Paul is Dad

Paul McCartney, Fantasy Father

Paul McCartney is 82 today – the same age my father would have been had he not drunk too much in a hotel bar in April 1972 and subsequently driven off I-85 into an embankment, dying at the age of thirty.

I had just turned seven.

Not long after that, Paul became my fantasy dad. This fancy still flickers in a very deep part of me, and always will.

McCartney’s voice and image filled my late-60s and 70s childhood via my mom’s Beatles LPs. As of 1972, Wings was all over the radio, which I listened to incessantly. I devoured photos of the McCartney family touring with Wings – probably in my mom’s Time magazine, or later my own Creem. His beautiful, grubby kids fascinated me: Mary, Stella and stepdaughter Heather (from wife Linda’s previous marriage, but adopted by Paul). They sported shaggy hair like their dad, and were often either in his arms or at his heels, running through airports and the like. Fun. 

Here was a most unusual set-up: a vital, rockin’ superstar, proud of and present for his children, never hiding the fact that he was happily married, up to his knees in domesticity, apparently satisfied to be tied down in that respect. Paul was fulfilled, yet still somehow funky, raggedy, unconcerned with status quo. Stylish. That his daughter Stella became a world-renowned fashion designer is no surprise.

Paul’s first solo album McCartney was recorded at home and sounds it, blessedly. Linda’s photos adorn the cover. She also sang background vocals. The back cover features bearded, smiling Paul with their first baby, Mary, nestled in his shearling coat.

I stared at this image a lot. His eyes are dark, mischievous, sad, but… strong and full of what I imagine to be love for his mate, his kid, his family. This was exotic to me.

photo of Mary and Paul by Linda McCartney

As the 70s plowed on, I grew up among increasingly dysfunctional children of divorce. Meanwhile, the McCartneys’ inseparability bucked rock and roll – and 70s marital – standards. It seemed an attainable ideal.

So they wouldn’t be apart, Paul enfolded his wife into Wings. Much eye rolling ensued, along with criticism of Linda’s musical talents. Similarly, Lennon would claim Yoko as a collaborator and folks would lose their shit. Both couples were undeterred by the snipes. I always loved that about Lennon/McCartney, and about their wives.

In retrospect, inclusion of domesticity in the public image of a rock star was quite cutting edge for the era. Who does that? Zeppelin? Aerosmith? Bad Company? Lynyrd Skynyrd? I think not.

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Macca’s life was the rock star fantasy I wanted. But I didn’t want to be him; I wanted to be his kid joining him on the road. The swaggering, lock-up-your-daughters stuff would not appeal to me until my hormones kicked in. Even then, I longed most for stability-within-rock, a notion that seems contradictory unless you apply it to McCartney.

In my mind I was Paul McCartney’s son, watching from the smoky wings with my crazy-haired sisters as he played Dad Rock, goofy songs that lodged in my brain and made me laugh: “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” “Magneto and Titanium Man” and “Listen What the Man Said.” I imagined myself grabbing a fistful of his rank bellbottoms as we posed together, sweaty-faced in Lagos or Jamaica, both of us sunburned and sleep-starved. No matter what opportunities he had to stray – and he would have plenty, I’m sure – my traveling troubadour millionaire dad with the funny accent would never abandon me.

I would learn both Lennon and McCartney had lost their mothers when they were kids. Paul’s to cancer, John’s after being hit by a car. My devotion intensified. Paul had overcome a blow not unlike mine, yet stood tall, brazen, and larger-than-life, whole. So could I.

I know now damage on this scale can’t be quantified, and to assume Paul weathered “better” than John, whose life always seemed fraught by comparison, is ridiculous. I’ve learned no one is whole, ever. But that is what I believed then.

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When my wife, Holly, took me to see Paul and his fantastic band in 2012, the most moving visual display of the evening was a sepia-toned home movie of the photo session for the McCartney album cover – with Mary snuggled in Paul’s coat – playing on the screen behind Paul as he sang “Maybe I’m Amazed,” his voice undiminished.

