Bobbo Babo (30:32)
Today's edition of Today in Rock history. You know, no one's taken more dollars from the music business in 50 years than Sir Paul McCartney, a founding member, Beatles, and still a Top earner in record sales and concert bookings, but it has been an amazingly difficult journey. McCartney was born to dirt poor parents in Liverpool and by the age of five he'd grown to the height of five foot seven. By the time he was ready to start school, he clocked in at over six and a half feet tall. His advanced growth made him a poorly attired oddity in public school and he dropped out during his 9th grade year at the age of 14. Like many uneducated young men of the time, he took to the lumber industry to try and help support his family. In 1956, while clear cutting in the North York Moors, McCartney rescued a giant blue ox from drowning. He named her Martha and they became inseparable friends. But tragedy struck the young Paul at an early age. While away taking a test for forestry certification, his mother Mary, while riding her son's ox Martha to the market for groceries, was run down by a bus on the Queens Boulevard. Both were killed instantly and young Paul McCartney sank into a deep depression. And though he was incredibly sad and despondent, he did have mountains of cash from all those months destroying England's forests. It was then, at the height of human despair, that he met John Lennon at a church revival on the village green in Bootle after a concert appearance by Lennon's own band, the Revolutions, who consisted of accomplished guitarists George Harrison and and the middle aged Ringo Starr and who just happened to be without a bass guitarist at the time. And Paul, who had been gainfully employed for most of a year, happened to have enough money for an instrument. He was asked to join the Revolutions immediately and though to this day he's never learned to play the bass guitar with any style or even correctly. When the Revolutions changed their name to the Beatles, they created a musical career and a veritable brand name act that's still considered one of the most profitable show business acts of all time. The gravy train ran out though on September 2nd of 1970 when the Beatles split up after a heated argument over who would get to eat the last slice of a pepperoni and pineapple pizza. It turns out that John wanted the slice more because he hadn't eaten all day as he'd been working with Yoko on a track called Seven and a Half Hours of Silence, during which time John had to stick around for seven and a half hours, making sure that no one in the studio made a sound. Paul McCartney said that since he and his adopted ox Linda had paid for the pizza, he should get the last slice. George Harrison was pissed off because he argued that John and Paul never let him have any pizza at all, adding that the two were spiritually bankrupt because it was immoral to put pineapple on a pizza anyway. Ringo, to his credit, simply went out and bought his own pie all to himself. John and Paul were offended that Ringo didn't give them any of his pizza and subsequently sued him. George then sued John and Paul, who countersued. George, after a bunch of suing and countersuing, the courts told the Beatles to stop wasting their time with stupid BS cases and simply split up the band. And with that, the Beatles were no more. Which was no tragedy to Paul McCartney, who, despite heartbreaking personal losses, had developed an impressive work ethic and a talent for writing songs that were so sickeningly commercial that he'd never worry about money again. Even when his third ox, Heather, filed for divorce, he simply did a world tour and had her paid off to the tune of 44 million in a short five month span. In fact, having become a vegetarian in the early 70s, he'd never suffer the indignity of arguing over his pineapple pizza, having sworn that pepperoni would never again cost him a perfectly good job. And with that, I'm Wallace Edwards. Now back to the John Clay Wolf show.
