As the legend goes, the two musicians met in 1957 at St. Peter's Church in Liverpool. They were still teenagers at the time.
"And what would happen is when I would talk to people, they'd sort of say, 'What are your hobbies? What do you like to do?'" McCartney continued in the episode. "And then inevitably, I'd say, 'Well, I've written a couple of songs.' And they'd go, 'Oh.' And we'd pass that pie, and we'd carry on a conversation.
"But I met John, [and] we were just chatting, and 'Well, I've written a couple of songs.' And he said, 'Well, so have I.' So that was like a full stop. So then it was like, 'Let me hear what you've done and I'll show you what I've done.' So that started us getting together. I think I was possibly the first person he'd met who'd said that to him."
After that fateful interaction, McCartney and Lennon began to "get together" to play music, which eventually led to the founding of The Beatles in 1960.
McCartney previously discussed their fruitful yet fraught relationship in the Hulu docuseries "McCartney 3,2,1."
"Thinking back on it, it's crazy," McCartney said in the first of six episodes. "He wore glasses and I didn't. So if we got into an argument, I would call him 'four-eyes.' Four-eyes! And he would go, 'Pigeon chest!' My chest was not as developed as his, or whatever."
"So you know, we did all that. But these things obviously bring you together," he added.
The band, which also included guitarist George Harrison and drummer Ringo Starr, split in 1970 after achieving global acclaim and staggering commercial success. In fact, The Beatles still hold the record for the most No. 1 songs in the history of the Billboard Hot 100.
"Now and Then," dubbed "the last Beatles song," was released on November 2. Originally written by Lennon and recorded as a demo in the mid-1970s, McCartney and Starr were able to refine the unfinished production with the help of new technology.