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forcri · 4 years ago

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The Andy Bird Diaries

The penniless Englishman who seduced Madonna"

PART ONE Exclusive by Alice Fowler.

The letter was and, heartfelt, and surprisingly vulnerable especially when one considers that the writer is perhaps the most famous woman on the planet.

'I will never get over you,' it said. 'You have touched me in an unfathomable and unexplainable way. 'You say that there can be no love without trust and I couldn't agree more. But you mistrusted me long before I behaved in an untrustworthy fashion. 'All of this just perpetuated more negative and reactive behaviour in both of us. We went to our corners and drew our swords. 'The irony now is that I'm alone completely. Alone with my thoughts and my memories. I have so many fond memories of you in my house and, m fact, they we the happiest memories of my life. It is so very hard to let go of them. 'I wish so many things. I wish that we were together and happy. I wish that we'd had a child wish that you were feeling fulfilled, artistically and creatively you have such a brilliant mind I wish I wish, I wish...' 'Most of all, I wish you happiness and peace in your heart and mind. Please know that you are my last thought before I go to sleep and my first thought when I wake up. 'My love for you is profound and immense. Confusing and mysterious. I long to put my arms around you.'

These were the words that Madonna wrote to the man who was the last great love of her life before her marriage to film maker Guy Ritchie a dreamy impoverished Englishman named Andy Bird. They came towards the end of their tumultuous 18 month affair. For Madonna, Bird followed a long list of high profile partner's including Sean Penn and Warren Beatty, pop singer Prince and John F Kennedy Jr. But as her letter suggests, this anonymous figure stirred deeper feelings in her than any of his celebrity predecessors. Indeed, had fate taken a different twist, perhaps Andy Bind rather than Guy Ritchie might have followed Seen Penn as Madonna's second husband. Certainly, but for a harrowing abortion that we will return to later, he would now be the father of Madonna's child. Few would recognise Andy Bird's name today. Yet his relationship with Madonna spanned a crucial period in her life, ending in bitter arguments around the time she met Ritchie. At the start, they were blissfully happy. The lyrics of Madonna's song Beautiful Stranger To love you is to be part of you, I've paid for you with my tears, And swallowed all my Pride - were inspired by Andy Bird.

Extraordinarily, Madonna, wealthy, ambitious and famously astute lost her heart to this charming drifter who slept on friends' sofas. It was an attraction of opposites the material girl and the man with nothing; the health conscious singer and the chain smoker; the glamorous star and the face in the crowd. But together as we are about to discover, their life ran a rollercoaster course from the heights of emotion to arguments about Bird's sweaty feet (she would make him disinfect them before he came to bed). The affair wrenched this unassuming figure from the provinces born in Birmingham, the son of an accountant and an educational social worker to the centre of a very different and dazzling world. Bird came to know the private Madonna: the woman who would sing snatches of opera as she cooked Pop Tarts for breakfast, whose hopeless driving would cause havoc on the roads, who gave him clothes that ware invariably the wrong size. To learn the inside story of their relationship - as we will do during this exclusive Mail series, which continues on Monday - is to gain an entirely new insight into the world's most scrutinised woman. She emerges as a far more tender and attractive figure than previous accounts have suggested.

Over the coming days, we will discover the truth about that abortion which left them both drained and distraught; their extraordinary life together with Sting, Stella McCartney and some of showbusiness's greatest names and the very public clash in which Ritchie scuffled with Bird at a London bar. Until now, Bird has never talked publicly about his love for Madonna. He has shrunk instinctively from the public gaze. The reason he has chosen to speak out now, he says, is to put right the many inaccuracies which continue to be written about him. By telling the truth, he hopes, he can draw a line under the past and move on. It is not a task he finds easy. At times, as we talk, he squirms with reluctance. That Madonna should fall for this likeable, irresponsible man far younger than his years, is the greatest surprise of all.

Madonna, after all, is famed as a manipulator, renowned for her need to control - most notably in her affair with Carlos Leon the handsome fitness instructor seemingly picked out to father her child. Lourdes, then cast aside. Perhaps the clearest sign of the depth of Madonna's feelings for Bird is that she found it impossible to discard him in the same way, He was her 'beautiful stranger' and for many months, even after she had met Guy Ritchie, impossible to let go. They met in the summer of 1997 through a mutual friend. Alek Keshishian the moviemaker, who had directed Truth or Dare: In Bed With Madonna, the film of her 1990 world tour. Andy was 32 seven years her junior and living a bohemian life in London's Notting Hill. A former art, student, he was Involved on the outer edges of the film industry, working as a runner for production companies and creating film scenarios of his own. He earned money sporadically, sleeping on friends' sofas for weeks at a time, and wrote a script for an off-beat comedy that he showed to an American film producer he met In London. The American agreed to fly him to LA, using her surplus air miles to try to develop the project.

The week before he was due to leave, Andy went to see Keshishian in Paris to talk about his LA trip. Alek was well known in Hollywood, with no shortage of contacts. 'On a couple of occasions he let slip: Oh I know someone who'd likes you,' Bird recalls. 'He said it was someone I'd really get along with, but he never mentioned who it was. He's the kind of person who knows everyone and likes to show off the fact. 'While I was there, he was on the phone and suddenly said: 'Andrew, say Hello to Madonna, 'Why he did it I still don't know. 'Anyway, I took the phone and said "Hello to Madonna and there was a little giggly voice at the other end. Though he knew Alek was a friend of Madonna, Andy was still unsure whether he really was talking to the singer. It could just have been some strange joke. 'But we chatted for a bit and by the end of the call she seemed like a really nice person, whoever it was I was talking to. The conversation ended with her saying: 'Tell Alek to give you my numbers in L.A'

It seems extraordinary for a star like Madonna to give me her telephone number so freely. Perhaps, says Andy, Alek had already mentioned him to her. He took the number, and. on the Eurostar back to London, decided to find out if they were real, 'I rang up and said: Hi, how are you doing?' and she said 'I'm practising yoga,' or whatever. 'I remember thinking she sounded sweet. She's got a very nice phone voice; quite low and soft. There was a connection between us.' By now there was no doubt he was talking to Madonna herself. 'I suppose other people would have found it really weird to be taking to her, but somehow it didn't feel that strange,' says Bird. I just thought I was speaking to a girl I was getting on really well with. I was speaking to the person, not the icon. 'To start with, we just chatted about Alek. But she also was making an album with the producer William, Orbit, whose work I really admired, and I was very Interested in that.'

Even though Andy hadn't been looking for a relationship, one soon started to develop. 'We spoke several more times. It ended with us talking for a couple of hours a day on the phone before I even got to LA. She was flirty - she's a very flirty person, and I just flirted back, I asked her: 'Do you want me to bring you a present when I come over?' She said; 'Yes some of those waffle biscuits they sell on the Portobello Road.' 'Our conversations, were a first-thing-in-the-morning, last-thing-at-night kind of deal. There was certainly a degree of intimacy at that point. By the end we were actually saying, 'I miss you'" when we hadn't spoken for a few hours. There was a genuine keenness to meet.'

Back in London for the few days before he left for LA, he made no secret of his strange new friendship. My phone would ring in a bar, and it would be Madonna saying 'How are you?" My friends were a bit surprised and it was a big joke for five minutes, but after that they got used to it,' Perhaps his friends were too anxious to seem 'cool' to exhibit mere excitement. Whatever the explanation, Andy admits this lack of interest was one of the reasons why, later, he was unprepared for the frenzy of attention when their relationship became more widely known.

Full of anticipation, he flew to LA and went to stay with his producer friend. The next day, he called Madonna. 'It was three clays before we eventually met up. I was a bit nervous. I met her at this photographer's studio where they were shooting a cover for Rolling Stone magazine, 1 had to wait outside because I couldn't smoke in the studio. 'I had a Safeway bag with her biscuits from Portobello Road in it. I was wearing a fake-fur coat a mate had given me. At that stage I was into wearing ripped?up clothes and holding them together with tape. 'After 20 minutes I was called in. She war hiding behind a curtain. I think her first words were: "Hello, you!" My first impression was: 'Isn't she tiny?' She had very long, blonde Goldilocks-style hair at the time, and she was dressed all in black. 'We chatted for a bit, and then we got into her car and she drove us to a dinner party she'd been invited to.' Madonna, it appeared, was nervous, too. 'She reversed into a wall as she was turning round, She was screaming: "'Andy, I hit something I think I probably swore - but it was only surface damage' he adds wryly. The dinner was informal. 'Everyone was in the kitchen, sitting on benches. Even so I felt a bit like a fish out of water, because I didn't know a soul, including her. People always ask questions when they don't know you, and I hate being asked questions. 'Somebody asked: 'Where do you live in London?' Madonna piped up 'He's a sofa surfer' because she knew I slept on friends' sofas. We were teasing one another from the outset.' Madonna seemed to be testing his reactions, checking out if he could really handle the prospect of a relationship with her. 'We were driving back after the dinner and she said: 'Shall I drop you at a hotel, because that's what I usually do with my dates, or do you want to come back to mine and call a cab from there?' 'It was all very flippant so I just said: 'I'm bloody going to yours.'She made some coffee and called a cab. I think we kissed.'

By then we were feeling at case with one another. We'd spoken so much already that a lot of barriers had gone down.' Andy also had his first glimpse of her LA home, an old Spanish-style house, filled with antique furniture and paintings. It was, he says, stylish but understated - a place where a guest could feel at home. 'It felt very natural, not at all forced. And she wasn't at all Madonna-ish, in a predatory way. She was warm and affectionate and womanly. She's really very normal: a lovely, traditional, sweet person. 'There was no problem being alone with her. I was more worried about getting back and waking up my producer friend to borrow some U.S. dollars to pay the taxi.'

