Smallscreen News

Paul McCartney loves New York, talks 9/11, early Beatles memories

By April MacIntyre Aug 5, 2011, 5:33 GMT

02/13/2011 - Mary McCartney, Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell - 2011 Orange British Academy Film Awards - Arrivals - The Royal Opera House - London, UK © Solarpix / PR Photos

Paul McCartney loves New York.  His vivid memory of "that day" which forever changed us all captured the attention of everyone at the Television Critics' Association summer press tour at the Beverly Hilton Thursday, August 4.

As the milestone 10th anniversary of 9/11 bears down on us, Showtime brings “The Love We Make,” a documentary by Albert Maysles along with Bradley Kaplan and Ian Markiewicz featuring the music of Paul McCartney.

The film is a black and white cinema vérité style that Maysles pioneered in his documentary on The Beatles’ first visit to America in 1964.

It features never before seen footage of McCartney in New York in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, prepping for his now famous Madison Square Garden concert, and it features an all star lineup of really legendary talent including Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones, Pete Townshend and The Who, Billy Joel, Elton John, and even former President Bill Clinton, who plays a significant role in the film.

According to McCartney, there was a wealth of footage that had to pieced together. No. McCartney said, "We did not put it together and finish it till quite recently. I think the fact of the 10th anniversary spurred me into thinking, wait a minute, Albert took some great footage back then that we never did anything with. And it just seemed like it would be a good opportunity. So I got in touch with Albert and said, 'Is it still all around? You know, would it make into a film?' And he was very enthusiastic. He say, 'Yeah, it would.' So I said, 'Come on, let’s do it, then.' So I think it was re awakened by the 10th anniversary.

McCartney was beamed in from Cincinnati, where he was performing later. He shared his recollections of where he was when the planes struck the towers.

"What happened was I was on my way back to England, having just had a short visit to America," said McCartney. "We were at JFK on the tarmac, and the pilot just suddenly said, 'We can’t take off. We’re going to have to go back to base,' and out of the window on the right hand side of the airplane, you could see the Twin Towers. First of all, you could see one plume of smoke, and then you could see two shortly thereafter. I said, 'Well, that’s an optical illusion, you know. It’s just the one, and it’s probably, you know, just some sort of little fire or something, but, boy, it does look pretty serious.' And we were just looking at that for a while. Then suddenly one of the stewards actually, rather than the pilot, came to me and said, 'Look, there’s been something really serious happened in New York, and we’ve got to get you out of here.' So I was got out of ahead of the other passengers for some reason. But I ended up not being able to go into New York. I ended up in Long Island watching it on TV, watching the whole story unfold like everyone else in the world wanting to go into New York, but nobody was allowed back in. So while I was kind of sitting out there twiddling my thumbs thinking of what to do, was there any role I could play in this, the idea came to me that maybe we could do a concert, maybe get something together. And that thing grew into a conversation with Harvey Weinstein, who said that MTV was putting one together and maybe we should all get together on that."

When a journalist asked about his relationship to New York, The Ed Sullivan Show, Shea Stadium and other key places the Beatles first made their mark, Paul shared some of his best memories. "I think that my original connection was The Beatles, with Shea Stadium, Ed Sullivan...When you talk to me about New York now, it’s the people because I married a New York girl, Linda. And I’m about to marry another one. So I think I would think first of all of Linda and her family and our family and our connections with New York and then my upcoming connections, and then I think after that, Ed Sullivan, Shea Stadium, 9/11 concert, and many great concerts there, most recently Yankees and Citi Field before that, closing Shea with Billy Joel. So I have a lot of connections. I love New York."