Skip to main content

TL;DR:

  • Paul McCartney looked back on what life was like with his mother.
  • Paul McCartney met his wife Linda after a dream message from his mom.
  • The marriage between Paul and Linda McCartney lasted nearly 30 years.
A black and white picture of Linda McCartney standing arm in arm with Paul McCartney, who holds a camera.
Linda McCartney and Paul McCartney | Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Paul McCartney met his first wife, Linda, shortly after having a dream with a message from his mother, Mary. She died when McCartney was 14, years before he rose to success in The Beatles. The dream — which famously inspired the song “Let It Be” — came at a stressful time in McCartney’s life. He felt a sense of calmness when he woke up. When he met his wife soon after, he felt as though his mom had sent her.

The former Beatle’s mother died when he was a teenager

McCartney’s mother, Mary, died of cancer when the musician was 14. He said he would go back to see her if he had a time machine. He was sorry for the limited time they spent together.

“At night when she came home [from work], she would cook, so we didn’t have a lot of time with each other,” McCartney said, per the Telegraph. “But she was just a very comforting presence in my life. And when she died, one of the difficulties I had, as the years went by, was that I couldn’t recall her face so easily. That’s how it is for everyone, I think. As each day goes by, you just can’t bring their face into your mind, you have to use photographs and reminders like that.”

Paul McCartney met his wife Linda after a sign from his mother

Years after his mother’s death, McCartney had a dream about his mother during a stressful period of his life. The pressure of being in The Beatles, with his massive levels of fame and the growing band tensions, were becoming hard to handle.

“So in this dream twelve years later, my mother appeared, and there was her face, completely clear, particularly her eyes, and she said to me very gently, very reassuringly: `Let it be.`

The dream was, of course, the inspiration for the song “Let It Be.” It also gave McCartney a sense of peace.

“It was lovely. I woke up with a great feeling,” he said. “It was really like she had visited me at this very difficult point in my life and gave me this message: Be gentle, don’t fight things, just try and go with the flow and it will all work out.” 

Shortly after the dream, McCartney met Linda, who changed his life.

“Not very long after the dream, I got together with Linda, which was the saving of me,” he said. “And it was as if my mum had sent her, you could say. So those words are really very special to me, because not only did my mum come to me in a dream and reassure me with them at a very difficult time in my life — and sure enough, things did get better after that — but also, in putting them into a song, and recording it with the Beatles, it became a comforting, healing statement for other people too.”

Paul McCartney and his wife Linda were married for nearly 30 years

McCartney and Linda married in 1969 and remained together until she died in 1998. Their union was a close one: in their decades together, they spent a total of 10 nights apart, and not voluntarily.

Related

Paul McCartney Said It Was Hard to Think of George Harrison as a Grown Up

 “I am privileged to have been her lover for thirty years, and in all that time, except for one enforced absence, we never spent a single night apart,” McCartney said, per the book Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now by Barry Miles. “When people asked why, we would say, ‘What for?'”

Best in Entertainment