Next evening, the two went out to dinner alone, at a restaurant near Madonna's studio. This time it was Andy's turn to tease her. I remember saying to her: "Kindness costs nothing," when she got fed up with waiting for a table and snapped ever so slightly at the waiter. 'Funnily enough, she seemed to think I spouting 'from some fount of knowledge. For me it was just a proverb, but perhaps in California it sounded like a deep spiritual insight. 'And after all, it was only our second date. We were hanging on each other's every word.' That evening. Andy mentions in passing, was also one of the few times he paid for dinner. In the excitement of a new relationship, such disparities - her vast wealth, his total lack of it - seemed not to matter. Perhaps, I suggest, it even added to the romance. In hindsight at least. Andy thinks otherwise. 'She's very much a realist: she probably saw it as problematic but chose to ignore it,' he says frankly.

Already the relationship had developed a sexual spark. 'It was brilliant: warm and exciting but quite gentle,' Andy remembers. 'We were holding hands, she was taking my arm, pretty much from the outset. 'It all seemed very natural. I'm a romantic anyway, and she's got a very big heart.' When he arrived in America, Andy had scant knowledge of Madonna's life. 'I knew she had a daughter, but what her name was I didn't know. 'I was aware she'd had relationships in the past, but none of them was an issue. I'd kind of separated Madonna as a pop star from the person I was with. 'You get so wrapped up with the person that their past really doesn't matter. We were in the throes of becoming infatuated, falling in love. 'The magic that goes on inside you when just sitting in a traffic jam can be brilliant, because you get to spend time with that person. That's probably why I was oblivious to the whole fame issue.'

Perhaps, for Madonna, that ability to see her as a normal person was the clue to Andy's appeal. In him - in contrast to so many hangers-on, she may have felt she'd met a man who valued her purely for herself. Whatever the reason, within the space of a week, Andy Bird and Madonna became lovers. Was he nervous, I ask, and Andy looks mortified. 'It wasn't like that. I was having a relationship with a woman called Madonna. I was no more nervous with her than I've been with anyone, before or since. She was an individual I wanted to share a closeness with.' He pauses, looking wistful. 'It was quite a soulful thing.'

So who really is this Englishman who captured Madonna's heart. When I first speak to Andy Bird, by telephone, his voice is deep and laconic: the kind that might, indeed, suggest romance. When we meet, he is more shy and diffident than I expect. He is tall, with long dark hair swept back from his face, and striking green eyes. But at 36 he displays an unhealthy pallor, honed on a diet of Diet Coke and Marlboro cigarettes. Later, when he shows me a photo of himself with Madonna and Lourdes, I am surprised by how much brighter and healthier he appears, the intervening years you sense, have left their mark on Andy Bird.

His parents, he says, were middle-class mavericks who left the city to start a new life in the Warwickshire countryside when he was two. They kept pigs and lived their version of The Good Life. At school - first a local primary, then a nearby prep school, followed by a comprehensive Andy was an unacademic student, spending most of his time 'messing wound with friends in bands'. After school, he went to London to study design at Kingston Polytechnic. When he left, he drifted. Good-looking and easy-going, he began modelling, his trip to America was partly financed by a fleeting appearance in a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial - and made karaoke videos. Affable and relaxed, he made friends easily 'I was meeting lots of different people, going to trendy bars, being put on the right guest lists,' he recalls. By the time he had met Madonna, he had, he says seriously, 500 friends. His social life revolved around fashionable restaurants such as 192 in Notting Hill, his gym on Portobello Green and the Met Bar, where he was friends with the manager. Many of his friends were connected to the media. It should have been obvious that, when he began a relationship with Madonna, there was no chance of it staying secret. Five hundred 'friends' were ready to sell information to the newspapers. To Andy's surprise if no one else's - his old, bohemian existence would blow up in his face.

Back in the autumn of 1997 though, Notting Hill felt far away. Andy was in LA caught up in a burgeoning love affair. Madonna was working in the studio, finishing her best-selling album, Ray Of Light. Andy spent almost every night with her, staying at her house in Los Felix. Quickly Andy's life fell into a routine. In the morning, he and Madonna would wake up early and takes it in turns to make coffee. Then, while she practised yoga for a couple of hours, he would play with Lourdes - Lola, as her mother called her, or 'set up meetings on his still unrealised film project. In the evenings they would meet for dinner, sometimes at the tiny macrobiotic restaurant 'really good and cheap' and maybe watch a film. He also spent time with the rest of the household: Daisy the maid, Lola's nanny Clara, and Manual the gardener. When I meet Andy at a hotel in England, he swiftly befriends every waiter; in LA, though he was dating a superstar, his behaviour was no different. He rented a Dodge pick-up and often would meet Madonna and follow her in his car. It was a rapid introduction to one of his new girlfriends surprising quirks - her terrible same of direction. 'I'd only been there a short time, but I'd still work out we were going completely the wrong way,' he remembers. 'Following her was a nightmare. You'd be at traffic lights, and out of nowhere she'd edge her way across the lanes and in the lane for turning left, and there was no way you could follow her. It's ironic really somebody with so much direction in their life not to have a clue where they were going.'

While he struggled with her driving, Madonna would try to get him to wear new clothes. 'She's given quite a lot of stuff by designers and fashion companies, and so a black velvet suit showed up that, thankfully I didn't fit into. Then there was a velvet double-breasted coat all Dolce & Gabbana that was too big. 'It was a bit like getting presents from your granny at Christmas things you'd wear for a couple of days just to please them, and then forget about.'

For the most part, though, the couple enjoyed their new found closeness. 'For both of us there was a real sense of familiarity. You know, when you feel you've met somebody before.' says Andy. 'My feelings were strong, and so were hers. There was a powerful physical and emotional attraction between us. 'There was also a sense of vulnerability the way there is when you meet someone new. She would ask my opinion on a lot of things. 'At that time, Lola was less than year old. Madonna was unsure about motherhood what was normal and what wasn't. I helped out as much as I could.' In the beginning, Andy had intended to go to LA for just three weeks. In fact, swept up in the passion of a new relationship, three months passed before he begun to think about coming home. That November, Madonna was visiting Britain to prepare for the release of Ray Of Light. Andy was short of money and starting to feel homesick. They decided to come to London together, as a couple. Andy came over a few days before her 'It was brilliant to be back. I knew I'd missed my friends, but I'd been in such a cocoon I hadn't realised how much,' he says.

Three days later, Madonna's private jet landed at Luton airport. Andy picked her up in a Range Rover with blacked out windows. 'It was great to see her again. She was staying at a house in Tregunter Road, close to The Boltons, one of the most exclusive areas of South Kensington. It was a kind of unspoken assumption that we'd be there together' For a day or two, no one knew about it. Then Andy took her to a friend's birthday party. Next day, he says ruefully, everything went crazy: their relationship was front-page news. 'It was just awful.' Andy remembers, shrinking into his chair, 'My phone rang incessantly; stories were being written about me. I was being followed. 'One of the red-top tabloids printed a number for anyone who knew mystery man Andy Bird to call. There was even a phone in on Radio 1 for people to say what they thought about Madonna's latest choice of boyfriend.'

For Andy, the media onslaught was a total shock. I knew they'd all be interested in her, but I didn't really think they'd care about who she was dating. 'I know it sound, ridiculous now, and I was obviously being downright stupid but 1 just perceived me as being me and I knew her as somebody else my girlfriend.' Surely Madonna herself must have known what would happen? 'You would have thought so, but I don't think she wanted to acknowledge the fact it might have a detrimental effect on us, or on me. 'Also, after 15 or 20 years in the spotlight it becomes normal, I imagine. It only became an issue after my reaction to it. It made me really withdrawn. 1 felt paranoid. I hadn't realised I would care what anyone wrote about me, but it really did upset me. 'Most hurtfully, says Andy, he was labelled a 'wannabe'. 'The implication was that the only way I was going to get fame and success and some semblance of a career was by hanging about with Madonna. That hurt my pride a lot.' The differences between them, which in America had hardly mattered, were rammed in their faces in Britain. At the same time, Andy was still trying to treat Madonna like any other girlfriend. He took her to friends' flats in West London. 'Most people were fine, but some were horrified at the idea of this superstar coming into their homes. 'No! It's filthy!' they'd say. 'You mustn't come!' 'Others went wild with excitement and you'd think: 'For God's sake, calm down.' Madonna, he says, was charming add polite I think maybe she felt like a novelty, being wheeled about. I think she quite shy in a certain way. But she was my girlfriend and I wanted her to meet my friends.'

