Macca Why Scotland became my sanctuary after The Beatles
Sir Paul McCartney tells how Argyll farm saved his sanity
IN THE early 70s Sir Paul McCartney was at the peak of his fame.
But The Beatles had disintegrated in acrimony and London had become “heavy”.
Scotland became his means of “escape” from the Fab Four – a place to lick his wounds, begin writing again and form the first incarnation of Wings.
Paul, 76, issues a remastered and expanded edition of his second band’s first two records, Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway, today.
Next Friday, he will play in Glasgow – and admits the city is in a country that has been hugely important to him.
He said: “Going up to Scotland was real freedom. It was an escape – our means of finding a new direction in life and having time to think about what we really wanted to do.”
To save some money from the taxman and as a bolt hole from Beatlemania, Paul had, encouraged by then girlfriend Jane Asher, bought High Park Farm in Campbeltown near Argyll’s Mull of Kintyre in 1968.
But it was only when newly married to American Linda Eastman in 1969 that he decided to make it a home.
He said: “It was like, ‘Let’s escape – we’ll just run away’. And we did, we just ran away.
“And Linda was a great nature lover. That very much informed our relationship.”
The farm, which was rustic to say the least, would become home to Linda’s daughter Heather and the couple’s first child Mary. Stella, now a top fashion designer, arrived in 1971.
But it was also the place where Paul’s next music project was born.
The new expanded editions of
Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway include never-before-seen pictures of the McCartneys’ life in Campbeltown, which in time would inspire his love letter to the area Mull of Kintyre – a 1977 Christmas No1.
The beginnings of Wings had been much less auspicious. At first, he had tried to be a solo act – recording Ram in New York with local musicians but Paul has always worked best with others.
He started the band in 1971 with his wife Linda who he’d taught to play keyboards for Ram and who also sang. She died in 1998 from breast cancer, aged just 56, and was often criticised for singing out of tune in the early days of Wings.
But Paul, who has since married twice, maintains she was integral to the band and “was a good singer”. The seven original songs on Wild Life were credited to Paul and Linda, along with a cover of a favourite song of theirs, Love is Strange by Mickey and Sylvia.
The husband-and-wife team held auditions for Wings and built a basic recording studio, dubbed Rude Studio, in a unit next to the main farm building. Denny Seiwell, who’d played drums on Ram, and old friend and former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine completed the original line-up.
One of the highlights of the expanded edition is a Scottish home recording of Dear Friend, Paul’s olive branch to John Lennon.
It worked – and the pair became friends again before John’s murder 38 years ago.
Since Linda’s death, Paul doesn’t visit his Scottish home often but in June, Stella showed the family still have a strong connection to the farm by using rocks from Campbeltown to decorate her new flagship store in London.
Despite his reluctance to return, Paul knows the significance of his time north of the Border. He said: “It was a period where I knew I just had to move forward. To keep going.”
The Paul McCartney Archive Collection Limited Deluxe Editions of Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway are released today. Paul plays Glasgow’s SSE Hydro next Friday, December 14.