Paul McCartney kicks off a new tour of Australia today (October 18), in Adelaide, and to celebrate the trek’s launch, the former Beatles star took part in a special live Q&A event Tuesday (October 17) attended by a small group of lucky fans.
9 News Australia reports that only about 20 contest winners got to attend the gathering, each one getting to ask McCartney one question. They also were treated to a six-song soundcheck performance that, according to Setlist.fm, included renditions of The Beatles’ tunes “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Drive My Car,” and “Birthday,” the Wings hit “Let ‘Em In,” and his solo songs “Coming Up” and “Come On to Me.”
Videos by American Songwriter
ABC.net.au reports that during the Q&A, McCartney mused about the sometimes-magical occurrences that led to the creation of some of his most famous Beatles songs.
“Someone said to me once, ‘Do you believe in magic?’ and I said, ‘Well, I’ve kind of got to,’ because a couple of my songs I didn’t write,” he explained. “I woke up one morning and then there was this tune in my head and it turned out to be ‘Yesterday.’ … It just arrived and I didn’t have to sit down and write it or anything.”
He said something similar happened that inspired “Let It Be.”
“I had a dream and my mum came to me, and she’d been dead for 10 years, so it was such a blessing to see her in this dream,” the 81-year-old rock legend said. “My mum said to me, ‘Don’t worry … it’s going to be OK.’ She said, ‘Just let it be,’ and I thought, ‘Wow.’ I woke up with that in my mind and wrote that song.”
McCartney also shared his recollections of his first visit to Adelaide, when The Beatles played the city on their Australian tour in 1964 and hundreds of thousands of people lined the streets to greet them.
“It was just great, it was fantastic—it was something special,” he said. “It was overwhelming really, because … we’d seen big crowds and we’d had all the screaming and stuff, so we weren’t kind of bowled over by that—but that many people, it was insane.”
The 2023 Australian leg of McCartney’s Got Back tour will feature eight shows and will wind down on November 4 in Gold Coast. Sir Paul will then head to Mexico City for shows on November 14 and 16, and then will wind down the year with eight concerts in Brazil, mapped out from a November 30 performance in Brasilia through a December 16 show in Rio de Janeiro.
Visit PaulMcCartney.com for a full list of dates.