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The Rest Is Entertainment

Paul McCartney Answers YOUR Questions

13 May 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

1.043 - 9.898 Marina Hyde

The rest is entertainment is presented by Octopus Energy. Now, celebrity culture has a way of taking very small preferences and promoting them until they require a lot of paperwork.

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10.078 - 12.963 Richard Osman

Yeah, it's like the first time you ever go on a show and you say, oh, I could have some sparkling water.

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Chapter 2: What insights does Paul McCartney share about the changing nature of fame?

13.043 - 18.732 Richard Osman

And then like forever, it's like, oh, you have to have sparkling water. You must have sparkling water. It's very, very important. And that's what we call the rider.

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18.712 - 37.311 Marina Hyde

The rider. Right. In some cases, the rider didn't stay sort of practical for long. You know, it started as a wish list and then it sort of strayed into a kind of a hostage note from the ego. There was a point in JLo's ego where she was having like, you know, you know, the white drapes, the white candles, the white, absolutely everything, white flowers, white, you know, sofas, everything.

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37.471 - 43.858 Marina Hyde

Most people don't actually need a rider in this life of ours, however, but there is something reassuring about not having to specify everything twice in the book.

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43.838 - 61.694 Richard Osman

This is one of my absolute favorite things about Octopus Energy. If you ring them about anything, your number is recognized and you'll go through to a team who deals with you and have dealt with you before. So yeah, you have a team, they recognize your number and you go through to people who you don't have to explain the same thing to 15 times.

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65.137 - 70.882 Marina Hyde

Hello and welcome to this episode of The Rest Is Entertainment, questions and answers edition. I'm Marina Hyde.

70.962 - 73.744 Richard Osman

And I'm Richard Osman. A slightly different episode this week.

74.045 - 80.172 Marina Hyde

Our guest, I often use the phrase needs no introduction, but it's Paul McCartney. He definitely needs no introduction.

80.312 - 98.413 Richard Osman

Yeah, Sir Paul McCartney of Wings, of course. So we recorded this last week. They said, Sir Paul would love to talk to you. Would you be able to come to Abbey Road Studios to do it? We're like, yeah, that's even better for us. than Sir Paul coming to the Spotify studios.

98.433 - 110.869 Marina Hyde

I know you won't say this, but I'm going to say what you did that day, which was hilarious. You did a dash from receiving your OBE at Windsor Castle straight to Abbey Road to talk to Paul McCartney.

Chapter 3: How does Paul McCartney reflect on his relationship with ambition?

466.777 - 488.953 Paul McCartney

So love me do, please, please, please me, please. From me to you, she loves you. It's all about me or you directly to the people who are listening. And then we start to get a bit different. So I kind of know, I remember who that guy, who those guys were.

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488.933 - 505.288 Paul McCartney

It was people from Liverpool writing to the fans, first phase, then maturing a little bit and getting a little bit more artistic or whatever, you know. So, you know, I think I kind of, do remember who I was.

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505.749 - 510.997 Marina Hyde

You always join me as someone who's been able to totally preserve their innocence. How on earth have you managed that?

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512.459 - 540.406 Paul McCartney

I don't know. People do put it another way. They'll say, how have you stayed so normal with the Beatles and the whole thing, Wings, the whole thing. And I think the truth is it was with my family. I was very lucky. I came from a very loving family, very smart working class people. And I always say to people, don't underestimate the working class.

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541.208 - 572.569 Paul McCartney

Because, you know, I can see the thing, oh, thick head, the plumber, what's he know? But from my family, I know that like, for instance, my cousin Bert, was he compiled crosswords for the Guardian and for the Times. So I mean, you know, to do that, that's a pretty smart working class guy. And you know, he's just one of us. So we had that kind of stuff going on. Very smart, all the repati.

572.549 - 580.641 Richard Osman

By the way, I think the reason that Bob Dylan doesn't remember writing Blowing in the Wind is because Ringo Starr wrote it. Yeah. Do you remember?

580.701 - 581.983 Paul McCartney

Yeah, of course.

582.003 - 599.67 Richard Osman

I think this is a great question from Khalid Saeed. He says, as someone who's been extraordinarily famous for possibly the longest time of any famous person, can you describe how being famous has changed in your lifetime? What did it feel like to be famous in the 60s versus today?

