Smash Notes
Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney is music. Amy hangs with the iconic musician and talks about almost becoming the coil-winding king, being a playaholic, and if he's ever smoked Monkberry Moon Delight. Host: Amy Poehler Guests: Stella McCartney and Paul McCartney Executive producers: Bill Simmons, Amy Poehler, and Jenna Weiss-Berman For Paper Kite Productions: Executive…
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Notes
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Stella McCartney grew up on a farm in Scotland, where mornings with siblings were normally just self-entertainment. Stella McCartney used to take rocks and bang them on other rocks, and said the story was not a joke. A lot of horse riding was part of the memory, then it came back to rocks on rocks.
Amy Poehler admitted never reaching in under a hen to get an egg, and called the confession a suburban city girl thing. Stella McCartney did it all the time. Getting the eggs was never particularly enjoyable and a little scary. Asked whether the hen has to move first, Stella McCartney said yes. Few people know Stella McCartney is very good at impersonating chickens and can converse with a chicken, so Stella McCartney is bilingual in that respect, but still had to get the eggs when young.
Amy Poehler said the parents seemed to want a beautiful, peaceful, and loving childhood, then asked what it is like to share parents with the world after a whole life of questions about dad. Stella McCartney said it is quite weird. There has only ever been that one experience. The life is trippy, weird, and surreal, and the upbringing was very extreme.
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Paul McCartney's daughter gives Amy Poehler two questions for her father. She wants to know whether he has ever smoked Monkberry Moon Delight, and what the lyrics mean. She also wants his first memory.
Monkberry Moon Delight is from her favorite album, Ram, the record by her mom and dad. She thinks her mom shared in the lyrics and can take a bit of the credit. The song goes on, and there is a bit about cats and kittens. She already asked her dad the other day what his first memory is, and she was really surprised by the answer. She wants to hear how he answers Amy Poehler, and she offers the first-memory question as her gift.
Amy Poehler says she feels very honored. Paul McCartney's daughter could have asked anyone to put a question to Paul McCartney, and everyone would have said yes.
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Paul McCartney says people tell him he works all the time. He answers that you do not work music, you play music, so he is a playaholic, and he is addicted to playing. He feels lucky the playing is his job.
After leaving school, Paul McCartney's first job was coil winding in a factory. A big wheel held the coil wire. The wire came through his legs, went onto an armature, and he kept winding it. The coils go in motors. His were not very good. The plan was to take him through every task until he became manager.
One day two people showed up. A coworker warned him there were guys outside he did not want to see. They had a gig at the cabin. He looked at the coils, then at the pay packet of seven pounds 15 a week, and said he would get back to them. He still cannot believe he questioned the choice. He did get back to them, and he gave up a career in coil-winding management.
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Monkberry Moon Delight is the name of a milkshake. Paul McCartney says that when the kids were little, they could not always pronounce certain words, and the word for milk was monk. The line he remembers is, Daddy can I have some monk?
He was thinking of a milkshake, so milk became Milk Berry and then Monkberry Moon. Paul McCartney imagined the name and flew off into the lyrics: a piano up his nose, soup and puree, cats and kittens that do not get left behind, and ketchup, ketchup, ketchup. He calls the lines crazy and great, a lot of wordplay from a zany period, and he wishes he wrote songs in that spirit now.
Amy Poehler asks whether Paul McCartney has smoked Monkberry Moon Delight and what he was on when he wrote the song, the question Stella McCartney wanted asked. Paul McCartney says he probably was on something he smoked. In his mind, the title is still the milkshake.