At 83, McCartney is looking back for his 18th solo LP, to formative flirtations, family singalongs, even his own birth – and the febrile times that mirror our own. It’s given him ‘every hope that we’ll get through’
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‘How far do you want to go back?” In his office overlooking Soho Square in London, Paul McCartney and I sit together on a small sofa, reminiscing. The room smells deep and resinous and faintly ecclesiastical. There is a large green glass candle on the windowsill, and beyond, a view of plane trees, a flood of early afternoon sunlight.
The building was bought by McCartney in 1974, and has long served as a home for his publishing company and other enterprises. On another floor, two members of his team survey prints of his late wife Linda’s photographs, spread out on the boardroom table. An assistant is busy arranging a bagel order, while in the small lift, someone is ferrying a trolley full of drinking glasses up to the kitchen, a convivial clink-clatter echoing through the floors.
