P Mccartney Quotes

The orchestral session came off almost, but not entirely, without a hitch. Through several takes, the principal cellist seemed to be having difficulty phrasing the short cello obbligato in ‘Live and Let Die.’ The part was not that difficult, and Paul, noticing that it was 4:50 P.M., just ten minutes before overtime rates would kick in, walked down the long staircase from the Studio Two control room and took Newman aside. “He wants to go into overtime, doesn’t he?” Paul asked. “Do you mind if I take over?”27 Newman handed Paul the baton, and Paul told the cellist, “Right, I’ll tell you what we’ll do. I’ll sing it, and you play it.” He then sang the cello line, using the names of the chords as lyrics, leaving the player no recourse but to play the line as Paul sang it before doing a final take. “It was so fucking brilliant,” Litchfield marveled, “that when he finished, the entire orchestra stood up and gave [Paul] a standing ovation. The cellist got outgunned. It was wonderful; it was a private piece of musicianship the like of which I’d never seen before, and certainly never since.”28

But over the course of the session, which ran from 2:30 p.m. to 12:15 a.m., they also discussed John’s departure and the group’s future, as Paul remembered. “I sat around wondering what I was going to do, and whether I was just going to be an ex-legend. I asked George and Ringo if they thought we might get back together again and they said we might, but we’d have to give John a bit more time. The time kept passing and I decided I wasn’t going to sit around and do nothing.”3