One of the hardest aspects of being an iconic musician is being better than your former self. Few musicians have truly “beat” their younger selves and created music that is just as good if not better than their former projects. However, this feat is not for the weak, as constantly striving for greatness and progress is a never-ending and torturous pursuit. One iconic musician to undergo this experience is Paul McCartney.
When Paul McCartney and The Beatles broke up, he was at quite the creative crossroads. He wasn’t sure what to do professionally and musically, and in essence, he became a sort of a lost soul. McCartney toiled with numerous different career paths but was not satisfied by any of them. That is until Johnny Cash gave him an unlikely stroke of inspiration.
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Paul McCartney’s Fork in the Road
Paul McCartney spoke about his career state to Mojo recently in March of 2024. What was discussed was a deep cut from McCartney’s life that had yet to be revealed. On the topic of what was next for McCartney after The Beatles, he stated, “One was to give up music entirely and do God knows what. Another was to start a super-band with very famous people, Eric Clapton and so on” and “I didn’t like either so I thought: How did The Beatles start?”
From that question, McCartney seemingly searched for inspiration wherever he could find it. So, one night with his then-new wife, Linda McCartney, Paul found inspiration from an unexpected musical peer. “Johnny Cash came on the telly with a new band he’d formed with Carl Perkins” and “There they were, playing with some country musicians I had never heard of, looking like they were having fun,” said McCartney.
The band McCartney saw playing was Johnny Cash’s iconic Tennessee Three. However, the band was then only comprised of Cash, Perkins, and an arrangement of numerous other lesser-known musicians. The formation of the new Tennesse three came after Cash’s highly successful, yet personally destructive run in the 1960s.
If Cash Could Start Over So Could He
Given that Johnny Cash was able to reconstruct his career, McCartney realized he could do the same. By watching Cash on television McCartney created his rebirth and the idea for Wings. He said, “That’s when I realized maybe there is a third alternative: to get a band that isn’t massively famous” and “To not worry if we don’t know what we’re doing.”
It was from this attitude that Wings was born, and McCartney described it as “A real act of faith.”
Photo by Chris Walter/WireImage
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