Andy was also keen to introduce Madonna to his parents, Horace and Kathleen. 'I wanted to show her another side of me, to show her where I grew up. I didn't envisage spending a lot of time with them; just introducing her and going for a country drive perhaps. 'I rang my parents and said please don't make any more effort than you normally would," and they were fine.' On a Sunday afternoon, Andy drove Madonna and Lola to the large house his parents built 30 years ago near the village of Clifford Chambers in Warwickshire. With its wide, pitched roof and adjoining garage, it looks like the kind of house stockbrokers retire to. The three of them arrived late. 'It took us ages to get out of London because we were having to sort the baby out and deal with the paparazzi waiting outside our house. 'And, of course, Americans only drive at 50mph, so me doing 90mph down the motorway isn't go down very well at all. 'We didn't actually get there until 4pm, and when my parents opened the door they were dressed in their best clothes. They saw my face and said: 'This isn't for you we're going to a drinks party. We can only stay 20 minutes.' My mum said to Madonna something like: 'Oh, let me give you a kiss because I always kiss Andrews girlfriends.'Then she got the baby photos out: 'Here's Andrew naked in the sink at three months old.Few families you imagine, would have reacted so calmly to a pop icon sitting on their sofa. Andy's, he explains, is different: 'They hardly watch TV and don't read tabloid newspapers. I suppose you could say the whole cult of celebrity has passed them by 'They were at their ease they're very down to earth people They were more worried about being late for their drinks party than anything else.' There was, however, one unexpected hitch. A paparazzi photographer had followed them from London and was waiting outside the house. 'That made it very difficult,' says Andy, still indignant at the intrusion. 'We had to close the curtains so he couldn't see in.' Andy was angry most of all with himself, for bringing his parents into the public eye. All the same, he adds, he eventually took the photographer a cup of tea and some homemade cakes. 'I felt sorry for him' he explains helplessly.

Next day, he was shocked to find the visit was a major news story. I still had no idea that my parents' house would be on the front page of one of the tabloids. When I saw that, I realised the whole visit was a mistake. I didn't want to involve my parents in all that.' For both him and Madonna, the strain was starting to tell. 'I was starting to withdraw into myself. She could tell I wasn't happy. 'We tried to make light of it, but the situation had changed. It did get to me, and I didn't handle it very well, I was frightened to answer my phone. My stomach churns just talking about it, 'We still really cared about each other, but I was becoming much more aware of how difficult life would be with her. She was frustrated that this stuff upset me. At one point she said to me 'Oh Andrew you love me, but you hate my life.'That was completely true. But what do you do in that situation? I still loved being in her company. I thought the papers would get bored. But I wanted my freedom back.' Late one night, when their visit to London was close to an end, he went for a drive on his own. 'I needed to forget about the whole situation. 'I was questioning everything. I'd begun to feel that perhaps I really was this no-hoper everyone said I was. I didn't want to end the relationship, but I had to prove I wasn't just trying to ride on Madonna's coat tails.' Finally, after driving for many hours, Andy made his decision. He would not go back to America with Madonna, but stay in London and rebuild his life. He hoped their relationship could survive; if not, he would have to accept it.

When he got back to Tregunter Road, Madonna was waiting for him. 'She wanted to knew where I'd been for all this time. 'I just said: 'Listen I've been thinking and I've get something to tell you.'Before I could say another word, she said: 'Well, I've got something to tell you, too.'And that's when she told me she was having a baby.' The pregnancy was totally unexpected 'We were careful.' says Andy, his voice a whisper. 'I was numb, shocked, happy, panicked, sad, tired. I was looking into her eyes, trying desperately to see how she felt. 'When you're really fond of someone, there's a part of you that's happy in that situation; another part that thinks 'Oh no.'It was very early days in our relationship, and I was beginning to realise events were running me, not the other way round. 'I was full of self?doubt anyway, because of all the things being written about me in the newspapers. I wasn't sure I should even be allowed to father a child. I was in a tumultuous state, but trying my hardest to be calm.' His main concern was for Madonna. 'When someone tells you that kind of news, your overwhelming sense is to know how they are. A man feels that even more keenly, because it's something that goes on in the other person's body and you are completely cut off from it.' He pauses, looking helpless. 'I wanted to do the right thing,' he says. 'Whatever that was.'

Daily Mail - 21 January 2002

"The penniless Englishman who seduced Madonna"

PART TWO Exclusive by Alice Fowler

Madonna was pregnant and the timing could hardly have been worse. It wasn't that she didn't want another baby, it was no secret that she was keen to provide her only daughter, Lourdes, with a brother or sister. But November 1997 simply wasn't the right moment. Her relationship with the unborn baby's father, Andy Bird, was just three months old. And already their passionate affair, Madonna's last great romance before her marriage to Guy Ritchie, was under enormous strain.

Andy, a charming English drifter whom she'd met through a mutual friend, was finding the publicity surrounding their unlikely liaison impossible to live with. Virtually penniless, and a stranger to the public eye, he'd been sucked into a world that was utterly alien to him. As we saw on Saturday in the first part of this series, his very indifference to fame had enabled him to stir deeper feelings in Madonna than any of the celebrity lovers of her past. Later, she would describe her memories of their times together as 'the happiest of my life'. For once, it seems, she felt sure that her boyfriend valued her for herself, rather than her public image. But was he the right man to father her baby? Could their relationship survive the worldwide attention that her pregnancy would attract? The events of the next few days were to be pivotal in Andy's life and Madonna's.

'I wish that we were together and happy she wrote to him later, when the relationship finally began to unravel. 'I wish we'd had a child.' On the night that Madonna learned she was pregnant, Andy was driving through London on his own. He wanted time to think about his future and had made up his mind not to return with Madonna to America when she left to promote her new album. Ray Of Light. Instead, he intended to stay in Britain and hide from the glare of the media. If that meant the end of their relationship, it was a risk he was reluctantly prepared to accept.

But before he could reveal his decision Madonna stunned him with her own momentous news. 'I don't think she was sure how she felt,' he remembers. 'She was experiencing the same turmoil I was. Everything about the relationship was in flux'. They had little chance to talk on what was the last night of her stay in London 'We were packing, getting everything done, there were people calling up. We weren't alone, there were nannies and assistants, and her friends coming over to say goodbye. For Andy, already questioning every aspect of his life, there was no one he could turn to for support, I couldn't tell a soul, because I didn't know whom I could trust. I didn't even tell my parents.' Instead, next morning, he and Madonna flew to Miami.

For Andy all thoughts of staying behind in London had evaporated. They spent a few quiet days together at Madonna's three?storey Twenties house in Coconut Grove, next to Sylvester Stallone's estate. For a while, the pregnancy increased their closeness. But, for Madonna in particular, pressures were mounting. 'She was working very hard,' says Andy. 'She'd just finished Ray Of Light and was preparing for the videos. She had a Vanity Fair shoot coming up with Mario Testino the top photographer, and Dolce & Gabbana, had made all these clothes specifically for the shoot. 'There's no getting out of things like that. And they take forever.' They talked about what to do about their unborn child. 'I wanted to support her in her choice, whatever it was,' says Andy. According to the line pedalled by one of Madonna's most recent biographers that choice was made for her. In this version of events she had a miscarriage in her seventh week. The same biographer even repeats claims by Madonna's friends that Andy Bird knew nothing of her condition until after the event. The facts are rather different and sadder. For a few days, the singer wrestled with the decision. In the end, she had an abortion. 'I felt terrible. Absolutely terrible,' says Andy, with painful emphasis. Even now he is unable to talk about a loss so personal he refers to it only as 'the event'.

For them both, it sounds a lonely, desolate time. 'We didn't even have that much time to talk together' he says quietly. 'She had to go to New York for a tribute to her murdered friend Gianni Versace, but she wanted me to go back to her house in LA to get things ready for when she joined me in a few days. 'I felt estranged from everything, and I assume she did, too. It was terribly sad. We were deeply upset. 'Perhaps it would have helped to sit down together, without even talking, and to share a closeness. But long, shared silences don't work the same way on the telephone. They're just long silences and I do remember quite a few. I tried to be supportive, though whether I succeeded is another matter.'

On his own, he felt an overwhelming sense of loss. I wanted to be able to compensate in some way for what had happened. But at the time I was flat broke, I didn't even have a credit card. 'I couldn't arrange for a bunch of flowers to be delivered to her, let alone arrive with one myself. I felt guilty about that as well.' Why didn't he ask Madonna to fly him to New York so they could be together? 'I didn't want to impose on her,' he says awkwardly, 'I wanted to be able to do these things without asking her permission. Perhaps, after such a traumatic event, neither was behaving rationally, but was there not, for Andy at least an element of relief at avoiding the responsibility of becoming a father? 'After three or four years, yes,' he says honestly. 'At the time, not even remotely.' In the past, Madonna had undergone other abortions, including one in 1990 when she began pregnant during a short-lived relationship with the bisexual film extra Tony Ward. The foetus was unhealthy and doctors advised her to terminate the pregnancy.

Throughout her 30's, the singer had given public hints of her hopes of another child. By the time she became pregnant by Andy she was 39. It is not hard to imagine why, this time, Madonna was so devastated by the choice she had made. When she returned to LA from Miami, she and Andy tried in vain to recapture the happiness of their first three months. 'It was coming up to Christmas, and I was very pleased to see her and Lola (her nickname for Lourdes),' he remembers. 'But things were never the same after that. The innocence in the relationship had already started to disappear. We couldn't go back, no matter how hard we tried.' Andy, normally laidback and gentle was becoming increasingly volatile. 'I was going to ridiculous lengths to keep out of the headlines, trying never to appear in public with her. 'But she had to do all this work: the organisation of the album and the promotional tour. My moods were very up and down, and it was difficult for us to get time together.'

In February, he decided to move out of Madonna's and rent an apartment of his own, in a part of LA known as Venice Beach. 'She was about to embark on a tour around America and Europe, and I didn't fancy the prospect of staying in the house on my own,' he says. He also wanted more autonomy, to arrange his life as he wanted, rather than constantly fitting around hers. It sounds like the beginning of the end of the relationship, but that is to underestimate the strength of their bond. Through the months that followed, as Andy tried (without much success) to establish a career as a Hollywood screenwriter, he and Madonna continued to share a deep commitment.

