The sound you make is muzak to my ears

PLAYBOY: "Do you listen to the radio?" LENNON: "Muzak or classical. I don't purchase records. I do enjoy listening to things like Japanese folk music or Indian music. My tastes are very broad. When I was a housewife, I just had Muzak on, background music, 'cuz it relaxes you."

"Take 'Michelle.' Paul and I were staying somewhere, and he walked in and hummed the first few bars, with the words, you know-(sings verse of 'Michelle') and he says, 'Where do I go from here?' I'd been listening to blues singer Nina Simone, who did something like 'I love you!' in one of her songs and that made me think of the middle-eight for 'Michelle.' (sings) 'I love you, I love you, I lo-ove you...'"

I love you, I love you, I love you That's all I want to say Until I find a way I will say the only words I know that you'll understand <…> I need to, I need to, I need to I need to make you see Oh, what you mean to me Until I do, I'm hoping you will know what I mean I love you <…> I want you, I want you, I want you I think you know by now I'll get to you somehow Until I do, I'm telling you so you'll understand

<…> 'cos here I go again I love you, I love you I love you, I love you Ah, I can't explain the feeling's plain to me Now can't you see? <…> What's wrong with that? I need to know cos here I go again I love you, I love you

"Michelle" was a tune that I'd written in Chet Atkins' finger-pickin' style. There is a song he did called "Trambone" with a repetitive top line, and he played a bass line whilst playing a melody. This was an innovation for us; even though classical guitarists had played it, no rock "n" roll guitarists had played it. The first person we knew to use finger-pickin' technique was Chet Atkins, and Colin Manley, one of the guys in the Remo Four in Liverpool, who used to play it very well and we all used to stop and admire him. Later John learned how to do it folk-style from Donovan or Gypsy Dave, which he used on "Julia". I never learned it. But based on Atkins's "Trambone", I wanted to write something with a melody and a bass line on it, so I did.

Paul began the overdubbing process with a hyperactive bass part that transformed the song [Silly Love Songs] from a ballad into something closer to a funk/disco track. <…> …during the Beatles’ years, his bass lines were often full-fledged strands of counterpoint that bounced off the vocal melody and fit between the rhythm and lead guitar figures. In his solo work, though, his bass playing had been simpler and more direct, and on Wings recordings, the bass was often played by Denny… <…> “I wanted to have a melody on bass,” is how he explained it. <…> As Henderson recalled it, no one—even Paul—knew how the bass line would sound before he hit the record button. “I remember with that particular song, Paul walking out there and getting his bass sound set up,” Henderson said. “And literally within half a run-through, he had that bass part. He didn’t have that when he started playing, so it was amazing to see him come up with that, which is the signature riff of the whole song, out of thin air.”

One night at Cavendish, Paul and I sat and drank scotch and Coke for so long that the first light of dawn started to appear as we were still putting the world to rights. ‘Come on, Al,’ said Paul. ‘I need some fresh air. Let’s take Martha for a walk.’ We were pretty relaxed but we weren’t drunk. Martha leapt up from the rug by the fire and Paul and I piled into the DB6 and he drove us the half mile or so to the foot of Primrose Hill. We left the car outside London Zoo and went through the fence up the hill. It was very muddy at the bottom and Paul looked at my footwear and laughed, ‘So much for the man with the shiny shoes.’ We enjoyed the spectacular view in the first light of dawn. There was a real freshness in the air as Martha hurtled off in all directions in search of sheep or, better still, bones, and Paul and I enjoyed a few stolen moments of the day before the rest of London woke up. At 5.00am there was so little traffic noise that we could hear some early morning noises from the occupants of the zoo. It was chilly in the breeze that rustled the kites stuck up in the trees. Paul and I kept strolling around enjoying the experience and keeping warm. ‘Look at that dawn,’ said Paul in a whisper. ‘How anybody can say that there is no such thing as God, or some power bigger than us. If you stand and look at that sky, you know there must be more to life than we can comprehend …’ We were totally absorbed in the sights and sounds of the universe in front of us, as if we were the only men in an abandoned city. Then, suddenly behind us, a stranger appeared. He was a middle-aged man, very respectably dressed in a belted raincoat and he appeared to have come out of nowhere. One second Paul and I were alone, straining to see which direction Martha would come bounding back from, and the next, this man was there. He said, ‘Good morning,’ politely. ‘My name is John.’ Paul said, ‘Good morning. Mine’s Paul. This is Alistair and that’s Martha the dog,’ as our four-legged friend returned swiftly. John said, ‘It’s lovely to meet you. Isn’t this wonderful?’ and he walked away. Paul and I looked at each other and I said, ‘God, that was peculiar.’ I looked round and there was no sign of the man. The stranger had completely disappeared from the top of the hill as if he had just vanished into thin air. There was nowhere for him to go, yet he had just evaporated. Paul and I both felt pretty spooked by this experience. We both thought something special had happened. We sat down rather shakily on the seat and Paul said, ‘What the hell do you make of that? That’s weird. He was here, wasn’t he? We did speak to him?’ ‘Sure. He was here only seconds ago,’ I said. ‘Let’s go home,’ muttered Paul. Back at Cavendish, we spent the rest of the morning talking about what we had seen and heard and felt. It sounds just like any acid tripper’s fantasy to say they had a religious experience on Primrose Hill just before the morning rush hour, but neither of us had taken anything like that. Scotch and Coke was the only thing we had touched all night. We both felt afterwards that we had been through some sort of mystical experience, yet we didn’t care to name, even to each other, what or who we had seen on that hilltop for those few brief seconds.

John: Who’s the fool on the hill, Paul? Paul: John.

In 1981 I went to unveil a statue of John Lennon in Liverpool where, by coincidence, I met Paul McCartney who was up there too. He drove me around in his car, took me to Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields, all the time playing tapes of old Beatles songs. 'They sound great, don't they, Vic?' 'Wonderful,' I said. 'I'm not allowed to play them in the house,' said Paul. I can only imagine that his wife, Linda, was more interested in Paul's group, Wings, that was on the go at the time and of which she was part, while his past, she probably found slightly irritating. Paul parked the car and pointed. 'There you are... That's the house where I was born.' A man tapped on the window. 'Hey, mister,' he said, 'Paul McCartney was born in there.'

Victor Spinetti, Up Front... His Strictly Confidential Autobiography (2006)