PAUL: Hi is that Joe?

JOE: Is this Sir Paul?

PAUL: Hey Joe, whatta ya know?

JOE: Welcome to Beatle Brunch Paul. It’s nice to finally have you on the show in person

PAUL: Thank you.

JOE: Ah, great show last night. We were sitting right down front and it blew us away, I can’t stop thinking about it.

PAUL: Ah great man, thank you. We come to have a good time and it’s always great if the audience comes along with us

JOE: Three hours of non stop playing, I mean, there was no break. How do you feel today?

PAUL: I feel great..ready to do it again. Yeah ya know, we pace the thing, it’s not like the longest tour in the world, its been about 27 dates and tonight’s our last one. So we normally do two in a row and then take a day off or something. You know, you don’t ruin your voice and stuff. We kinda know the pacing, roughly now, so I feel great. I love doing the show. There’s a lot of nice numbers in it, and it’s a joy playing with the band, such a cool band.

JOE: This little tiny band from Culver City. Where did you pick these guys up?

PAUL: (laughs) Yeah! In L.A. I originally met two of the guys when we were recording the new album, "Driving Rain", and the drummer and Rusty the guitar player, Abe and Rusty, played with me on the "Driving Rain" album, and we enjoyed working together so much that I always thought, well you know if I go out live, I’ve got to take those guys, ‘cause we’ve just fitted in so easily and they’re great attitudes and great players. And then the keyboard player I worked with on "Driving Rain" couldn’t make it, he had some other work, so I then got our old keyboard player from our last band, who’s Wix, which is a really nice inclusion because he knew a lot of the stuff and he had all his keyboards all set up ready to go, so that was great. And then we got a new guy, Brian.

JOE: It was really amazing. How did it feel to bring out "Getting Better" after all these years?

PAUL: Ya know, it really is great fun actually, because you know what happened was, I had a set list that I was, we were going to Culver City in L.A. to rehearse, and I had a certain bunch of numbers, and actually, Rusty, the guitar player, said, "Hey, have you thought about ‘Getting Better’? And I said, "No, not really". And he said, "I think that would be a great one to do". So that was almost a request from him.

JOE: Great!

PAUL: So we put that in. And the great thing about it is, as you say, it’s something I had never done since I actually made the record in 67, ya know.? So it was like, wow! It really felt fresh, it really feels very fresh b cause it’s like I’m re-discovering the song, and it doesn’t feel like I’m just sort of playing an old song, even though it is an old song, it feels like a new song.

JOE: Yeah, it really does. It really sounds great on stage. I mean they’re all great for us, which one of the songs gives you the biggest thrill when you’re up there?

PAUL: Well ya know it varies from night to night. Sometimes it can be "Driving Rain" or "Loving Flame" off the new album, because they’re so fresh. They’re still exciting to play. Another night it can be "Back in the USSR", because the audience’s reaction to that is fantastic! Ya know I think it’s just in the right place in the set, after "Band on the Run". And the audience gets really wild round about that time, which is great. And then other times, if you’re in a sort of quieter mood, like "Here Today", which is a song I wrote for John after he passed away. And that’s a very sort of sad, very emotional moment, but that sometimes is great to do. But in truth, ya know the whole set is nice to do.

JOE: Now, the tribute to John, that’s a song you haven’t brought out in 20 years, so you really haven’t sung it since "Tug of War", right?

PAUL: "Here Today?", No that’s right.. That was a kind of lesser-known album track and I had actually been doing it as a reading when I was doing some poetry readings. So I was just doing the words of it. And I kinda liked that. So that reminded me of the song, so I thought, well I’ll put the music back and do it as a tribute to John. And it’s very nice because I think for most of the audience, they think it’s a new song, ya know?

JOE: It’s really gorgeous. And the tribute to George was fun and funny. I think that was in keeping with George’s spirit. You know how funny he was.

PAUL: Well ya know, that’s who you try to do. It’s like the Irish, when someone passes away they kind of celebrate the person’s life, They have a wake. They do it how the person would have lived it, and you know and I that was sort of the feeling I got with George was that he was such a sort of cool guy, and nice guy and his love for ukulele was sort of really quite a big passion, ya know. And it reminded me that when I’d been around to see him, the second to last time I’d seen him, that actually happened. I played a bit of that to him and we had a laugh and it seemed like a sort of real moment to share with the audience, so that’s how that all arose.

JOE: We love it. I remember interviews where you said turning 30 was old. Now pretty soon there’s another big one coming up . How do you feel about this?

PAUL: Yeah (laughs). Well it’s not 30, let’s put it that way! You know what? It’s really cool. I don’t mind at all. It’s a funny thing. As you do those sort of decade birthdays, 30, 40, 50 and in my next case, 60, you get a sort of feeling of not being able to believe it. You say to yourself, "Wait a minute! Am I 60? I don’t get it, ya know. And I am now claiming that someone falsified my birth certificate.

JOE: OK!

PAUL: Yeah, I think there was some mistake back in Liverpool.

