Questions you'd ask Paul if you could interview him | Page 7 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

Paul, do you know all your songs (Beatles and post-Beatles) by heart? 

Are there some songs you don’t remember completely, and you have to refresh your memory, maybe you forget a chord or two, or a lyric here and there…?

Do you have a daily routine of playing songs for practice?  Given all the hundreds of songs you must know in your head, how many of them do you play each day?  There are only so many minutes in a day, plus you have other things to attend to in life — how many songs can you practice each day? 

Aren’t there some of your songs you never get around to playing — maybe a whole year goes by without your playing them?

Do you feel the need to practice your songs plus the songs you know and love by others?  Or could you “rest on your laurels” and never have to practice them again?

Just before you perform a song for a concert, do you feel the need to “brush up” on the song by practicing it? If so, how many times do you play it?

Do you still make mistakes playing your own songs?

Have you ever found yourself wanting to change one of your songs markedly long after it has been produced on record, just through the mere fact of re-playing it over and over, and you find there are new improvisations and arrangements you’d like to add to it?

Okay, I see your bodyguards are getting edgy — I’ll let myself out now…  Thanks for the tea and scones…

Thanks for all that input; I didn’t know that about the teleprompter.  I’ll have to check out that “Lady Madonna ” version too…

It just occurred to me that the way the Beatles generally made music, they were more of a studio band after their initialy flurry of years, and Paul and John really got into multiple tracking, not to mention many takes to get it right, which can be ways of “cheating”.  And certainly the first three or four solo albums (especially Ram ) were deeply record studio projects, with lots of tracking over.

I realize that Paul over the years has made great strides in becoming a performing musician as well; however, I wonder whether the studio musician side of him is sometimes hardwired into his brain… For a perfectionist like he is, the studio is the place to be. 

I also realize that he — and another Paul, Paul Simon, also a perfectionist — can relax from his perfectionism and have a good time trying new things, making people happy live, or just not being obsessed about being as optimal as 50 takes can make a recording sound. Still, I think musicians like that, their heart is in crafting that perfect sound in the studio.

Thanks cbatcu — for now I cheated and went straight for the Lady Madonna part.  I’ll watch the rest of it later.  What year is that from?  Who’s that blonde woman in the audience?

I have to say I don’t care for this version; it’s certainly interesting for him to try that and on one level, why not?  But that still doesn’t mean I like it.  It sounds like a Billly Joel ballad now… To me the magic of the original is its tempo and the intricate piano (plus the harmonies from John and George and the saxophones).