Paul McCartney opens up about depression after Beatles breakup: 'The world said I was dead — in so many ways I was'
- - Paul McCartney opens up about depression after Beatles breakup: 'The world said I was dead — in so many ways I was'
Raechal ShewfeltNovember 4, 2025 at 2:44 AM
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Paul McCartney speaks at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021
When the Beatles were breaking up, in the last gasp of the '60s, Paul McCartney pretty quickly heard the rumor that he was dead.
Looking back today, he thinks that description was "more accurate than one might have thought at the time."
"In so many ways, I was dead," McCartney wrote in an excerpt from his new memoir that was published Sunday in The Guardian. "A 27-year-old about-to-become-ex-Beatle, drowning in a sea of legal and personal rows that were sapping my energy, in need of a complete life makeover. Would I ever be able to move on from what had been an amazing decade, I thought. Would I be able to surmount the crises that seemed to be exploding daily?"
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The Beatles celebrate Paul's 24th birthday in 1966
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The breakup of the Fab Four — McCartney, George Harrison, John Lennon, and Ringo Starr — was official by 1970, as the artists began to have more and more creative differences.
By April 1970, McCartney himself issued a statement that he "no longer wanted to record with the group nor write any more songs with Mr. Lennon," according to the New York Times. Over the years, McCartney and others have also pointed to other factors, including Lennon's desire to leave, due to his relationship with Yoko Ono, and the 1967 death of the group's manager Brian Epstein.
In his book, McCartney recounted finding himself having a "wild adventure" with his family, including late wife Linda McCartney, who died of breast cancer in 1998, and their children on a sheep farm in Scotland.
The "Get Back" singer filled his days with the opposite of photo shoots, red carpet events, and any iota of the celebrity lifestyle. He found himself cutting down his own Christmas tree, putting down a cement floor, and even shearing sheep.
"I took great satisfaction in learning how to do all these things, in doing a good job, in being self-dependent," McCartney wrote. "When I think back on it, the isolation was just what we needed. Despite the harsh conditions, the Scottish setting gave me the time to create. It was becoming clear to our inner circle that something exciting was happening. The old Paul was no longer the new Paul. For the first time in years, I felt free, suddenly leading and directing my own life."
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Paul McCartney pictured outside his home in March 1969
The Beatles had made it big — really big — during the early '60s across the pond. They famously brought Beatlemania to the U.S. by Feb. 7, 1964, and were greeted by a screaming crowd when they arrived at JFK Airport.
McCartney, of course, found more musical success after the Beatles, with Wings, a band he formed with Linda and others in 1970, as well as a solo career.
McCartney's book Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run is available Nov. 4.
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