For Andy's birthday on February 3 the first they had spent together. Madonna threw a surprise party. 'We went to my favourite restaurant just off Hollywood Boulevard, and when we walked in I saw this huge table, full of people I knew. 'She had called up all the people I knew in Los Angeles and asked them to be there. 'Just as I sat down, two friends of mine from London - Ben and Martina walked through the door. They were the manager and assistant manager at the Met Bar, one of my favourite hang-outs in London, and she'd met them when we were in Britain. She'd paid for their flights and put them up at the Mondrian hotel, one of the best in the city. 'It was a really lovely thing to do. She knew how homesick I was. 'Martina and I were pretty close and Madonna watched us hugging and kissing each other. On our way home from dinner she turned to me and said: "Why do you like me, Andrew, when Martina is so stunningly beautiful?' It's quite sweet to think that somebody like Madonna could feel a little bit insecure and admit it.

But as Andy says it just goes to show that she's a thoroughly normal person.' For Valentine's Day that same month, she bought him a silver Swiss Army knife from Tiffany with 'Birdy be my Valentine' inscribed on it. 'Which I subsequently lost,' adds Andy, looking sheepish. With money he had saved he bought her a Tiffany necklace, with a tiny diamond. 'I used to joke with my friends, 'What do you buy the woman who has everything?' but she was actually really easy to buy presents for. She was always really gracious when she received gifts.'

Andy, meanwhile, was living a life of extraordinary contrasts. On impulse he had bought a battered 1971 Chevrolet Impala coupe. Because it broke down so often, he got to know the owners of a garage in Santa Monica. Soon, he got a job helping out there, to supplement his income from 'bits and pieces' of film work. With Madonna, meanwhile, be was attending some of the glitziest premieres and events in Hollywood - even though, to avoid the cameras, he usually joined her only at the parties afterwards.

Parties like that are work to Madonna, 'he says. 'Deals are done there, and she is brilliant at networking. Occasionally, we would catch each other's eye and have a quick chat but most of the time I just let her get on with it.' When she presented the Best Song statuette to Celine Dion at the Academy Awards, Andy missed the event itself but went to the famous post-Oscars party given by Vanity Fair magazine. 'She'd gone on ahead but had given me the passes to get in. It was great turning up at this fantastic restaurant, behind a line of presidential limousines, in my ridiculous old car.' At the party guests were given cookies decorated with the cover of the magazine in icing. It was meant to be the ultimate going-home present, a sign they had been at the most coveted social event of the year. Andy typically, was unimpressed 'I got very hungry, an I ate mine,' he says, looking mischievous.

On nights on the town like this he would rub shoulders with stars such as Jack Nicholson and Arnold Schwarzenegger. 'I was always trying not to stare,' he says. 'I remember seeing Tony Curtis, whom I'd watched in Some Like It Hot and Spartacus. It was a shock to see a really old man with a well built platinum blonde on his arm.' He met Madonna's friend, Stella McCartney, the celebrity designer, a couple of times 'a lovely girl' and quite often saw her close friends Sting and Trudi Styler. His happiest times, however were spent at home with Madonna and her daughter Lourdes. 'In some ways, Madonna's a very ordinary woman who enjoys doing ordinary things,' he says.

'Like eating liquorice sticks, watching videos in bed or reading the newspapers over breakfast and not saying a word. 'A lot of people see Madonna as being quite an unhappy moody figure, but she spends far more time being happy than she does being sad. When she wants to, she can have a great sense of humour about herself. 'She used to send herself up by calling herself a creamy smooth pop icon goddess and then she would sing opera when she was heating up Pop Tarts for breakfast. 'A lot of the time we would spend playing with Lola or we'd go on family outings to Disneyland. That was probably the most fun we had, being together like a normal couple with a child. 'She got so much joy from her daughter. Just watching Lola trying to run in the park with her little legs flailing about, would set her off laughing. Nannies would take Lola over to the studio when Madonna was recording and she would take at least a couple of hours out to play with her.

I remember the first time she ever spent a night away from Lola. She had to go into the desert to shoot a video and she was so tearful at being apart from her daughter. 'I stayed at the house with Lola and the next days a car was suppose to take her out to the desert to meet her mother but it broke down. 'Madonna was just distraught she was in a state of panic until the car finally arrived and she could see Lola was safe.' Andy also met members of Madonna's family, including her brother Christopher and her father, Tony Ciccone, who owns a vineyard and winery in northern Michigan. 'He's a lovely man, very down to earth. I remember him talking about special varieties of grape that grow under heavy snowfall. 'One Christmas she bought him some piece of irrigation equipment because that was all he wanted. That's how star-struck he is.'

Madonna spoke little of her mother who died of breast cancer when she was five. 'Everybody knows she lost her mother when she was very young, and I can't even imagine how traumatic that must have been for her,' says Andy. 'I think there is probably an element of that loss in some of the lyrics she writes. You can sense it in her work. 'Her mother was deeply religious and quite passionate about the shrine at Lourdes, which is why Madonna gave that name to her daughter.'

With a flair for art and style, Madonna had many friends in the world of fashion, including the designers Donatella Versace and Stefano Gabbana. 'Because she was quite influential in launching Dolce and Gabbana by wearing their clothes in her videos, they look after her very well,' says Andy. 'At their studio in Milan they have a mannequin with her measurements and a bootmakers last in her shoe size. Vans would regularly turn up at the house with rails of their clothes for her to choose from.' Even so, not all her clothes were from designers. 'She could wear the tattiest pair of jeans and still look good in them. Often she'd walk round the house in just a Hennes vest and look fantastic. She once said to me if she didn't do what she did, she would love to have been in fashion journalism. She is very creative.' There is affection and admiration in his voice; Madonna's, he says often, is a lovely woman.

Yet, for Andy at least something had changed. For all the happy times they shared together, and his growing fondness for Lola, the differences between them, those that had first surfaced in London only to be pushed aside were becoming harder to ignore. Andy's self confidence was suffering, trying to develop film projects of his own, he felt he was only taken seriously as Madonna's boyfriend. 'I felt cheap in a way, that I'd got where I was through no merit of my own. 'When opportunities were offered. I didn't take them. I was suspicious of everyone.' Madonna, who had encouraged Andy's career was disappointed at his lack progress. 'I think she thought I had to have a career within that world in order for us to continue a successful relationship. 'Her work is so important to her, and she needed someone whose career was equally important to them. She's very driven, and she ended up wishing I was more driven, too.'

At the start of the relationship, Andy's lack of money had never seemed a problem. Now, his pride became an issue. Simple things, such as Madonna's effort to make her unashamedly scruffy lover wear new clothes, made him angry. 'I eventually bought myself some smarter outfits, but not until we'd been seeing one another for quite a while. I'd hate to think of myself m someone who can be bought. We were fighting more: such as 'Where are my socks?' - 'In the bin' - 'But they've got months left in them.' Our relationship was gradually breaking under the strain of all the things I didn't like about the situation. 'It was changing me: I certainly wasn't the person she had met. I knew I didn't belong in LA. I felt like, a child among a group of adults. And Madonna was changing, too. As time went on, she was less ready to look at the problems between us in a rose-coloured way.' Both recognised the pressures they were under 'I'm so sorry that you were threatened by my career and fame and past,' wrote Madonna sadly to Andy, later in their relationship. 'I wish I could erase all the bad memories between us and go back to LA before we left for New York and London. Before we both got scared.'

The passion that remained between them led to fierce, arguments. 'That in itself can almost make a stronger link between you, because you become locked in battle,' says Andy. 'Everything was heightened.' It was clear the situation could not go on. Finally, Andy decided to leave LA and return to London. Even then, their relationship continued, in angry phone calls and long, heartfelt letters. Neither could let go completely. It was not until late 1998 that the situation began to change.

By then, as we will see tomorrow, Madonna had met the man who would transform her life once more: a little known film-maker named Guy Ritchie.

Daily Mail - 22 January 2002

"The penniless Englishman who seduced Madonna"

PART THREE / FINAL Exclusive by Alice Fowler

Andy Bird remembers clearly the moment his girlfriend Madonna first set eyes on Guy Ritchie. There was, he notes carefully, a 'chemistry' between them. Ironically it is the very word he uses to describe the start of their own extraordinary love affair, just a year before. Bird, an unassuming and virtually penniless Englishman, who was scratching out a living as an aspiring film screenwriter, had been introduced to her through a mutual friend. A sexual spark was struck, and he suddenly found himself the boyfriend of the most famous woman on the planet. It was one of the most unexpected but tumultuous affairs of Madonna's amazing life.

As we have already seen, in this series, she was carrying Andy's child within three months. But although he stirred profound feelings in the singer touching her more deeply than previous celebrity lovers such as Warren Beatty and John Kennedy Jr, Andy was unable to cope with the constant blaze off publicity in which she lived. Uncertain of their future together Madonna aborted their child. And by the time she met Ritchie in the summer of 1998 she and Andy were living apart. Madonna was in the US with her daughter Lourdes (known as Lola), promoting her album Ray Of Light. Andy was in London, resuming his bohemian life in Notting Hill. His first job when he returned was to work on the door of his old haunt, the Met Bar in Mayfair, not surprisingly, the fact that Madonna's boyfriend was working as a glorified bouncer instantly made the papers.

'I was flat broke.' he explains shrugging apologetically 'The manager was one of my friends, and I needed the money.' His relationship with Madonna continued in long, fraught phone calls and letters in which they tried to make amends for the rows. 'It's Mother's Day, and I have just put Lola to sleep,' wrote Madonna in one typical letter. 'The past few hours I've been distracted with thoughts of you and our last conversation. 'I hate to fight with you especially around Lola. I hate it when you call me names. The whole time we argue, all I really want to say to you is that I wish you were here and I was looking to your eyes. 'It's been so long since we've seen each other - and nothing would make me happier. But we never seem to get to tenderness because you we still so angry with me. You save your tender words for Lola and it hurts me so.' Both of them feIt anxious and insecure.

