McCARTNEY: I HAVE TRIED HEROIN

AT THE very height of Beatlemania, the Fab Four played to an astonishing
500,000 people during a 1964 whirlwind tour of the US.

Today, 40 years on, Sir Paul McCartney will be seen by more than 700,000
fans in a 13-date European tour. Not bad for a man who turns 62 this month.

But even though he is in numerical terms a bigger draw than the Beatles
ever were, he is not about to play down the debt he owes to his years in
the biggest pop group of all time.

In his most revealing interview ever, McCartney has talked candidly about
his love for John Lennon, the nervous breakdown he suffered after the
Beatles split and why he should never have released some of his solo albums.

Although it's well known that he dabbled with drugs, including cannabis and
cocaine, he reveals for the first time how he once took heroin.

His verdict: "It didn't do anything for me, which was lucky because I
wouldn't have fancied heading down that road."

McCartney, who is due to headline the Glastonbury Festival on June 26,
says: "What's amazed me about the big tours I've done in the last few years
is that the thrill is as great as it ever was.

"We go on tour now and I think I should be fed up with it all by now -
after all, I've done a fair bit of it. But I go to places like Mexico City
and I get an audience that's louder than any I've ever heard, including
those at Beatles gigs.

"I'm singing Hello Goodbye and the way they react is so completely
overwhelming that I can barely get the words out."

But he knows that the songs he and John Lennon wrote together will get the
biggest cheers of all.

"There are days when I wake up and have to remind myself that I wrote songs
with John Lennon," he says.

"It's fantastic that he was a part of my life in that way.

IMAGINE the luxury of being stuck on a song and being able to hand it over
to John Lennon to finish off. Do I miss that? Of course I do. Hugely.

"In all the years I wrote with John, I can't remember a single occasion
when we didn't come up with a song.

"At worst, we'd write at least once every day. It all happened at an
amazing pace.

"We'd sag off school and write songs at my house. We'd start at two in the
afternoon and we had to be finished by five so we could clean up and clear
out before my dad got home.

"We wrote loads of stuff. We'd stuff some Twinings tea in a pipe, smoke
that and write songs. It wasn't all good but we always came up with something.

"We all had a common vision, at least in the early days. The thing about me
and John is that we were different - but we weren't that different.

"I think Linda put her finger on it when she said me and John were like
mirror images of each other.

"Even down to how we started writing together, facing each other,
eyeball-to-eyeball, exactly like looking in the mirror.

"On the surface, I was very easy-going, always accommodating, but, at
certain times, I would very much be the hard man of the duo.

"John would allow me to take that role because it enabled him to drop his
guard and be vulnerable.

"On the surface, he was this hard, witty guy, always on hand with a cutting
witticism. He appeared caustic, even cruel at times, but really he was very
soft.

"John was very insecure. He carried a lot of that from his upbringing, what
with his father leaving when he was five.

"Then, of course, we'd both lost our mothers, so we had that in common.
Ultimately, we were equals."

After releasing their debut album in 1963, the Beatles - Lennon, McCartney,
George Harrison and Ringo Starr - went on to become the biggest names in pop.

By the time they split up in 1970,they had released some of the most
innovative, groundbreaking albums ever, including Rubber Soul, Revolver and
Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. In the early days one of their
biggest influences was Elvis Presley, but as the King's career faltered in
the 60s drugs became another inspiration.

"The army had kind of ruined Elvis," says Paul. "He'd been this ultimate
rebel figure who we'd all worshipped.

"Then they made him cut his hair and he had to call everyone 'sir', and he
was never really the same again.

"Just about everyone was doing drugs in one form or another and we were no
different, but the writing was too important for us to mess it up by
getting off our heads all the time. It was just easier to write when we
were straight and seemly.

"It was only on Pepper that we started to use stuff in the studio. On the
earlier albums we'd have been using those drugs socially, so in that sense
the drugs informed what we did.

"A song like Got To Get You Into My Life, that's directly about pot,
although everyone missed it at the time. Day Tripper, that's one about
acid. Lucy In The Sky, that's pretty obvious.

"There's others that make subtle hints about drugs, but, you know, it's
easy to overestimate the influence of drugs on the Beatles' music.

