Paul McCartney Recalled Living Off ‘Linda’s Saving’ in the Early Days of Wings
After The Beatles, Paul McCartney built his second band, Wings, from the ground up. This included spontaneous tours where they didn’t book venues or hotels before arriving. These tours cost a pretty penny, and McCartney recalled living off Linda’s savings to get through them.
Paul McCartney and Wings did unplanned tours in their early years
Wings was formed in 1971, and their early days included driving around the U.K. and performing unannounced shows at random venues and colleges. For the tour, Paul and his then-wife, Linda, drove around in a van with a few dogs and their children. In an interview with Radio Times, McCartney reflected on this experience, saying he doesn’t regret bringing his children with him.
“I look back and think we were ‘crazy,’ which equals stupid or crazy which equals ‘cool’ – the interpretation I prefer,” McCartney said. “Psychologically, it was like going on a suicide mission. We didn’t even have hotels booked. We’d show up at places and they’d say, ‘Sorry, there’s a conference in town,’ so we stayed in some quite seedy joints. People said we shouldn’t drag the kids with us, but they saw a lot of the world, and had tutors. We never felt in a race to prove ourselves the best parents, or best musicians, on the planet. We only wanted them to have good hearts, and the evidence is there to show we were OK. It was an intimate experience for Linda and me – us against the world.”
McCartney said they initially lived on ‘Linda’s savings’ for the early tours
While Paul McCartney became very rich during his time with The Beatles, he could not use those funds with Wings due to ongoing legal battles. The early tours were expensive, so they had to find some way to pay for the hotels, gas, food, and other expenditures. The “Let it Be” singer said they initially used Linda’s savings to fund these tours.
“When we started, I had nothing and couldn’t get money for the first two years because it was frozen by lawsuits. We lived off Linda’s savings in the Chemical Bank. It was a source of great pride to both of us that she could say she kept me for a couple of years because there was a danger I’d dominate the situation, and I’m not out to do that, particularly in a marriage. There were moments we wondered why we were doing it, but there’s a perseverence gene in me and if I’d given up after The Beatles, I wouldn’t have written ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ or ‘My Love’, and I’m glad I did.”
Wings would perform at student unions and charge 50 pence
In The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present, Paul McCartney discussed performing with Wings at student unions. He shared that the band would arrive unannounced and charge only 50 pence for a show. This most likely didn’t equal what they were spending on the tour, but McCartney recognized that the shows might not be adequate due to the band being in its early stages.
“With Wings, we would show up at student unions and say, ‘Can we do a gig?’ because we knew they had a hall and they had people,” McCartney recalled. “We’d charge 50p at the door. We had only eleven songs, so we had to repeat some of them. Some of the gigs must have been quite bad because we didn’t really know what we were doing.”
