BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. --Beatles songs have become standard fare on music competition shows, and Paul McCartney admitted on Thursday he is a fan of programs like “American Idol” and “The X Factor.”
“I think all of that is cool because it’s what’s happening today,” Paul told reporters as he answered questions via satellite from Cincinnati, OH, at the Showtime portion of the Television Critics Association Session in Beverly Hills.
“You always have to understand, if people want it – it’s got some value,” he continued. “I feel a little sorry sometimes for some of the performers because they don’t have that background [like The Beatles]. We had years before we hit it big time… But I think the shows are fascinating. I watch those kinds of shows.”
Paul, who was promoting his upcoming Showtime documentary “The Love We Make,” about the Concert for New York, following 9/11, said that while he likes the music shows, he prefers a little more action on the tube.
“My taste in TV is not perhaps the greatest. But I love those kinds of shows. I probably watch more sports. I like ESPN,” he said. “I hate to say, I sometimes get completely hooked on the shopping channels.
On Thursday, he spoke at the Television Critics Press tour in Los Angeles -- via satellite from Cincinnati – about what he experienced on Sept. 11 and what drove him to help.
I was on my way back to England having just had a short visit to America,” McCartney recounted. “We were at JFK on the tarmac. The pilot just suddenly said we can’t take off, we have to go back to base. And out of the window out of the right hand side of the airplane, you could see the Twin Towers. First you could see one plume of smoke, and then you could see two shortly thereafter.”
McCartney said that at first, he thought it was an optical illusion, and that he didn’t realize how serious it was until a steward told him something “serious” had happened and whisked him off the plane.
The whole mood of the world, the country of America, and particularly the city of New York had changed. There was fear in the air. And I never experienced that, particularly in New York. So this was where the idea of doing a show came about.”
McCartney also said that growing up in a post-World War II Liverpool inspired him to use music to help the people of New York: “I grew up with all these people who just recently survived a war, and I noticed how they dealt with it. (He began to sing an old war song.) So I remembered that. And I thought, ‘That’s maybe what I can bring to this.’ Maybe I can just get that kind of feeling, that kind of old courage that I’d seen my parents and their generation exhibit. Maybe I’d be able to help America, New York out of this fearfulness.”
The musician said it wasn’t his intent to wait for the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 to do a documentary about the concert, but that the date spurred him to action.
The anniversary just seemed like a good opportunity, so I got in touch with (director) Albert Maysles and said, ‘Is (all the footage from the concert) still all around? Would it make into a film?’ He said, ‘Yes, it would,’ so I said, ‘C’mon. Let’s do it, then.
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