When the newspapers discovered that Andy was back in London, they labelled him 'broken-hearted Andy Bird' and were quick to speculate that Madonna had moved on to other men. Andy says: 'I read one report that Robbie Williams had been having dinner with her. In fact, it was all down to some over-zealous public relations person, met they'd never even met. 'But when you're on the other side of the Atlantic, you think: 'What the hell are you doing?' It would frustrate her that I would suddenly start quizzing her about stuff in the papers.' Madonna had questions of her own. 'She knew I'd recovered if not all then certainly some of my anonymity. To a certain extent I could run around and do what I wanted to do. If I'd have wanted to have an affair, I could have done. 'There was hostility on her side.' How would I know if you were doing anything?'she would say. It wasn't really jealousy, but it was definitely uncertainty.' Did they stay faithful to one another? 'I can only speak for myself,' says Andy. 'But yes, I did. The trust in the relationship had pretty much disappeared by then, but not because we'd started having other relationships. It's just that when you're arguing all the time, you do lose your trust.'

Despite the tensions, neither was prepared to give up on each other - or as Andy puts it, 'concede defeat.' Almost every other weekend he would fly to the U.S. 'I'd spend two or three days In New York, then fly back to London for a couple of weeks. It sounds glamorous but it wasn't at all. It was actually quite laborious. 'We couldn't really communicate. By the time we'd be getting used to being with one another again, it would be time for me to leave. 'Madonna was still very helpful, she paid for the flights far more regularly than I did. But you have to be very solid to continue a long-distance relationship and our foundations were really non-existent.' At times, the affair seems to have descended into farce. 'There was always an issue about how smelly my feet were, especially when I was travelling backwards and forwards to New York. When I got to her apartment and took my shoes off, Lola would be going, 'Pooh! Stinky Andrew!' Madonna used to make me wash my feet before I got into bed, with hydrogen peroxide, which Americana use as antiseptic.

'Her apartment in New York had a balcony overlooking Central Park, with a big urn on it. Once. I ran out there in my stockinged feet to have a cigarette, and took my socks off and put them in the urn. 'I got a call from her three weeks later saying Lola had been pointing at this urn saying "Stinky Andrew" because she'd found my socks. That kind of thing was very funny. But I think I as beginning to stretch Madonna's sense of humour somewhat.' Yet - remarkably, perhaps - a deep well of affection remained as Madonna's letters show. 'We haven't spoken for a week and it makes me very sad, but there's nothing I can do, so I'm sending you this note and some music I'd like you to listen to,' she wrote after one argument. 'I think of you so often when I listen to music. I feel it's the one thing we have that has not been tainted is a love of good music. 'You have a very good ear. The fact is there is nothing you wouldn't be good at, given the right circumstances. I've said it before and I'll say it again, you have so much talent and creativity inside you. It just needs to be manifested. 'You have so much to offer the universe I look forward to seeing into your heart. You are still so deeply embedded in my heart.'

Sometimes she would send Andy touching presents. 'After one bout of arguing, she put together a lovely little parcel for me, with a scented candle, some magazines, a little picture Lola had drawn, a letter and a CD,' he remembers. 'Occasionally, she would send money. That would make me feel pretty rough, and I'd invariably give it away. But I suppose she wanted to help and show she cared.'

For weeks the relationship waxed and waned. 'Just when I thought I couldn't take any more, something would happen to give us breathing space for the next round. She'd write me letters and I'd write to her. 'We'd be breaking up all the time, maybe not talking for a few days. Then we'd call each other up, or send long faxes. There was never a point when it really ended.' This was the stormy, uncertain background against which Madonna first met Guy Ritchie another handsome Englishman, also involved in film-making, although with rather more success than Andy Bird. The singer had come to London for work, and had been invited to a barbecue at the Wiltshire home of Sting and his wife Trudi Styler. Trudi was a close friend of Madonna and was also involved in Ritchie's new film, Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels.

For Andy and Madonna's, the day of the barbecue had started badly. She was keen for him to come with her, while he wanted to see some of his friends. 'I was heading home after seeing her at her hotel when she rang me on the mobile, asking if I was sure I didn't want to go,' he remembers. 'I wasn't keen because I was still wearing the clothes I'd had on the night before and was hardly dressed for barbecue, but I agreed to go with her. 'Her chauffeured Mercedes people-carrier picked me up on Pack Lane and I just jumped in next to the driver. Madonna - who was in the back with one of her assistants and Lola - interpreted this as a snub. 'It wasn't meant that way at all - but things went downhill from there. By the time we got to the party we were hardly speaking to each other.

'Trudi introduced us both to Guy and I could see a chemistry between him and Madonna. They looked good together - they kind of fitted. There was an instant interest and they started chatting straight away.' When they all sat down for dinner Madonna wanted Andy to sit next to her. Instead, he sat at the other end of the table with Lola. At least sitting next to Lola, I knew we wouldn't have an argument. Madonna ended up sitting next to Guy and they seemed to be getting on really well. Surprisingly, perhaps, Andy insists he felt no jealousy. 'There didn't seem to be anything to be jealous about. I'd seen that they'd hit it off at the start but now they were just two people at a party, chatting away like everyone else.

To this day, Andy insists that he knows nothing of how Madonna's relationship with Ritchie developed over the following months. But by March 1999, when he next met Guy, his own relationship with Madonna was over and Ritchie had very obviously taken his place. Their chance encounter at the Met Bar was to generate sensational headlines suggesting Ritchie had flattened his supposed rival in an ugly brawl. But that's not how Andy Bird remembers it. 'I was there with friend, and he was, too,' Andy says. 'We ended up having a chat. It was very loud and we went to have a talk about things in the lobby, which was quieter. 'I suppose I was saying 'no hard feelings', which was obviously a one-sided sentiment. Probably I said something derogatory about her, or about her life. Whatever it was, he suddenly pushed me over. 'It was out I nowhere - I was sitting on a chair and he pushed me off. But it wasn't the big brawl that some people have claimed.' Wisely, Andy did not respond and returned to the bar, while the doormen threw Ritchie out.

Why, though, did Guy react so violently? Perhaps he saw Andy as a threat, or at least a thorn in his side. Bird remains mystified by the scuffle, but refuses to speak harshly of the man who displaced him in Madonna's affections. 'Who knows what Madonna might have told him about me?' he says. 'But it wasn't like I was standing in his way. I wasn't in touch with Madonna by this stage and I don't think I even had her phone number. 'He clearly had - and has - very strong feelings for her. He'd had a drop to drink, and love can make you do silly things,' Possibly, Ritchie was simply aware of how intensely his girlfriend still cared for Andy.

In the months after Guy and Madonna met, she had continued to see Andy regularly. For her 40th birthday in August 1998 - not long after her first meeting with Guy it was Andy whom she flew but to be at her side. 'I went over to New York for a week and we had a couple of days together at her apartment,' Andy remembers. 'Then she chartered a small sea-place to take us from Manhattan to this gross Hugh Hefner-style mansion in the Hamptons that she had hired for her birthday. 'There were the two of us, her brother Christopher, her assistant, plus Lola, the nanny and a couple of friends. Then we were joined by about 30 people at the mansion and we had a lovely dinner party. 'We played silly party games and everyone seemed to have a great time. Her masseuse came along and gave everyone massages as her present to Madonna. 'After dinner, we went into this huge cinema that was in the mansion and watched the new film of The Avengers. But it was so awful that I went off into the video library and came back with In The Heat Of The Night, with Sidney Poitier, which everyone enjoyed.' At the time, Madonna was deeply influenced by Memoirs Of A Geisha. Arthur Golden's compelling novel about the eroticism and exploitation of a Japanese geisha. Back in London, Andy had bought an antique kimono for Madonna and a smaller one for Lola. 'I also got a huge chunk of silvercoloured metal and, with a friend of mine, carved her out a huge silver heart, which I took over for her. It must have weighed more than a house brick and she seemed to appreciate it. 'But we still had an argument, even on her birthday. I wasn't feeling well and kept disappearing to throw up, and she accused me of being ill on purpose to spoil her birthday.'

For months the arguments dragged on. 'One of us would slam the phone down and ring back just to slam it down again,' says Andy. 'She changed her numbers, I changed mine. It was almost like a competition, neither of us wanted to admit defeat. Neither of us was very good at saying sorry and we would never admit to being in the wrong.' For Madonna, Andy's whole approach to life was the easy-going, impulsive style that had helped bring them together in the first place - was wearing thin. 'I'm irresponsible in fundamental ways, which did become an issue' he concedes. It was about whether I could say to Madonna: 'I can look after you.' That was important, Madonna may have grown up looking after herself and everyone else around her, but I think she does want to be looked after. 'Not looked after financially, necessarily - that would be a daunting task. But to have someone who at least contributes to the household, who organises things, takes responsibility for things. 'Even if you can look after yourself particularly well, as she can, you want that.'

Certainly, Madonna had always been frustrated by Bird's laid back attitude to his career. In Guy Ritchie she found a man whose ambition matched her own.' But it was also a matter of emotional commitment. The truth is, with seven years between them, Andy and Madonna may simply have wanted different things. 'I think she was looking for a caring, stable relationship. I know she wanted another child, but I knew that I wasn't ready to become a parent.' Had fate run a little differently, it is conceivable that Madonna could have ended up marrying Andy Bird rather than Guy Ritchie. But Andy remains sceptical - even if they'd had a child, he says, it would not have made a difference. 'We would still have broken up. There were serious difficulties. Having a child wouldn't have changed our personalities, it ought have made us a little less headstrong but I don't think, ultimately, we would have stayed together. The relationship might just have lasted a little longer, that's all.'

