Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly publication Now Hear This for the within observe on all issues music

Get our Now Hear This electronic mail totally free

Sir Paul McCartney has mentioned he suffered an “embarrassing” onstage blunder early on with The Beatles, which formed the course of his profession.

The 81-year-old served because the band’s lead vocalist alongside John Lennon, whereas additionally taking part in the bass guitar and writing a few of their greatest hits together with “Love Me Do” and “Yesterday”.

However, when The Beatles first began taking part in collectively, McCartney was most inquisitive about being the lead guitarist – and tried his hand at it throughout their early performances.

In the most recent episode of the podcast McCartney: A Life In Lyrics, the Liverpool-born musician recalled taking part in his first lead guitar solo throughout a gig when he froze up mid-performance and started to query his profession path.

“We had this gig and it was the first thing I ever played, and I was lead guitar player,” he continued. “John [Lennon] was rhythm. I had a solo and I totally froze. Could not move my fingers.”

“It was just so embarrassing. My lead guitar playing career melted at that moment and I said, ‘Well, I’m not doing this again. I’m not cut out for this. I’m no good.’”

The Beatles, additionally made up of Ringo Starr and George Harrison, have been initially shaped in 1960, and with McCartney finally as lead vocalist and bass guitarist, they went on to make generational classics together with “Hey Jude” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand”.

Last week, McCartney expressed his pleasure at Beyoncé’s shifting cowl of “Blackbird”, the civil rights-inspired tune he launched with The Beatles in 1968, which options on her new album Cowboy Carter.

The American popstar sings her model of the observe with Tanner Adell, Brittney Spencer, Tiera Kennedy and Reyna Roberts, championing the 4 rising feminine nation singers.

Enjoy limitless entry to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music

Sign up now for a 30-day free trial

Sign up

Enjoy limitless entry to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music

Sign up now for a 30-day free trial

Sign up

“I am so happy with Beyoncé’s version of my song ‘Blackbird’,” McCartney, 81, mentioned in an Instagram submit.

“I think she does a magnificent job of it and it reinforces the civil rights message that inspired me to write the song in the first place.

“I think Beyoncé has done a fab version and would urge anyone who has not heard it yet to check it out. You are going to love it!”

McCartney revealed that he spoke with Beyoncé on FaceTime, the place she thanked him for writing the tune: “I told her the pleasure was all mine and I thought she had done a killer version of the song.”

He continued: “When I saw the footage on the television in the early Sixties of the Black girls being turned away from school, I found it shocking and I can’t believe that still in these days there are places where this kind of thing is happening right now.

“Anything my song and Beyoncé’s fabulous version can do to ease racial tension would be a great thing and makes me very proud.”

McCartney has beforehand mentioned he wrote the tune after he “heard about the civil rights troubles” that have been taking place in America in the course of the Nineteen Sixties, predominantly within the deep south in states like Alabama and Mississippi.

The newest episodes of Paul McCartney: A Life in Lyrics can be found on all main streaming platforms.