A new book on Paul McCartney is being released this September. What is it about this man that has allowed him to endure through the ages and remain at the very pinnacle of the music industry?
Yesterday! Even as a teenager, I was impressed by the unusual clash of styles between music, hairstyles and fashion of the mobtops. The jackets, the colourful costumes from the Sergeant Pepper film, the hippie look, the elite suits from Savile Row. … wow, simply cool! Lots of flared pants and miniskirts in front of the TV and in the audience – in this climate, the boundaries between music and society widened – the conservative social order and prudish morals of the 1950s had had their day.
Why does the spirit of the 60s and 70s still resonate today? For anyone who grew up in the sixties and seventies of the last century, the Beatles were heroes. It was about a huge wave of inspiration – that effortless, natural exuberance and joy. It was about social fluidity, movement and energy, it felt authentic. The Beatles, who presented that, became popular at exactly the right time, didn’t seem contrived or passive – they were doing something. They were patriots and rebels. And musicians. Nothing was conceptual or intellectualised. Hi Hi Hi. They drew inspiration from everywhere: from travelling, religion and philosophy, from classical music. They travelled the world and were very rooted in reality – at least that’s how it seemed to me.
Silly Love Songs?
As an interdisciplinary work of art, it was always the thought of Paul McCartney and his sadly-deceased wife Linda – with her other creative form of expression, photography – as pioneers of veggie cuisine and as animal lovers that made my eyes light up. To this day, Paul brings back the feelings from back then. I firmly believe that there are many fans around the world who share this longing, who remember this time and want to feel it again. But fashion is fleeting, and so what was fashionable in my childhood and youth can seem terribly silly today. But then, as now, Paul McCartney is always in tune with the times and extremely casual at the same time. He has a natural feel for what inspires and excites young people like no other.
Hope for the future!
For those who understand the Beatles’ success not only as a musical but also as a political phenomenon, the years before 1966 are nevertheless the most interesting. Political? They did nothing other than sing about love. Love love love! After all, they made no secret of the fact that they disapproved of the USA’s Vietnam War, even outside of their concerts. In Manila in the summer of 1966, they played in front of just over 50,000 people, but afterwards refused to have dinner with the dictator’s wife Imelda Marcos. Racial segregation was still in force in the USA at the time, including at concerts. However, the Beatles insisted on its abolition and made their performance dependent on it.
Come together!
The latter ‘side issue’ shows what their ‘politics’ were, namely that they gathered a large crowd of young people and gave them a sense of togetherness. Even though they didn’t demand or expect anything else – they didn’t espouse a particular political message like other bands – they didn’t allow their audience to become divided. And the feeling of togetherness was a reality.
Connecting people and bringing them together – this message has never been as politically relevant as it is today! It always has to start with a new culture, and the Beatles and their fans have shown how to do that.
As we all know, classics often suffer the fate of being forgotten. This is not the case with Paul McCartney. The numerous books and articles that have been published about him show how great his influence on global pop culture is considered to be.
I’m really looking forward to ‘Paul McCartney – Up Close’ by the well-known music journalist Christian Simon. It will be published worldwide in English by Molino Verlag (publisher Matthias Slunitschek) on 27th September, 2025.
Is this Love?
Dear Christian, you have been in the music business for a long time and have made it to the top of the entertainment industry. You started out as a presenter on Radio Luxembourg in 1974, followed by television programmes such as ‘Rockpop’ on ZDF and countless radio shows. Writing books is another important step in your career. You have worked with a great number of stars and came to Paul McCartney through Udo Jürgens, with whom you are now almost friends. That makes our readers curious and I am delighted that you have agreed to answer some of our questions!
Your wife Monica and yourself have followed Paul McCartney’s development over many years and have never been immune to his extra class. Can you tell us about your experiences with Paul and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts? Can and will he still achieve something? He who has already achieved everything?
Paul McCartney is a relaxed workaholic. He doesn’t have to work, but he wants to. He has so much creativity in him, it just has to come out! And for all his success, he has remained a completely normal guy who has never denied or forgotten his origins – he is a Liverpudlian who loves his city and the mentality of its inhabitants. You ask, whether he can still achieve something? Of course he can! He can make people all over the world happy every day with his old and new music. That’s one thing, another is his willingness to help and his messages. These can be seen, for example, in his commitment to animal and environmental protection and his support for organisations that are also committed to this. When Paul saved his old school from decay to found the ‘Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts’, he donated millions to the project himself to enable young talents from all over the world to receive professional training in many professions in the entertainment and music industry. So Paul is always looking for new goals and says himself that he still wants to do so much that his lifetime might not be enough.
Was everything really more carefree in the past? Can younger readers empathise with the challenges of earlier times? Did the mobtops campaign for a better future?
Every era has its challenges, and young people have fundamentally different ideas and goals to the older generation. It was the same for the Beatles. They too only developed a political interest and a critical world view later on. Recreating the 1960s, the ‘swinging sixties’, is difficult to almost impossible… you have to experience the 60s. To feel the new, to be a part of it, to feel the changes in all areas of life that had been so bourgeois until then, that was a revolution! Young people today have the opportunity to make our world a better place and make sure that people don’t continue to destroy the living space for themselves and all living creatures!
What challenges did you face as an author?
To portray the people Paul and Linda McCartney, with whom I worked closely for 15 years, as closely as possible without crossing the line of intimacy. To convey their opinions on important things, their experiences, their adventures, their way of life in such a way that you can feel and understand it as if you were there during the conversations and encounters. My wife has documented these years wonderfully with her photos in the book.
Paul brought the legacy of the ‘Fab Four’ into the present with unforgettable live performances full of world hits. Paul McCartney and the zeitgeist – The Beatles legend used artificial intelligence for a duet with John Lennon. Is he paving the way for AI to compete with his own past?
No. In this case, Paul used AI technology to revive the Beatles once again and for the last time. The impetus for this was a cassette by John Lennon on which he had recorded a song that was never released. Paul is a perfectionist, especially when it comes to studio and stage technology.
How can you remain loyal to an artist for so long without losing your passion? And what anecdotes do you have from several decades?
By following him as an interested person and not as a fan. Anecdotes…there are quite a few. And here’s a tip: read the book! I hope you enjoy it. Thank you for the interview and all the best to you and your readers!
Thank you! I like your own language, your tone of voice. I rely on your instinct and look forward to reading the book and getting to know the real Paul McCartney. His music is powerful and I already know one thing: it’s not about the latest song, it’s about the right one.
Christian Simon at Molino Verlag (publisher Matthias Slunitschek), ‘Paul McCartney – Up Close’.
All images courtesy and © Christian Simon unless otherwise credited; lead image by Jimmy Baikovicius from Montevideo, Uruguay – Sir James Paul McCartney – Out There Concert | 140420-5965-jikatu; licenced under CC BY-SA 2.0
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