Paul McCartney revealed that he still “consults” with John Lennon often when writing new songs. McCartney, who'll release his latest album, McCartney III on December 11th, explained how he's able to tap into what Lennon's musical choices would be, saying, “We collaborated for so long, I think, 'OK, what would he think of this? What would be say now?' We’d both agree that this new song I’m taking about is going nowhere. So instead of sitting around, we’d destroy it and remake it. I started that process yesterday in the studio. I took the vocal off it and decided to write a new vocal. I think it’s heading in a better direction now. Anyway, it keeps me off the streets!”
McCartney's latest one-man-band album features song snippets McCartney collected on his phone: “The problem with iPhones is that you can have an idea — 'Doo do doo do come on bam bam' — and you think, 'That’s good, I’ll finish this later.' Then you realize you’ve got 2,000 of these ideas on your phone! 'Oh, God! Am I ever going to get round to them?!' So lockdown allowed me to get round to a lot of them. But I do have a list of songs that I started but didn’t actually finish or release.”
When pressed how long the list of musical ideas he's stored away, “Macca” said, “Too long! It’s songs I’ve written on holiday, songs from before Covid where I was in the studio, right after Egypt Station, but I didn’t need to come up with an album and also songs I liked that got sidelined. I’m working on one at the moment that was going one way, but I didn’t like the lyric. 'No, this is not happening, mate.' This would have been the point where John and I would have said, 'Y'know what, let’s have a cup of tea and try and rethink this.'”
During Paul McCartney's last appearance on CBS' The Late Show with Stephen Colbert he revealed that he reunites with John Lennon while unconscious: “I dream about him. When you've had a relationship like that for so long — it was such a deep relationship. I love it when people revisit you in your dreams. So, I have band dreams and they're crazy. I'm often with John and just talking about doing something, and I come to get my Hofner bass, ready to play, and it's covered in sticky tape. I had a lot of dreams about John and they're always good.”