That image was the McCartney LP back cover come to life – Paul posing and laughing, cradling Mary, his face glowing with love, seen as Linda saw him. The audience looked through Linda’s long-departed eyes.

He lost her. A nightmarish, protracted death. In response, my New Dad threw himself into work. With some guys only a little older than me, he took to the stage after the passing of his soul mate. Didn’t go off the rails drunk, blaming crazed behavior on inconsolable grief, didn’t lash out, make a mess of things, but worked through it with song, with performing, giving of himself to the fans.

Watching him sing as the video spooled out, I recalled my own losses, disappointments and betrayals, levies on the gift of a long life. Where had I searched for a road map, for clues, examples? My actual family of mostly women is pretty impressive, but when I needed to see how a man deals with rage and bereavement, I realized I’d kept my fantasy dad in my peripheral vision all along.

Clearly my boyhood desire for a rock and roll dad was never actually realized. I made it to manhood under far less spectacular circumstances. I had help from a loving single mother who never remarried, a very present maternal grandmother, a United Way Big Brother, my friends, and a couple of teachers. They did the actual work. I don’t begrudge them their lack of rock star accoutrements. I was lucky in a lot of ways.

Paul’s actual kids – my fantasy sisters Heather, a potter, Stella, a fashion designer, and Mary, a photographer, plus fantasy brother James, a musician – have all done fine. Heather has said the hectic decade of traveling with Wings was not all fun. She told the press she had a hard time making friends once it all ended.

I get it. Although I love traveling with my family, I’ve experienced a little of the rock and roll lifestyle, and it is a very particular animal – both a bucking bronco and very slow mule. Life on the road can be exhilarating, but also potentially crazy-making, and mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausting. I cannot imagine navigating the demands for months on end with a kid or three in tow. Granted, the McCartneys had tutors and likely a phalanx of nannies, but for the kids I imagine it must’ve been hard at times.

I can also imagine trying to explain these realities to my childhood self and making no impact whatsoever.

Finally, being a dad myself, I have long since moved on from searching for father figures. I look to Paul McCartney now as a fellow dad. In true rock and roll style, his daughter Beatrice – by ex-wife Heather Mills – is five years younger than my son, and younger than a couple of Paul’s grandkids. When I try to imagine an offspring of mine having a child who is older than one of my own kids I need to lie down. Leave that to überbeings like my fantasy dad.

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I learned early the time-shifting power of expertly wielded music and images. The ultimate win-win – when everything clicks, performer and audience transcend simultaneously.

Yet, when Holly surprised me with tickets to see Paul McCartney at Yankee Stadium, I did not expect to revisit any childhood longings for a rock and roll dad. I’d heard Paul still brought an impressive show, even from some very prickly, hard-to-please cynics, so I was banking on a great experience, and indeed, I got one of the five greatest concerts I’ve ever witnessed.

I was not prepared, however, for the welling up of a dormant desire for an adventurous, raggle-taggle, brilliant musician to spirit me away from a fatherless childhood to concert halls, tarmacs, hotel rooms, people bestowing love and accolades in foreign tongues, the feel of a jet’s carpeting beneath my bare feet as we fly over the Pacific. But even this most far-fetched fantasy still exists in my mind, just waiting for the right sequence of notes combined with the proper visuals to unearth it.

Paul sings to departed Linda as he looks up at the Jumbotron. He sees his younger self gazing into his soul mate’s eyes while he cradles their firstborn against his chest.

Time and space ebb for a few liberating moments and I see me, a grieving kid, caught up in a melody, singing despite it all. I’m looking at a magazine photo of a musical family on the run who appear, for the time being, far away from loss, tragedy, death.

Then and now, my fantasy dad has brought me to a timeless place. When the song fades and the cheering subsides, I am a man again, and Paul is not my dad. But he has allowed me to touch the part of myself that remains connected to the man I lost, and the dreaming child still inside me. As these feelings recede, I am happy to leave that longing. I’m glad to say I possess the skill to come back to being a real, actual father, blessed with health, a gorgeous son making their way in the world, and a beautiful, supportive, fascinating wife. I am pretty sure I learned how to do that from Paul.