Paul McCartney Reflects on Life, Music, and Meaning@83

It’s a funny thing, death. People treat it like it’s a thief hiding in the shadows. But I’ve never seen it that way. Now that I’m 83—older than my dad ever got, older than John or George—I don’t fear it. I sit with it. I’ve made my peace.

I don’t mean that in a morbid way. I’ve just lived a full life. I’ve really lived. From the second I picked up that guitar in Liverpool to playing stadiums around the world, to hearing my grandkids sing “Blackbird” out of tune in the backseat—it’s been a ride. A beautiful one.

Some days I wake up, sip my tea, and think: “Well, Paul… you’re still here. One more song to write, one more memory to make.” Other days, I feel like I could float away mid-strum, and that’d be all right too.

Loss Teaches You to Let Go

I lost my mum when I was fourteen. She just didn’t come home from the hospital one day. That’s a moment that sharpens you forever. When you lose someone that young, your understanding of death becomes… intimate.

Then came John. That hit me differently. Violent. Sudden. A kind of heartbreak you don’t even have language for. And George—quiet, sweet George—left in a much softer way. Like the last note of a lullaby.

Each loss taught me something. Mainly that none of us are guaranteed anything—not tomorrow, not next year. And oddly, that’s freeing. Death isn’t something that waits at the finish line. It walks beside you. Learning to live with that makes everything feel more precious.

Time Becomes Music

I used to count time in charts and tour dates. Now I count it in bird songs and family dinners. It’s slower, but somehow louder—like a deep cello note you only start hearing once you stop racing.

Music, for me, was always a kind of rehearsal for eternity. You write a song, and it doesn’t die. It changes, sure—people cover it, reinvent it, attach their own memories to it—but it keeps on breathing. That’s immortality in its own way.

I suppose I’ve accepted that I won’t live forever—but my songs just might.

What Matters at 83

You’d think the answer would be yachts or awards. It’s not.

It’s my grandkids climbing into my lap with jelly on their fingers. It’s Nancy laughing at my old-man jokes. It’s memories of Linda and me watching sunsets in Scotland. It’s the silence of the studio at 2 a.m., still alive with ideas.

At 83, I’ve learned to love stillness. And death, I think, is just an extension of that stillness. A rest at the end of the score.

Faith and the Unknown

People ask if I believe in the afterlife. I don’t know if it’s a place with clouds and gates. I think it’s more like energy.

Einstein said energy can’t be destroyed—it just changes form. That makes sense to me. Maybe when I die, the music doesn’t stop—it just plays through someone else. Maybe I become a chord in the wind, a line in someone’s poem, a whisper in a crowd.

Or maybe nothing happens at all. And that’s okay too. I’ve had my time.

Advice for the Living

If you’re young, don’t waste time trying to be someone else. Be weird. Be honest. Be broke and curious and wild. That’s the good stuff.

If you’re old, don’t apologize for taking up space. You’re a walking archive of wisdom. Use it. Pass it on.

And if you’re afraid of dying—write something, love someone, grow something. Death hates witnesses. It can’t sneak up on someone who’s living with their eyes open.

My Final Encore?

Look, I’m not trying to sound dramatic. I’m not going anywhere just yet. I’ve got more music to make, more birthdays to crash, more silly voices to use with my dog.

But if I do go—onstage, at home, in my sleep—I’ll be all right.

Because here’s the truth: I’ve said what I came to say. And the rest, well… that’s just silence. And even silence, when it follows a great song, feels like applause