Paul McCartney Discusses Story Behind ‘LIFE Magazine’ Cover In New ‘McCartney: A Life in Lyrics’ Episode

On the latest episode of Paul McCartney’s podcast, McCartney: A Life in Lyrics, the artist dives into a number of topics.

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The 12-part series is a combination master class, memoir and improvised journey with Paul McCartney himself, with each episode focusing on one song from his iconic catalog.

In this week’s episode, McCartney gives the backstory to his songs “Mull of Kintyre” and “When Winter Comes,” inspired by his times with wife Linda McCartney on their farm in Scotland.

McCartney reflected on the 1969 LIFE Magazine cover, saying, “It was so remote, nobody could get there. A couple of people did, and they would just show up out of the blue… And then the photographer from LIFE Magazine found us, and I think I threw a bucket of water on him, and then he said he was going to use that photo. So I went ‘oh f__k,’ so I went and followed him out in my Land Rover and I said ‘look, we’ll do a posed one.’ So we did a posed one, we got on the cover of Life.”

He also discussed how Linda made him fall in love with the farm, explaining, “I thought, f_____g hell! It’s a dump, this place. I really didn’t like it. We were only really up there because of Linda’s love of it. When we went up there she said ‘Oh! This is fantastic! I love it.’ She made me love it through her eyes. I went ‘Oh well that is a fine mountain. Gosh, it’s covered in hether, that’s very beautiful.’ So we brought up the kids there.”

The legendary artist also shared how “When Winter Comes” came about, saying, “They just sent me some tracks for consideration as bonus extras. And I’m listening to this one and I think, gosh, I mean, it’s good. I am actually thinking of releasing it. It’s very sort of hippie. Almost relates to living on the farm.”

Check out the latest episode of McCartney: A Life in Lyrics.