Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello everyone, it's Tom here with news of a Rest is History special. I am interviewing none other than the great, the one and only Paul McCartney. He has a new album out, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. Lots of the songs on that album are about his early years growing up in Liverpool So I'm talking to him about that, about the context, the history that gave rise to the Beatles.
And we have a world exclusive here because one of the songs from that album, Salesman Saint, will be featuring in the interview. So incredibly exciting. Enjoy the song. Enjoy the interview. This episode is brought to you by Lloyd's which has been backing British ambition for over 250 years. Now when you think about it every dynasty in history has boiled down to two important elements. Aspiration
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Chapter 2: What influenced Paul McCartney's early musical development in Liverpool?
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Based on Lloyd's internal customer data from March 2026. Hello everyone and welcome to The Rest is History. And obviously on this show we have talked about all kinds of world historical figures. But today is a first because it's the first time on the show that I will actually be talking to a world historical figure. And this is a man who is the greatest composer of the 20th century.
With the Beatles, he was a lightning rod for one of the most transformative decades in modern history. And ever since I was about eight, he has been my personal hero. So this is unbelievably exciting for me. And I am talking about, of course, Paul McCartney. Well, that's quite an intro. It's not too much for you, I hope.
No. Not excessive. Hey, come on. Adulation.
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Chapter 3: How did the postwar environment shape the Beatles' identity?
It's always a good thing.
So we're talking because you've got a new album out. Yes. And this is an album that it's not continuously about it, but a lot of the songs are focused on your childhood, your teenage years growing up in Liverpool. And I was wondering, is this telling us something about what made Paul McCartney who he is?
In other words, could Paul McCartney, could the Beatles have emerged from any other city apart from Liverpool, do you think? Was there something distinctive about Liverpool?
I think so. Yeah, I was thinking about it recently. I do think the character of Liverpool is a very strong one. I think with the Irish influence and then coming through the war and having to be happy when bombs were falling. So there was a lot of music when I was a kid. My dad played the piano at home. There were a lot of jokes.
And so they kept their heads above water by laughing at the whole thing. And I think that was something that found its way into the Beatles. I think it gave us a good sense of humor that no matter what we were going to do, like arrive in America and have the New York press ready to make fun of us, we gave as good as we got. And that was because of our Liverpool upbringing.
So you, in the new album, you have this song, Salesman Saint, which is about your parents, your mum and dad. And it kind of begins actually in the war because you were born in 1942. All the Beatles were born in the war. How much of a kind of legacy did the war years leave in Liverpool and on your kind of personal memories of it?
A lot. You were very aware of it. Not the actual bombing. I think all of us were a little too young to experience much of that. Ringo, who's the oldest, he might have some memories, but I don't. But the thing is, you know, the feeling that the grown-ups had As I say, you know having to Laugh it off. This is a world war.
Yeah, but they're just they've got to carry on They've got to talk to each other because that's one of the lines in the song is that they had to carry on Yeah, and and they did that's what I say, you know and and I marvel at that because now you know I mean, people can get defeated by the slightest little thing. So compare that to not being defeated by bombs literally raining down on your city.
And you've got to find a way around it. And so when I grew up, there was a lot of joy. I think everyone was just so glad. to be out of these terrible circumstances. And my uncles were all great joke tellers, and I never heard any of them sort of sitting around going, oh God, life's terrible, you know. There was none of that. It just, they'd come through it, and so it kind of wasn't allowed.
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Chapter 4: What role did humor play in Paul McCartney's upbringing?
We were hoping for that. You know, that was the idea that was prevalent at the time. was that you would do what all these other people had done. You didn't quite know how you were gonna do it, but I think that's half the battle is just having that bold ambition.
Yeah.
So we just assumed we could do it if they've done it. And we'd learned a lot of their tricks. So we showed each other how to do it and then came down to London And there were certain guys down here, mainly guys, that would know the stuff we knew. So I remember the Isley Brothers was something that we knew. It was an act we knew because they did Twist and Shout, which we covered.
And then you come down to London and someone would say, oh, you know the Isleys? So there was that kind of in-crowd thing, you know. Yeah, and it was a lot of fun.
But kind of so, again, just to reiterate, it's so mad that this music was so kind of exclusive because you had to know. If you knew, you knew, and if you didn't, you didn't. Whereas now you can just kind of absorb it almost like osmosis.
No, it's nothing like it is now. You can just hit a button and you can get all the music in the world. No, then it was, I think it made it more special. You know, if somebody had an interesting record. John's stepfather, a guy called Dikins, had some cool records.
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Chapter 5: What was the significance of the song 'Salesman Saint' in McCartney's new album?
So we'd go round to the house and play the records. And there'd be things like Carl Perkins. So that all got into our act. So we'd learn it, get all the words down. And so that was how you learned. It was just, if someone had a record You played the record and copied all the words out, worked out the chords and the riffs. It was a magic moment.
Chapter 6: How did World War II impact Liverpool's music scene?
I mean, I learned the riff to That'll Be the Day, Buddy Holly. I think Little Richard and Buddy Holly were your great favorites. They were part of the thing. Buddy Holly was great because he played guitar and he sang and he was out front, which not many of the singers did. Elvis had Scotty Moore, who played guitar for him. But Buddy played the lead and did the riffs. So you'd learn off him.
And he wore glasses, which I always loved. And he wore glasses, which suddenly made life okay for John. John was embarrassed. Anytime he saw girls, he took the glasses off, you know.
So you're learning these songs, but then you... you start to write your own songs. And I saw you interviewed on a film that came out recently, I think on the BBC, about your lost bass. And you were talking about how when you have a guitar, you would kind of take it away and sit in a private room and kind of nurse it, almost like going to a psychiatrist.
And you would talk to the guitar, and the guitar would talk back to you, and it would talk to you in the form of a song. I don't think that's what it's like for most people, but clearly that's what it's like for you. When did you discover that guitars could speak to you and give you songs? It must have been amazing to realize that.
I wrote my first song when I was 14, and I suppose that's when I discovered it. I remember the things that appealed to me about that song. The song was called I Lost My Little Girl, and someone pointed out to me, my mom had died not too long before that. So probably at the back of my mind, a therapist would probably say, that's what this was about.
But the guitar was your therapist.
And the guitar was the therapist, really. So, you know, I had a couple of musical ideas. The chords went down, went from G to G7 to C. So there was a bam, bam, bam. And then my melody went bam, bam, bam, bam against it. So you had those little tricks that you just learned just from listening to music. And yeah, so you put them in and write a song. So once you'd written that first song,
It was quite exciting and uplifting.
So when did you and John start to realize that actually your songs were really good, that they could measure up to the songs that you'd been kind of learning and absorbing?
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