Indeed, looking back, he is unsure how deep their feelings really were. 'In hindsight I'd have to look deep inside me to say we fell in love. 'It's very difficult to quantify those feelings when you're in the moment, whether it's infatuation, or desire, or love. But I don't really think we were in love.' It's a difficult claim to accept when you look back at Madonna's letters to Andy, where she talks of a love she describes as 'profound and immense' add tells him, 'I will never get over you.' The evidence, indeed, appears to entirely contradict his self-effacing verdict. But then, even though he has chosen to tell his story, Bird is a touchingly diffident man, determined not to exaggerate his role in Madonna's life.

In July 1999, over two evenings, they saw each other for the final time. Madonna had flown to London and was staying at the exclusive private members' club, Home House. Out of the blue she phoned Bird and invited him over, after seeing Guy Ritchie earlier that evening. 'I don't know why we saw each other then,' Andy says. 'Maybe it was just so that we could, in some kind of way, say our goodbyes to each other. The chemistry was no longer there. 'The anger still flared up because we are a couple of fighters, but our feelings had changed. The passion that had been there at the beginning of our relationship had gone by that stage. 'We had dinner together and chatted about what we had been doing, I can't remember what our last words were that night, I remember the emotions more than the words. There was resignation and a certain amount of sorrow, but no regrets that it hadn't worked out between us. 'She's certainly not one for regrets, She's very forward-looking and positive, as you can see from what she's achieved in her life.'

Even then, Madonna could not part from Andy completely. She called him the next day and arranged to meet him for dinner at a restaurant called Bali Sugar in Notting Hill. 'We actually got on much better that time. She had just got back from staying at Donatella Versace's place on Lake Como, and she'd bought a video camera with her so I could see where she had been staying. We had a pleasant conversation and then she went back to Home House, packed and got on a plane that night. Even then, we couldn't say we would never see each other again and we spoke subsequently on the phone. 'I was supposed to go over to Miami for her birthday the following month but it was at the height of the season and I couldn't afford the £800 for the flight. 'She was saying things such as 'If you really loved me you would find the money and I was saying, if you really loved me you would understand my situation.' So we didn't see each other again. I think we were both exhausted and had finally ground each other down.'

That Christmas, Madonna wrote to him one last time. 'It was just before she and Guy announced her pregnancy, She just said 'Hi, I hope things we OK with you. Lola still mentions you occasionally. Maybe we should meet it would be nice to have a chat about things.' Andy did not respond. 'It didn't really warrant it. It was just a few words on a Christmas card. She sent it to a restaurant I used to go to, and I only got it a month and a half later.' By then, he explains, the moment had passed: the world knew she was having a baby. 'I felt she was opening a new chapter in her life. By that stage, I definitely had as well.' How did he feel, after the loss of their own child, hearing Madonna was pregnant with another man? It didn't affect me,' he says evenly. 'By then, my head was somewhere else. Already it seemed another life. 'I did feel pleased for her. And from the little bits of information that filter through to me I understand they we very happy.'

It seems an odd coincidence that, after Andy, Madonna should go on to marry another Englishman. Andy, however says he saw little sign of a hankering for English men. 'She was married to Sean Penn and had a long relationship with Warren Beatty, and there's nothing remotely English about them. 'Since she and Guy got together, she's probably discovered quite a lot of nice things about England. But I don't think she was looking for an English husband.' While Madonna has found happiness with Ritchie - and given birth to a son Rocco - Andy has stepped back into the shadows. Today, he has another, happy relationship. He has grown up, it seems, in the past few years. Even now, his phone still rings with people wanting to talk to him about Madonna.

There have been some false suggestions that he is planning to write a book about his experiences, in fact, he hopes that by telling his story in this series, he can draw a line beneath the whole episode and get on with the rest of his life. He has, he says fervently, few regrets. I can look back and categorically say Madonna's a lovely, lovely person. But I definitely wasn't the right person for her, add she wasn't for me.' In the end, the contrasts that once seemed so alluring tore the relationship apart. Then love was at its best, an extraordinary fairy tale. Sadly, as with most real-life fairy tales, there could be no lasting happy ending.

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secretliz001 · 4 years ago

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翻译：Yesterday, Today and Paul

原链接：https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/interview/yesterday-today-and-paul/

WELL, IT SURE SOUNDS like rock & roll, even if it is Wings. Little Jimmy McCulloch, former Thunderclap Newman, and Denny Laine, former Moody Blue, are burners on guitars. Joe English, former nobody, is ecstatic on blistering drums. Linda McCartney, former photographer, punches away at a stockpile of keyboards and accounts for all the sound effects we’ve grown to love on all the Wings albums. And Paul McCartney, former Beatle, drives the whole band, plus a four-piece horn section adding funk and frills. He cruises on bass while Laine and McCulloch provide the power; on piano, he hammers out “Lady Madonna” and “Live and Let Die”; back on bass, he screams, reaching back for some of that Little Richard inspiration, through “Beware My Love” and “Letting Go.” And after a particularly meaty, beaty number, there is a shout from Laine or McCartney of “rock & roll!”

Well,就算对Wings乐队来说，这场景也很肉啃肉。小只的Jimmy McCulloch曾属于Thunderclap Newman，Denny Laine曾属于Moody Blue，都是吉他手；Joe English先前不属于任何乐队，在激烈鼓声前挥汗如雨；Linda McCartney，前任摄影师，在一堆键盘上大展拳脚，并在Wings的所有专辑中加入了我们所喜爱的音效。以及前任披头Paul McCartney带领着整支乐队，加上一个四人铜管组合，为乐队的funk与多样性锦上添花。有了Laine和McCulloch的助力，他在贝司上游走，在钢琴上敲出了“Lady Madonna” 和“Live and Let Die”，再回到贝司，带着Little Richard标志性的嚎叫唱出“Beware My Love” 和“Letting Go”。唱完一曲尤其内容有料节奏抓耳的歌后，不知是Laine 还是McCartney吼了一句“rock & roll!”

And Wings gets all the rock & roll responses: people in the audience suddenly sticking their arms up in clenched-fist salutes, piercing the air with two-fingered whistling, whooping in celebration of each of the five Beatles songs offered, unleashing ferocious, match-lit, Bic-flicked encore calls. It is the first American tour by Paul McCartney since 1966, when he was still a you-know-what. Along with John, George and Ringo, he was supposed to have detested the audiences, scream storms of wet panties that rushed them everywhere from Shea Stadium in New York to Candlestick Park in San Francisco. Now, with the Apple rot, Beatles split, lawsuits and bad-mouthings pretty much behind them, Paul finds himself invoking the old days, inviting people to clap hands and stomp feet, waving and posing to audiences behind and to the sides of the stage.

Wings也得到了十分摇滚的回应：观众突然举起双臂握紧拳头致意，；两个手指吹出的口哨刺破了空气，依次为出场的五首披头士曲目欢呼，为了最后的encore举起打火机以火作灯疯狂尖叫。这是Paul McCartney在美国开的第一次巡演，上一次还是1966年，当他还是个“你懂的”的人物的时候。与John, George 和Ringo一样，他本应痛恨着观众，狂热女粉们带着尖叫驱赶着他们从纽约Shea体育馆到旧金山Candlestick公园。而现在，Apple已倒，披头士解散，官司和恶语相向差不多过去，Paul发现自己又唤起往日的时光，邀请人们拍手跺脚，向着四面八方的观众挥手致意。

【我猜wet panties是狂热女粉的意思吧?】

But here in America in 1976, few try rushing the stage; first-aid setups go untested; security guards wind up turning down their walkie-talkies so they can hear the show. The only Beatlemaniacal screaming is at the beginning, when Paul first appears out of the darkness. The one song that gets screeches – an absolute demonstration, in fact – is the quietest Beatle song of all . . .

但在1976年的美国，几乎无人尝试冲上舞台；急救装置不用测试；保安人员为了能听到演出，把对讲机音量调低。唯一的披头马尼亚尖叫声是当Paul在一首歌的开头走进灯光时。这首收获标准披头马尼亚尖叫的歌反而是是最安静的一首披头士作品......

Saturday, May 8th: on the main floor of the seedy Olympia Stadium in Detroit, Michigan, one young man keeps shouting for the people in front of him to sit down. We were into the acoustic set, with Laine, McCulloch and the McCartneys on rattan chairs, all but Linda playing guitars. After a few numbers, it is Paul alone onstage, tuning up for “Blackbird.” The man in the audience-he apparently saw the first show here the night before – seems to know what’s coming.

5月8日，星期六：在密歇根州底特律市奥林匹亚体育场的主楼，一个年轻人不停地喊着让前面的人坐下。演出进入了原声吉他主场，Laine, McCulloch 和McCartney夫妇坐在藤椅上，除了琳达其他人都在弹吉他。几首曲子过后，只剩Paul一人在台上为“Blackbird”调音。这个观众他显然在前一天晚上看过首演，他似乎知道会发生什么。

“Siddown!” he shrieks. “Siddown, you fuckers!” Then he turns to a friend and explains his urgency. The voice level is down to conversational and he sounds rational.

“你给我坐下！”他叫着，“坐下，你个傻逼！” 然后他转身向朋友解释他着急的原因。他降到了普通对话的音量，听起来很理性。

“I wanna see ‘Yesterday,’ ” he says.

“我想看‘Yesterday‘，”他说。

If you want the Beatles, go see Wings.

