How Disney Inspired Paul McCartney to Become a Vegetarian
Paul McCartney has been a longtime activist for animal rights. He is a well-known vegetarian and frequently tries to teach people about the benefits of not eating meat. While he became a vegetarian with his first wife, Linda, another inspiration for his love of animals came from Disney, who taught him some important life lessons.
Paul McCartney became a vegetarian after a brief animal encounter
Growing up in Liverpool, Paul McCartney ate meat frequently, as it was challenging to eat a veggie diet then. His first brush with vegetarianism came in 1968 during the Beatles’ trip to India. However, he didn’t commit to the lifestyle until the mid-1970s.
In an interview with The Guardian, McCartney shared when he became a vegetarian. He and Linda were eating meat when they looked out the window, saw a group of adorable lambs, and decided to stop devouring meat then and there.
“It was like, the penny dropped,” McCartney shared. “The light bulb lit up. We thought, ‘We might just give this up.’”
Paul McCartney says Disney movies taught him to be kinder to animals
Paul McCartney grew up in the early days of Disney, meaning as a child, he watched movies like Pinocchio, Bambi, Dumbo, and Cinderella. 1942’s Bambi traumatized many kids who were unprepared to witness Bambi’s mom’s death. According to BBC News, this made McCartney think differently about how he treated animals.
“I think that made me grow up thinking hunting isn’t cool,” he said.
Dumbo is another movie that made an impression on the singer as he states, “You look through a lot of these great stories – Dumbo, his mum is quite badly treated. A lot of these classic stories, through their efforts, kids – as I once was – have grown up feeling it’s a bad idea to be cruel to animals.”
McCartney wasn’t the only Beatles member inspired by Disney
Disney animated movies were booming in the 1940s and 1950s, so the other Beatles grew up watching the same movies. Along with Paul McCartney, John Lennon had a strong connection to Disney movies, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
In All We Are Saying: The last major interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Lennon said The Beatles’ “Do You Want to Know a Secret” was based on Snow White’s “I’m Wishing”. His mother used to sing it to him, and he could still remember the tune.
“My mother was always… she was a comedienne and a singer. Not professional, but, you know, she used to get up in pubs and things like that,” Lennon explained. “She had a good voice. She could do Kay Starr. She used to do this little tune when I was just a one- or two-year-old… yeah, she was still living with me then… The tune was from the Disney movie – ‘Want to know a secret? Promise not to tell. You are standing by a wishing well.’”
“So, I had this sort of thing in my head and I wrote it and just gave it to George to sing,” he added. “I thought it would be a good vehicle for him because it only had three notes, and he wasn’t the best singer in the world.”
