Name: Paul McCartney Recalls The Beatles' 1964 U.S. TV Debut | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-02-01T16:12:42.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Paul McCartney Recalls The Beatles' 1964 U.S. TV Debut | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Paul McCartney Recalls The Beatles' 1964 U.S. TV Debut | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-02-01. Transcript available.

you're uh you're one of the people obviously that we've tried to get on the uh
program as a guest
uh about every week maybe every other day we would call and find out can he be
on the show
and can he be on the show and after the first 15 years we started to get her
feelings hurt
uh and now it's been close to 25 30 years and i just i just need to know
going forward any any problems that we don't know about i don't like the show
oh okay
you can make a note of that we'll put that in your file by the way sir paul
doesn't care for the show
can i tell you yeah good to have you here though yeah now uh
i know you've been in this building since in 1964 i think you did an mtv yeah i
did something here yeah
but when when you uh does it mean anything to you to walk back into this
building yeah it really does
actually yeah it's um you know i was just thinking today when we first came
here we never seen this
kind of thing tv studios in england were kind of all on one floor the makeup
was next door to this
and this but here it's like an apartment block right you know you go to makeup
then you take an elevator
five floors you go to wardrobe and you come here but yeah just the memory of
being here was uh it's
great it was uh it's kind of scary the first time i would think so yeah how old
or how long had the band
been together how old was the band when you came to this country to do this
band um i don't know i
think about six months no no no i'm just being silly no no no it was it was
very old it was an
old band um we we were i don't know like eight nine years old or something i
don't i don't count them
people people people know my history much better than i do so you but you were
22 is that about
right yeah yeah and and the the band came together uh it was you and john
became buddies and then you
joined his band is that was that the beginning yeah and then uh george was a
friend of yours george was
my buddy yeah and then you guys joined and then uh ringo came came later uh but
you really hadn't been
i mean like like crazy maniacal successful very long when you came to this
country no we we was kind of
nice we we got popular like in liverpool and we played hamburg kind of got
popular there went back to
liverpool and they thought we were from germany yeah you know great memories i
said you know we were we
were very popular two months ago but um and then you know we did very well in
england and then finally
we came here which was sort of where we wanted to do well yeah i remember as a
kid we would look for
anything we could find out about the beatles and we would go to the library in
high school and and check
out a time magazine that had an article about you and the band and and
everybody was crazed with
anticipation for the arrival uh and in your family musical background your
father was a musician my dad was
well i mean he was a cotton salesman really but he did play the piano at home
and he had a little
jazz band when he was in his 20s um you know i he told me they weren't really
that good i used
to love his piano playing i think that's where i got it from my love of music
but um they went out as
the what was it the uh the masked players masked players but that was because
they'd been there under
another name and got fired so they came back with masks on you have to do what
you need to do to get
a gig yes absolutely uh and uh can you um tell us about yourself uh and then
tell us about the other
guys in the band well i'm a boy yeah um i like girls when you came in to do the
show 22 year old
kid what kind of a kid were you then well you know i mean that's when you say
my memories i i don't know
if you find it but when we were 22 i i thought we were like older than i feel
now i mean we because
you know we were smoking peter stuyveson cigarettes and we thought we were like
really grown up um we
were only 22 so but um i had to stand somewhere here and there was a curtain
and um the audience was
out there and we were kind of very new to america loving it but a little bit
scared and i had to do
yesterday my song on my own and i'd never done this i'd always had the band
with me but suddenly they
said you're doing yesterday so okay so i'm standing there come on get it
together it's okay and the
floor manager the guy on the curtain came up to me said are you nervous i said
no he said you should be
the 73 million people watching wow
well sadly you won't have that problem tonight
why how many we got tonight what's the figures tonight look at this here we are
we talk about kids oh my
goodness there they are and uh how was how was ringo thought of in those days
were you guys nice to ringo
sometimes sometimes you know he was uh he's a good boy
he had had a beard that would have to go
but he looks rather good doesn't he i remember uh reading as i said we'd try to
find out everything
we could about the beatles that ringo was sickly as a child is that true and
that is really true