–George Harrison, November 1974

如果你想看披头士乐队，去看Wings演出吧。

- George Harrison, 1974年11月

Paul McCartney doesn’t mind a look back at Yesterday, but today he is dedicated to two goals: the acceptance by public and press of Wings as a band and not as a backup for a former Beatle, and acknowledgment from those same two difficult institutions that Wings (and Paul) are rock, not pop.

Paul McCartney不介意回唱Yesterday，但今天他专心于两个目的：希望公众和媒体接受Wings是一支正经乐队，而不是他这个前披头士伴奏乐队，以及希望他们承认Wings（和Paul）走的摇滚路线，而不是pop。

But McCartney has some difficulties.

但是他遇到了一些困难。

First, he was a Beatle; he can’t change or deny that. And he wouldn’t anyway. “I’m a Beatles fan,” he says later. “When John was saying a couple of years ago that it was all crap, it was all a dream, I know what he was talking about, but at the same time I was sitting there thinking, ‘No it wasn’t.’ It was as much a dream as anything else is; as much crap as anything else is. In fact, it was less crap than a lot of other stuff.” And he agrees with George’s equation of Wings and Beatles:

第一个难题，他是一个披头士，这一点他无法改变或者否认。虽然他本也不会。"我是披头士的粉丝，"他后来说。"当John几年前说那都是屑，都是梦的时候，我知道他什么意思，但同时我也在想，'不，不是的'。它和其他任何东西一样像是一场梦，也其他任何东西一样扯。事实上，比起其他东西，披头士可没那么垃圾。" 他也同意George把Wings和披头士划上等号的说法：

“I wouldn’t put it just like that. I’d say, ‘If you want the Wings, go see Wings; if you want Beatles, look at an old film.’ But I probably was a little more sort of Beatleminded than the rest. I tended to ring people up and say, ‘Let’s work now,’ ‘Let’s do this.’ So I suppose it’s a fair point that that was my bag anyway and I just continued doing it. Whereas George . . . ’round about Sergeant Pepper, he only did the one track on Sergeant Pepper, he didn’t turn up for a lot of the other stuff, because he really wasn’t that interested. I was still very interested.”

“但我不会这样表达。我会说，‘如果你想看Wings表演，你去看Wings，如果你想看Beatles表演，你去看老视频吧。’但我大概也比其余人更一心向披头，我是那个经常给别人打个电话说‘来干活吧’，‘咱们做这个吧’的人，而George 则是......制作Sergeant Pepper那一阵，他只有一首歌，很多别的环节他都没有参加，因为他不是那么感兴趣。但我依然十分感兴趣。“

Second difficulty: McCartney is cute. And at age 33, there are none of the signs that make for easy writing – that, say, his face is fuller . . . fleshier . . . rounded out by the years. Backstage, he introduced himself cheerfully as “David Cassidy,” and I could see why. But with few exceptions (if pressed, Peter Frampton and Suzi Quatro come to mind), cute people are not quite believable as pained, ravaged, booze-based, serious rockers.

第二个难题：McCartney看着太可爱了。33岁的人，没显示出任何让人可写被岁月磨圆的痕迹的点，除了他的脸更饱满了，肉更多了。在后台，他愉快将自己比为" David Cassidy "，理由也很明显。可除了少数例外（一定要说的话，可以算上Peter Frampton 和Suzi Quatro），这样一个可爱的人，实在是不像一个（通常意义上看着）痛苦，受折磨，酗酒，严肃的摇滚乐手。

【Wiki: David Cassidy是一名美国演员、歌手作曲家和乐队吉他手。在1970年代凭借热门影集“欢乐满人间”走红影视歌坛，促使他成为一个流行文化的青少年偶像。】

Another difficulty is that McCartney writes, sings and produces in the pop manner. Not that he wants to. “We’re trying to make it sound as hard as possible,” he says. “But sometimes you just don’t bring off in a studio what you can bring off in a live thing.”

还有个难点就是，McCartney以pop的模式写歌唱歌以及制作。这倒不是他的本意。"我们尽可能是我们的作品更‘硬’些，"他说，"但有时录音室里的表现无法呈现到现场表演。"

Also, Paul is a family man – married in 1969 to the former Linda Eastman. He doesn’t exactly flaunt her but there she is on the album covers and there she is onstage. The kids (Heather, 13 – by her first marriage – Mary, 6, and Stella, 4) are taken along on most Wings tours, and this one is set up partly around the family situation. The McCartneys, band members and closest aides are in four base cities (Dallas, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles) and commute to and from concerts (31 shows, 21 cities) by private jet. This saves on hotels, airports and general wear and tear, and it keeps the family together. But a photographer on the tour finds the daily commute limiting. “So far,” he says, “I’m shooting an architectural book, mostly buildings. They don’t exactly hang out a lot.”

另外，Paul是个有家室的人--1969年与Linda Eastman（原姓）结婚。他并不高调表现他的婚姻，不过专辑封面上有她，舞台上也有她。孩子们也几乎全程跟着Wings的巡演（Heather, 13岁 – Linda第一段婚姻所生 – Mary, 6岁, and Stella, 4岁），本次巡演也是围绕着家庭情况安排的。McCartney一家，乐队成员与最紧密的随行人员基于四个城市（达拉斯，纽约，芝加哥和洛杉矶），来回演唱会都乘专机（一共31场演出，遍布21个城市)。这样可以省一笔酒店机票和杂物钱，家人间也更紧密。虽然巡演中一位摄影师发现，每天来回飞行导致限制很大。"目前为止，"他说，"我像在拍一本建筑书一样，大部分照片是建筑。他们并不经常出去玩。"

And, finally, nothing – no new band he can concoct – can compare with the Beatles. This he knows well and, as he patiently counseled a young reporter from NBC-TV: “It may not be the Sixties, but nothing’s the Sixties anymore except the history books. It’s the Seventies and it’s hip and it’s happening. And it’s just . . . enjoy it.”

最后么，没什么能和披头士乐队相提并论，Paul自己组建的新乐队也不能。这一点他心里很清楚，他耐心劝告NBC电视台的一位年轻记者时说：“现在已经不是六十年代了，六十年代早就在历史书里了。"现在是七十年代，它很时髦，它是当下。享受就好。"

McCartney and his wife and band have weathered six years of criticism and misunderstanding. They are consoled only by the record buyers and have sold millions of records like “Hi Hi Hi,” “My Love,” “Helen Wheels,” “Jet,” “Band on the Run,” “Junior’s Farm,” “Listen to What the Man Said” and “Letting Go.” Not to mention seven albums, five under the name Wings.

McCartney与他的妻子以及乐队经历了六年的批评和误解。只有唱片卖家们和“Hi Hi Hi,” “My Love,” “Helen Wheels,” “Jet,” “Band on the Run,” “Junior’s Farm,” “Listen to What the Man Said” 和“Letting Go”的百万销量才在安慰他们。更不用说七张专辑里五张是Wings的。

But commercial success – the greatest, most consistent success of any of the former Beatles – is not enough. Paul says he ignores criticism – for every putdown, he says, there’s someone else who loves his stuff. He relishes reminding reporters how critic Richard Goldstein panned Sergeant Pepper. But he is thin-skinned to the point of writing “Silly Love Songs,” an answer to the dismissal of his music as pop puffery. And Linda has long been abused, written off as a particularly successful groupie in her days as a rock photographer in New York’s Village and Fillmore scenes. As a musician and a member of Wings, she has been written off as a particularly successful, etc. . . and she is, you can understand, very defensive.

但商业上的成就是不够的，即使他是四位前披头士中最成功最持续的也不够。Paul说他无视批评，认为有人贬低他的同时，也会有人喜欢他的东西。他乐得提醒记者曾经乐评人Richard Goldstein是如何诋毁Sergeant Pepper的。但他脸皮也薄，薄到写出了“Silly Love Songs”，以回击将他的音乐斥为浮夸流行音乐的评价。而Linda长期以来一直被diss，他在纽约Village and Fillmore scenes作为摇滚摄影师的时期在别人笔下被写成了一个尤其成功的groupie。作为音乐人和Wings的成员，她则被写成一个特别成功的，等等......所以可以理解，她是非常防备的。

AT THE SOUND CHECK BEFORE THE first of the two concerts in Detroit, Linda is showing me around her keyboards, instruments she learned to play after marrying McCartney. Atop the electric piano are an ARP synthesizer and a Mini-Moog, which she plays for the opening of “Venus and Mars.” Buttons are labeled “controllers,” “oscillator bank,” “mixer,” “decay time” and “modifiers for attack time.” And if that’s not confusing enough, here, facing the audience, is the Mellotron, which is loaded with tape loops that are activated by depressing keys. There are tapes of Paul singing a line – “Till you go down” – and of a laughing hyena, a pig and a bull. Here, too, is the chorale behind McCulloch’s number, “Medicine Jar,” and the robot/chain saw/moog/drum sound that opens “Silly Love Songs.” And the sounds of frying bacon and chips that appeared on Linda’s “Cook of the House,” her first solo vocal outing on the most recent album, Wings at the Speed of Sound. I mention the criticism that has already built over her celebration of her place in the kitchen. She swivels on her electric piano bench. “My answer,” she says, “is always ‘Fuck off!’ ” She continues, in a weird hybrid of accents from England, New York and finishing school. “Look, we had a great loon in the studios that night. All the hung up people don’t have to buy it, don’t have to listen to it. It’s like having parents on your back, this criticizing. I’ve grown up. I had a great night last night, this is a great band and this is great fun. And that’s all we care about.”