"I tried heroin just the once. Even then, I didn't realise I'd taken it. I
was just handed something, smoked it, then found out what it was.

"It didn't do anything for me, which was lucky because I wouldn't have
fancied heading down that road.

"I did cocaine for about a year around the time of Sergeant Pepper. Coke
and maybe some grass to balance it out. I was never completely crazy with
cocaine.

"I'd been introduced to it and at first it seemed OK, like anything that's
new and stimulating.

"When you start working your way through it, you start thinking: 'Mmm, this
is not so cool an idea', especially when you start getting those terrible
comedowns."

Perhaps the biggest comedown of all came as the group imploded at the end
of the 60s when McCartney sued the other Beatles to dissolve the band.

"It was 10 years of hell," he says. "What followed was that everyone was
split into camps.

"There were three of them and one of me. John, George and Ringo had been my
best mates.

"Now they were my enemies. That was really, really hard to take.

"In the Beatles, we'd always had this running joke: 'What are we going to
do when the bubble bursts?'

"Then it did burst and I went up to my farm in Scotland, wondering what the
hell I was going to do next.

"I seriously thought about giving up music altogether. It was a bloody hard
time.

"It was difficult to get up in the morning. I was drinking quite a lot,
probably having a bit of a nervous breakdown. Looking back, I was in a
state of grief. I realise that now. Grief for the end of the Beatles."

It was only through music that he was able to rouse himself from his
torpor. In 1971 he founded Wings with his first wife Linda, Denny Laine and
Denny Seiwell.

Although the band sold millions of records, it never received anything like
the critical acclaim lavished upon the Beatles.

"Early Wings were pretty rough, not terribly good," admits Paul. "There was
a time when the Beatles weren't very good, but we were able to be not very
good in private.

"Wings had to do it in public and there was always the shadow of the
Beatles, which didn't help.

"One thing you have to say is that I've put out an awful lot of records.
Some of them I shouldn't have put out, sure. I'd gladly accept that.

"There's many different reasons for putting a record out. Sometimes I might
just put one out because I'm bored and I've got nothing better to do.

"In 1977, I fancied doing a Scottish bagpipe song, so I wrote Mull Of
Kintyre. The people who hated it were pd off with me.

"Of course, it didn't help that it came out at the height of punk rock. But
what should I have done at that time? Stuck a safety pin through my nose
and done some bonkers punk song?

MY attitude is really: 'Sod you. You think Mull Of Kintyre is crap - you
try writing something like that.' I do get annoyed at having to justify myself.

"Since school, I've never liked having to do that. I never liked anyone
telling me what to do. I never liked that bullying tendency."

Wings split up in 1980 - the year McCartney was arrested at Tokyo
International Airport after marijuana was found in his luggage.

He remembers: "I was out in New York and I had all this really good grass.
Excellent stuff.

"We were about to fly to Japan and I knew I wouldn't be able to get
anything to smoke over there. This stuff was too good to flush down the
toilet, so I thought I'd take it with me.

"Looking back, it's not too wonderful being banged up in a Japanese jail.

"When I first arrived I was thinking: 'This is a storm in a teacup - I'll
be out in no time.' Then the British vice-consul told me I could get seven
years of hard labour. That's when it got extremely worrying.

"It was five days before Linda was allowed to visit me and I'd never spent
a night apart from her since we'd married. It was pretty rough. Just a thin
mattress on the floor.

"I had to wash myself using water from the toilet cistern. I had to share a
bath with a bloke who was in for murder. I was afraid to take my suit off
in case I got raped."

Twenty-four years on, possessing pot doesn't seem quite the heinous offence
it once was. McCartney says: "Just the other day I went for a walk on my
own in the Hollywood Hills.

"This bunch of teenagers passed by me and one of them turned to me and
said: 'Hey, Macca, you're the man! Fancy joining us for a smoke?'

"To me, it's a huge compliment that a bunch of kids think I might be up to
smoke a bit of dope with them.

"I'd be mad not to feel blessed, wouldn't I? I've been a lucky bugger and
so many things that happened to me were pure chance.

"I'm lucky, very f*g lucky, just to still be vibing and loving life and
holding on to my enthusiasm for things."

For the full interview, check out this month's Uncut - the music and movies
magazine, on sale from tomorrow.