600.123 - 627.623 Paul McCartney

Yeah, I think the big difference is in yourself. When you're first famous, you love it, because it's what you're trying to achieve. So you actually get a little hit or something goes well and people in the street know you, you love it. There's never any of this sort of, oh, people are bothering me. You know, there's none of that. The modern affliction. Yeah, no, we loved it, you know.

Chapter 4: What does Paul McCartney reveal about his new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane?

704.642 - 731.811 Paul McCartney

You know, and it's like, it's as simple as that. And I have a long explanation about, oh God, it goes on. I say, no, I don't like to do that because it's important to me. It's a bit your question about your innocence or your normalness. I feel that's very important to me. The minute I get like above myself and start thinking I'm like something else, I won't like me.

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732.573 - 756.572 Paul McCartney

So it's very important for me to be sort of just me. And so I will say if you I don't do the photos and they say why I said well I'll tell you what and I go into this long-winded explanation of down on the south coast of France Central pay there's a guy on the beachfront Who's got a monkey and you pay to have your photo taken with the monkey?

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757.213 - 768.209 Paul McCartney

So I say I really do not want to feel like that monkey and when I take a picture with you I do feel like him Oh, that's great. I'm not me. I'm suddenly something else.

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768.469 - 786.556 Marina Hyde

But that way they've got a proper moment of connection with you. I felt that weirdly. I went to the Louvre. I took my daughter to Paris for the first time. We went to the Louvre. No one looked at any of the pictures. They just stuck their phone up and photographed it. And, you know, you're a little bit like the Mona Lisa. But just having just the photo like that rather than the moment with you.

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786.576 - 800.553 Richard Osman

Yeah, it's a phenomenon of how we live now, yeah. I love the idea that someone who's seen Sir Paul McCartney is so excited and then asking for this, and you get towards the end of the explanation and they're going, anyway, Paul, I have got a train to catch. Lovely to meet you.

800.793 - 810.023 Paul McCartney

It was a nice story. And then they go back to their friends and say, you met Paul McCartney? Did you get a picture? No. He just went on some bloody monkey.

810.383 - 813.447 Marina Hyde

I had some special time. He told me an incredible anecdote about a monkey.

813.507 - 821.537 Richard Osman

It was something about the monkeys. I forget what it was. Do you feel the press and intrusion and things like that have changed since the 60s as well?

822.218 - 846.696 Paul McCartney

I think they were always intrusive. I think it doesn't bother me, the press. I used to call them lovable rogues because there is that element to them. Now, some of them are not so lovable. But I don't mind, you know, it's their job. And so as long as what they're writing about you isn't too bad, I just think it's occupational hazard.

Chapter 5: What are Paul McCartney's thoughts on the evolution of his songwriting process?

1096.889 - 1112.689 Richard Osman

And so that's interesting because you've had every type of success you could have and you've lived through all those things of, you know, we just we want to set out this venue and then we want to, you know, go abroad and then we want to have a record out and then, you know, we want to have a number one. What does success mean to you now?

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1112.709 - 1119.758 Richard Osman

So with the new album, which you're obviously very proud of, what does success look like now when you release a new record?

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1120.16 - 1149.804 Paul McCartney

I think that people would like what I'm doing. It was always the kind of bottom line, but now that's really the only line. If I go out on tour, then the audience likes the new songs, but I know they don't. Audiences don't like new songs, normally. I mean, you know, I'll say to them, okay, you know, I say, we're going to do a new song now.

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1150.425 - 1167.328 Paul McCartney

And I say, and I know you don't like it, because whenever we do a big Beatles song, your cameras all light up and it's like a galaxy. But nights, I say, when we do a new song, it's like a black hole. And it is true, they don't really want to...

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1167.308 - 1169.793 Richard Osman

But you should say, you know, those songs are new as well.

1170.715 - 1189.992 Paul McCartney

Yeah. There was a time. So I think it's just the people liking what you're doing, which is the old. Yeah. I think that's basically what everyone wants. You know, my kids laugh at me because they say, you like adulation, don't you? I say, yeah, you can adule me anytime you want.

1190.647 - 1191.649 Richard Osman

Do you like adulation?

1192.23 - 1193.932 Paul McCartney

It's an interesting question. Yeah, I do.

1193.952 - 1203.808 Richard Osman

I do, and I think- Is that because it means you've done a good job, or is there a personal ego in that, or is it you want people to love the thing that you've created?

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