"The phrase Memory Almost Full came into mind, then I realised I'd seen it on a phone - you know, you must delete something."

The Guardian has a nice piece on Paul McCartney, who is about to release a record called "Memory Almost Full," with songs covering his life story and his anticipation of death:

At times, he appears to argue with himself about how autobiographical the songs are. Take Mr Bellamy, which is about a man in a desperate situation - refusing to come down from the roof of his house because he's happier up there with "nobody here to spoil the view, interfere with my plans ... I like it up here without you" - newspapers have suggested this is about his state of mind. But that's too easy, he says - for starters, he began writing this album when he and Mills were happily married, and anyway, this is a character-led vignette, a Beatles-esque short story.

Hmm... well, I think writers start writing things about a marriage going bad before it actually does, either because somewhere in their head they realize where things will go or because in the process of writing they are analyzing a situation and become persuaded that what looks good on the surface is not actually good. But quite apart from that, outsiders don't know whether people who now appear happily married are still or ever were happily married. Happily married is the sort of thing you pretend to be. Happy is the sort of thing you pretend to be. Now, when people look unhappy, you can believe it -- though not always. These songwriter types -- and other sorts of poets and artists -- have reason to play the forlorn, angsty role. But, surely, some of them are sincere.

Anyway, this Mr. Bellamy character sounds like the same guy as "The Fool on the Hill," which was a Paul song.

"The common denominator is me. Even if I try and write, 'Desmond and Molly had a barrow in the market place', inevitably I come through the song."

Yes, as a lightweight nitwit, Paul detractors would say. No, that's not me saying that. I'm imagining other people. I'd give a lot of credit to Paul for choosing "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" as his example, because he must know that it was conspicuously voted the Worst Song Ever. Personally, I think it's a cool song. For one thing, they repeatedly sing the word "bra" completely out of context just for fun (like "tit" in "Girl"). For another, the sex roles get reversed in the end. ("Desmond stays at home and does his pretty face.") But the main thing I like about it is that it is where it is in a sequence of songs on a great album that can't be thought of without all of its parts exactly how and where they are. (A feeling people won't have anymore in the future because of digitized music, and maybe you've already lost it.)

Speaking of The White Album:

Nowadays, when he tours, he feels at ease with his audience. "It's funny, a couple of American tours ago, I was singing Blackbird and I started to chat to the audience much more. I'm very confident like that now. I remembered stuff that I'd forgotten for 30 years in explaining it. I get a therapy session with the audience, and I go, 'Hold on, I remember what that came from, it was a Bach thing that George and I used to play'."

He gets up to fetch a guitar from beside the Wurlitzer and starts playing the Bach. "Is this in tune? Yes. So that's the Bach. See, that's the bastardisation of it, and then this is how it evolves into Blackbird." He plays beautifully to demonstrate the transition.

They really should identify the Bach piece! Hey, I got the answer in 2 seconds from Wikipedia:

McCartney revealed on PBS's Great Performances (Paul McCartney: Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road), aired in 2006, that the guitar accompaniment for Blackbird was inspired by Bach's Bouree, a well known classical guitar piece. As kids, he and George Harrison tried to learn Bouree as a "show off" piece. Bouree is distinguished by melody and bass notes played simultaneously on the upper and lower strings. McCartney adapted a segment of Bouree as the opening of "Blackbird," and carried the musical idea throughout the song.

Back to the Guardian:

[T]here are things he doesn't want to revisit. His divorce from Mills has not only been horribly public and extended, it has also involved a series of leaked allegations about McCartney's behaviour. The model family man has been portrayed by Mills as selfish, self-obsessed and violent - she has alleged that he refused to allow her to use a bedpan to save her crawling to the lavatory on her one leg, that he discouraged her from breastfeeding their daughter, Beatrice, because he wanted her breasts to himself, that he was a drunken pot addict who had hit her in an alcoholic rage.

Think about how everything you're doing now in your marriage could be restated in divorce allegations. Aren't you a monster?

You know what people want to do to you at the moment, I say. No, he replies. And I reach over and give him a big hug. McCartney smiles. "People actually do that. I get a lorra that off people. I get people I don't even know saying, 'Look, mate'," and he gives himself a sympathetic pat on the arm. "A lot of people come up to you and offer their support. A lot of people have been through similar circumstances and feel they have to communicate it to you."

"A lorra that"... if it means "a lot of," why did they write "a lot of" all those other times? The English!

"[T]here is a tunnel and there is a light and I will get there, and meantime I really enjoy my work and my family. I see people worse off than me, so I can put it in perspective. There's a thing we always used to quote in the 60s when things were rough: 'I walked down a street and I cried because I had no shoes, then I saw a man with no feet.' " It was an Indian parable, and that is one of the lines I live by."

See, I told you! People used to always say that in the 60s! It's just a way to say "It could be worse," but "It could be worse" lacks the gruesome imagery.