It was back in 1969 that Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney was dealing with the impending breakup of the legendary band. John Lennon had left the group, and while they’d kept it quiet, Paul packed up his family and retreated to a remote Scottish farmhouse.
Paul McCartney had a tough time
“He is not wanting to get out of bed and drinking way too much once he did get out of bed,” biographer Allan Kozinn tells Closer[via Yahoo].
“He’s completely depressed. He had been in the Beatles his whole adult life. It was the only job he knew.” Suddenly, Kozinn says, “Paul had a lot of self-doubt.” It was the darkest time in Paul’s life to that point. “I didn’t know what to do at all,” the iconic singer recalled. “How could anything I do be as good as the Beatles?”
As he sunk into sadness, “that left [his wife] Linda with the job of trying to bring him back to life,” says Kozinn, coauthor of the new book The McCartney Legacy: Volume 1: 1969-73. “Linda’s got these two kids, and they’re in the middle of Scotland in a ramshackle farmhouse, and she’s trying to hold it all together.”
Fortunately, she succeeded. The pair had married in 1969, and their first of three girls, Mary, was born later that year. While Linda, a photographer and mother to 6-year-old Heather from a previous relationship, understood Paul’s distress, she brought a no-nonsense attitude to their new situation.
According to Kozinn, Linda told Paul, “Wait a minute. You’re one of the greatest songwriters of the 20th century and you’re a great bass player, you have a voice that people will kill for, why is this a problem? Why can’t you just go out on your own?” Paul was worried, however, that he’d be blamed for the Fab Four’s breakup.
“I kind of bought into that a little bit,” he admitted later, “and although I knew it wasn’t true, it affected me enough to be unsure of myself.” Linda urged him forward. “Paul has an artistic side that isn’t levelheaded, and I like that,” Linda said. “His mind is amazing.”
Her dedication and his talent slowly revived his confidence. “He came back from that trip to Scotland with 1.5 songs to start his first solo album,” Kozinn says, although “it wasn’t until he was well into the middle of the album that he came up with ‘Maybe I’m Amazed.’ ”
