Paul McCartney says Linda’s mantra helped him after Beatles split

Paul McCartney explains how his wife helped him cope with the breakup of the Beatles.

In the documentary “Paul McCartney: The Runaway ManDirector Morgan Neville spoke to the 83-year-old musician about his life after the Beatles and how a mantra he learned from his late wife, Linda McCartney, helped him cope by teaching him “not to be so nervous.”

“In a situation like this where you lose your job, you can get angry very easily,” he said. “One of my favorite phrases from him was, ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’d love to do that, but I can’t. I can’t,’ and he’d say, ‘it’s allowed.’ It’s like all the weight has gone away. It’s allowed. Yes, of course it is. That kind of thing really touched me and made me think I was probably allowed a lot more than I was.”

Linda and Paul met while working as photographers in 1967 and married two years later in March 1969. During their marriage, the couple had three children: Mary, Stella and James.

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In the documentary, Paul called Linda a “liberating influence” and said that Linda grew up in a “posh” part of New York and was “on her way to becoming a corporate wife of sorts” but that wasn’t what she wanted.

“She loved rock and roll and would do things like sneak out of the house late at night and go to New York with a boyfriend,” she said. “So there was a lot of freedom in his thinking, so I think that was really good for me.”

A few years after the Beatles broke up, Paul formed the band Wings and Linda joined full-time as a keyboardist, also providing vocals.

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Wings became one of the biggest bands of the 1970s, with hits such as “Band on the Run”, “Live and Let Die” and “My Love” and winning two Grammy Awards.

Paul and Linda later formed the band Wings, with Linda providing vocals and playing keyboards. (David Redfern/Redferns)

Thinking back to that period, Paul says he is still in awe of Linda’s talent when he listens to the music and hears “these beautiful harmonies coming from Linda.”

“I guess wait a minute, there was no autotune. We had none of that… this is real,” he said. “She had never taken lessons and it was just her love of singing. I liked her voice. Her style wasn’t operatic. It wasn’t blues.”

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Paul and Linda were married for nearly 30 years before she died in 1998, at the age of 58, after a battle with breast cancer.

During an interview with BBC Radio Scotland’s Ricky Ross Meets Following her death, Paul shared: “I think I cried on and off for about a year.”

Looking back on his time in Wings, Paul is still in awe of Linda’s voice. (Rob Verhorst/Redferns)

“You’re waiting for this person you love to walk in because you’re so used to them,” she said. “I cried a lot. It was almost embarrassing, except it seemed like the only thing to do.”

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The couple’s eldest daughter, Mary, followed in her mother’s footsteps and became a photographer. Their middle child, Stella, became a fashion designer, describing herself as “one of the first nepo babies” in a 2023 interview with Time.

Paul has three children, including fashion designer Stella McCartney. (Dave Benett/Dave Benett/Getty Images for Stella McCartney)

Their son James is now a musician and has partnered with Sean Lennon, the son of his father’s former bandmate John Lennon, to write the song “Primrose Hill” in 2024.

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Paul also shares daughter Beatrice with second wife Heather Mills, and was also stepfather to Linda’s daughter Heather from a previous marriage.