yeah and that's not funny because he got peritonitis when he was three and that's
like a you can die
of that it's a stomach thing and the first thing we ever knew of it because you
know he we wouldn't
talk about that kind of stuff was when we were in um miami and we were all in a
swimming pool together
i think it was for the cover of life magazine you know magazine dropping
but um i see you know but uh and he had a rather high costume uh swimming
costume trunks and we all
had the more svelte speedo jobs and uh we kind of ended up asking what it was
about and it turned
out he had scars on his stomach from that peritonitis thing so he was very
lucky to be here you know
well and the was the chemistry were you all four friends were two of your
friends three of your
friends one loner how did that work did it change the dynamic it changed a
little bit from time to
time yeah we we were very good friends um i knew george from where i lived so
we were kind of friends
in that kind of way right i knew john because i joined the band and he was a
friend of a mate of mine
um and then ringo came later so you know he was uh he was not the sort of guy
we knew that well but we
we soon got to know each other i mean we just went in so many vans lying on top
of each other you had
to get there yeah yeah um to me my impression of it not that my impression
counts for anything other
than my impression but it was four guys on a very very long spring break just
just like the best time
four guys could ever have well it certainly seemed like that you know yeah it
was um yeah it was it
was definitely a great thing i'd say because we'd sort of got popular in liverpool
england by the time
we came here we were ready for it so you know we went it's been spring break we
went down to miami
um the british car firm loaned us an mg each and you know there was a beach and
sand and girls and
come on yeah come on in the uh toward the end of the 60s is that when the uh
the rumors about you being
dead surfaced do you remember that you remember remember how that started what
were your feelings
about that what happened yeah my feelings um yeah no what happened was we did a
cover for a record
called abbey road and we see even the cover gets applause um so yeah and the
idea was to walk across
the crossing and i showed up that day with sandals flip-flops and so uh it was
so hot and i kicked
them off and walked across barefooted so this started some rumor that because
he was barefooted he's dead
i couldn't see the connection was that seemed like a long slow difficult death
being barefooted it'll kill you scorched feet uh and and and what do you how do
you manage
something like that because it was a global rumor and and yeah i mean you know
i just i just laughed at it
and knew it was just because of the fame and the craziness it was american dj
so you guys are to
blame yeah not you personally but now the thing is you know i i just laughed it
off but it was a
little bit strange because people did start looking at me like right is it is
it him or a very good
double well that was the idea that was the other part of it that there was a
guy who looked like you
taking your place no well this is him yeah
or is it
tell us what this uh photograph uh brings to mind this was taken in 1982 you
worked with michael jackson
on uh was it thriller you did the songs for that album yeah what do you
remember that uh experience
oh it was great you know we we um we had a great time it was christmas and i
was at home
and my phone rang and a little voice you know talked to me and and i said who's
this you know kind of
guarding my privacy private number who's this it's michael michael who because
i i thought it was you
know a little bit sort of dodgy but anyway he said michael jackson he said he
said you want to make some
hits so i said yeah sure so you know being of the hit making variety so um
so so we did and it was really nice you know he came to my house and uh we got
to know the family and
stuff and he had a great guy who used to come with him guy called billy um so
it was very nice we had
a really good time we made a couple of records together did a video and um we're
very good friends
it actually kind of fell apart a little bit later because he he was talking to
me and asking my business
advice and one of the things i said to him was think about getting into music
publishing
and then he and he looked at me kind of i thought he was joking he said i'm
gonna get yours oh yeah so
you know i kind of thought oh you
but but it turned out to be true and um
which was you know that was cool somebody had to get it i suppose but um and
what happened actually is
then i started to ring him up because i thought okay here's the guy
historically placed to give
leonard mccartney a good deal at last because we'd got signed when we were 21
or something in a back
alley in liverpool and the deal had remained the same even though we'd made
this company the most famous
hugely successful so i kept thinking it was time for a raise you know well you
would you know yes i think
so and um so it was great but i did talk to him about it but he kind of blanked
me on it he kept
saying that's just business paul you know so i went yeah it is and waited for a
reply but we never kind
of got to it and i thought so we kind of drifted apart it was no big bust up we
kind of drifted apart
after that okay he was a lovely man massively talented and we miss him