JOE: I think we should look into it.

PAUL: I think we should look into it! I think it must have been very dark or something on that day and somebody just made a mistake. But seriously, it’s great. I don’t mind. I’m not (gonna) ages. I feel great and I’m having such a good time on the tour, that age doesn’t really come into it, ya know. All the guys in the band are all varying ages, and we all feel the same as each other, we’re just musicians kicking it out.

JOE: Yeah, you guys were great.

PAUL: Well, all I know is there’s always some kinda plan, something in the pipeline at Apple as to what the next Beatles project might be. And the last one being "1", was so successful, that the idea at the moment that’s being floated, is for "Let it Be" to be a dvd and what I like about the idea, is that it means the soundtrack and the accompanying album is the stripped-down one, it’s the one without the orchestra and without all the overdubs. And that was always my favorite version of "Let it Be", I think it exists as a bootleg? But that would be the fun actually, reclaiming our bootlegs, because the great thing is the bootleggers can’t sue you.

JOE: That’s right!

PAUL: "Hey that’s my record!" You say, "No it isn’t!" So that’s the idea is to re-release "Let it Be" as a dvd, but also to have the soundtrack, which is just the stripped-down version, which is basically us guys playing unadorned, but I think it’s a strong record that way.

JOE: Congratulations on your upcoming marriage. Heather is so strong. She represents such a great cause and I saw you guys on Leno. Is there anything anybody can do to help? I mean we watch you guys talk about land mines, but what can we do personally?

PAUL: Yeah, well there’s an organization we’re involved with called "Adopt a Minefield", and you can get in touch with them and there is a website, I think it’s "landmines.org" and you can look all that up. And the thing is there’s lots of ways people can do things. People can organize fund raising things at their schools, in their neighborhoods, and for something like 20-dollars, you can fit up kid who’s lost their leg with a new limb and it gives that kid a life. They can go to school, they can play with their friends, they can play soccer. You’d be amazed at what something like 20-dollars can do. So that’s what we spend a lot of time doing now. So "Adopt a Minefield" is a really good organization, so anyone who really wanted to help, can do that. And also can speak out against land mines because I think it would be great to see the American Government take a lead. I know the administration is a bit nervous of signing treaties at the moment after 9-11 and I think that’s kind of understandable, but there are a lot of things you can without signing a treaty. So I think if the American people urge the administration to get rid of land mines, that it not only helps all the civilians in all these war zones, it actually helps your own soldiers, because the soldiers don’t like those things.

They step on them, and suddenly what was a perfectly healthy young man, is an invalid, ya know? So the guys don’t like them. So there’s a lot people can do. They can speak out against it and look at the work of "Adopt a Minefield", that’s what I suggest, that for a start.

JOE: Speaking of all that, thanks so much for stepping up to the plate after 9-11. It was so amazing to see you come do that. Not that we didn’t expect you to rise to the occasion, but it was so moving and so beautiful. On behalf of everybody in America, we really thank you.

PAUL: Ah, thanks a lot Joe, but it was my pleasure. I must say I’ve got a lot of New York relatives. My nephew, he’s actually in the car with me now. He’s coming to see the last show and he’s a New Yorker. And a lot of my relatives are New Yorkers, so we felt very deeply, and we were there when it happened, so we didn’t want to sit around and do nothing so we organized the concert. And we were very proud to do it. You know I’m very proud to have been there. It was something where you wanted to stand up and be counted and you wanted to help the whole mood of New York, because everyone was in shock as was the rest of the world, but particularly in New York. So it was really great to be and to be able to do something special and I say to people, "It was my pleasure".

JOE: Great. Are you guys gonna plan to have any children? Is that something that’s in the future for you and Heather?

PAUL: Oh, you never know, man. You never know. I mean, that’s the thing that people ask, but you know, anyone’s who’s getting married, you just, you never know, that’s like in the hands of fate.

JOE: I just wanted to wrap it up by asking you to set your "Your Loving Flame". I want to play it for everybody.

PAUL: I’ll tell you all about it Joe, and then I’ll sign off. What happened was, I was in the Carlisle Hotel in New York and it was over a year ago. And I was up on the I think the 36^th floor . It was a beautiful suite, and a plate glass window looking out over Central Park. And for someone like me, that’s like walking in to "The Cole Porter Story", so I just thought, "wow, I’ve got to write something". And I sat down and I wrote "Loving Flame" and it came quite easily.

And after I finished it, I rang Heather up, she was in England. And I said, "Do you wanna hear something?", and she said "Yeah, what is it?". So I pulled the telephone halfway across the room and I pulled the piano the other half way across the room and played it to her and she loved it. She was kind of emotional. And I said, "I wrote it for you". So that’s what it is, it’s "Your Loving Flame", the first song I ever wrote for Heather. Let’s play it.

JOE: Listen, have a terrific show. We love you very much, Paul. Thanks so much for calling in.

PAUL: Thanks a lot for the compliments, and I’m glad you enjoyed the show. Bye.

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