底特律首演前的试音中，Linda向我展示她的键盘，这是她和McCartney结婚后学会的乐器。在电子琴上有一台ARP合成器和一台Mini-Moog，是她在“Venus and Mars”开场时弹的。按钮上标有“controllers,” “oscillator bank,” “mixer,” “decay time” and “modifiers for attack time."【好多术语233】。如果这还不够让人迷糊，面对观众的还有Mellotron，装满了循环磁带，按下键就能开动。里面是Paul唱的预录音频--“Till you go down”，鬣狗、猪和牛的笑声。里头也有McCulloch的“Medicine Jar”伴唱，以及 “Silly Love Songs”开头的机器人/句子/moog音效/鼓声。还有Linda写的“Cook of the House”中出现的煎培根和薯条的声音，这是她在最新专辑Wings at the Speed of Sound中的第一次solo。我提起，人们批评她这首拥护自己在厨房角色的歌，她坐在电子琴凳上打转，回答说，"我总是回' Fuck off!'。“她继续说着，用着一口奇怪的英式、纽约和受过淑女教育的混合口音，"听着，那天晚上我们在录音室有点疯。那些介意的人可以不买，不听。这种批评就像是父母在背后叨叨，但我已经成人了。昨晚我非常开心，乐队也很棒带来乐趣也很多。这些才是我们关心的。"

【A finishing school is a school for young women that focuses on teaching social graces and upper-class cultural rites as a preparation for entry into society.】

Offstage, heading toward the dressing room, Linda asks that I forget her outburst. But a few minutes later, in conversation with Denny Laine, her hostility wells up again. We are talking about “Silly Love Songs” as a reaction to criticism. “You respond to it,” she says, “but I’d rather have life without it. I had life without it before and found it quite nice. You have criticism in school. When you get out of school, you want to be free.”

下台往更衣室去时，Linda请我无视她的“暴言“。但几分钟后与Denny Laine谈话室，她的刺又冒了出来。我们正在谈论“Silly Love Songs”这首用来回应批评的作品。"回应确实时应该有的，"她说，"但我宁愿过没有批评的生活。这生活我曾经拥有过也很喜欢。在学校里会受到批评。走出学校自然就想着自由了。"

Laine adds: “We’re pretty good critics of ourselves. We don’t need all these bums coming along and telling us, “Hey, man . . .’ “

Laine补充说，“我们本身就挺会反思的，并不需要有的没的人跑过来说‘嘿伙计blahblahblah’。”

I venture to say that theirs sounds like an insular process, with no room for sounding boards and outside opinions.

我大着胆子说，他们的流程听起来比较孤立，没有留下听取外部意见的空间。

“We always know what’s wrong,” says Linda. “We know with every album what’s gone wrong.” During recording sessions, Denny adds, there are friends who drop by and offer thoughts. “So we know pretty well where we stand.”

“我们一直知道哪里有问题，每张专辑里有些什么问题，“Linda说。Denny补充，在录音过程中也有朋友顺便提出想法，"所以我们很清楚自己的情况"。

“We know we’ve got a lot more to do,” Linda says, and turns away to talk with Paul, who’s just returned from the sound check.

“我们也知道自己还有更多可以做的，“Linda说着，转身和Paul去说话，他刚刚从试音现场回来。

Laine speaks with us for a minute more about Wings and the remains of Beatlemania. “The main thing about us,” he says, “is we want to be able to work on the stage without too much adoration, if you know what I mean. We’d rather work for it.” A lot of the audience, he says, still respond out of reverence for a Beatle. “They’re in awe, you know, of Paul. And that’s a bit of a drag.”

Laine和我们聊了一分钟关于Wings和Beatlemania的残存痕迹。"比较重要的是，"他说，"我们希望在台上演出的当下，不会收到过分的崇拜，you know。这种崇拜我们希望自己争取。" 他说，很多观众的反应还是出于对披头士的敬畏。"他们带着些敬畏之心，对Paul的敬畏。而这有点拖后腿。"

SUNDAY, MAY 9TH: PAUL McCARTNEY has just flown into Toronto from New York and sped, in one of the customary five limousines, into the backstage area of the Maple Leaf Gardens. It is 6:20; the show has a scheduled 8 p.m. starting time and he’s been booked into a gold-record presentation with Capitol Records/EMI of Canada, interviews with CBC-TV, two radio stations, one Toronto paper, and ROLLING STONE. And he should have dinner. He is running late. But a rushed sound check in Detroit spoiled the first concert there, and he isn’t about to let it happen again. He steps out of the Fleetwood, looks around, asks the closest person where the stage is and heads off. Dressed in his usual offstage clothing – loud Hawaiian print shirt, tails hanging out of a short leather jacket, unfaded jeans and rubber-soled shoes – he jumps from bass to keyboards to guitars to drums, pumping frantically until he loses a stick. Then he occupies himself behind the sound board to check other mikes and instruments. He works meticulously and by the time he’s finished, it’s 7:20. Capitol and all the interviewers have been waiting since five, but Paul seems positively casual. After a ten-minute break and a huddle with his manager (Brian Brolly, a former MCA executive who joined McCartney in 1974), he signals us into the dressing room for a double-speed interview that takes us up to the minute he has to switch to his stage outfit, a black suit with sequined shoulders. He gnaws at a fried-chicken drumstick, waving his hands expressively and freely to emphasize points.

5月9日，星期日：PAUL McCARTNEY刚从纽约飞到多伦多，乘着惯用的五辆limo之一，进到Maple Leaf Gardens后台。现在是6点20分，演出晚上8点开始，他还要在加拿��Capitol唱片/EMI的金唱片发布会上，接受CBC-TV、两家电台、一家多伦多报纸和滚石的采访。他其实应该在吃晚饭的，快迟到了。但在底特律场试音太过匆忙，首演有点搞砸，这他可不允许再次发生。他走出Fleetwood，环顾四周，问旁边的人舞台在哪儿，赶紧走了。他台下穿的日常装—明亮的夏威夷印花衬衫露在短款皮夹克外面、穿着牛仔裤和胶鞋—试音从贝斯到键盘，吉他再到鼓，他飞了一根棍子才停止敲打。然后，他就在调音台后面忙着检查其他话筒和乐器。他一丝不苟地工作着，完成时，已经7点20分了。Capitol和别的采访人员从五点开始就一直在等待，但保罗却显得相当随意。歇了10分钟，和他的经纪人（Brian Brolly，前MCA高管，1974年加入McCartney）碰头后，他示意我们进入更衣室接受两倍速的采访，直到他换上舞台装--一套肩部带亮片的黑色西装。他啃着一根炸鸡腿，表情丰富地挥着手强调重点。【草你不是75年开始吃素了吗？？fried-chicken drumstick是咋回事？】

We begin with Laine’s complaint – about the audience responding more out of awe for Paul than from appreciation of the music.

我们从Laine的抱怨开始，他抱怨观众的反应更多是出于对Paul的敬畏仰视而非对于音乐的欣赏。

“I don’t think that’s happening so much now,” he says. “I think that’s what this tour is doing. Maybe they came a bit like that – which can’t be helped – but on this tour, everyone is saying backstage afterward, ‘We came and expected one thing, but it’s very different, really.’ I think you find yourself starting to look at Denny and Jimmy and Linda and Joe and thinking, ‘Well, it’s not what I expected.’

"我觉得现在这情况已经不多了，"他说，"这就是这次巡演的目的。也许他们来的时候有点--这也没办法--但这次巡演大家在演出后台都说，‘我们来演出，（大家都盯着Paul）这是我们意料之中的，但情况其实变了。你会发现自己开始注意到Denny和Jimmy还有Linda和Joe，然后想，'好吧，这和我预想的不一样'。“

“In the Sixties, or the main Beatle time, there was screaming all the time. And I liked that then because that was that kind of time. I used to feel that that was kind of like a football match. They came just to cheer; the cheering turned into screaming when it translated into young girls. People used to say, ‘Well, isn’t that a drag, ’cause no one listens to your music.’ But some of the time it was good they didn’t because . . . you know, some of the time we were playing pretty rough there, as almost any band from that time will know.” McCartney eases into his answers, gets comfortable, stretches them out, seemingly unconscious of the rush around him.

"在六十年代，或者说是披头士的鼎盛年代永远有尖叫声。那时候我很喜欢，我曾经觉得这有点像一场足球比赛。他们来看，只是为了欢呼，而年轻女孩在欢呼的时候，就成了尖叫。人们常说，'那不是很差劲吗，都没人听你的音乐了'。但有时他们听不到也是好事，因为......有时我们表演真的很糟，几乎所有那个年代的乐队都懂的。" McCartney慢慢答道，开始放松舒展开来，仿佛没有发现周围的匆忙。

“I thought when I came out on tour again, it might be very embarrassing if they were listening instead of screaming. David Essex was talking excitedly about the British audience. ‘They’re still screaming, you know.’ Well, for him they are, and that’s his kind of audience, but when we went out, we just got up there and started playing like we were a new group. So everyone just took us like that. Sat there. ‘Yeah, that’s all right.’ And they got up and danced when we did dancing numbers. It’s perfect: you can have your cake and eat it, because they roar when you need them to roar and they listen when you’re hoping they might be listening.”

“我想，如果我再次出来巡演如果大家都在认真听歌没人尖叫反而会有些尴尬。David Essex谈起英国观众很激动，‘他们还在尖叫诶！’，对他来说尖叫当然能持续，因为观众就是来看他的。但我们开始巡演是，上台后就是一个新的团队。别人也会认为我们是新团队。他们坐着想”啊，还行啦“。然后我们表演舞曲是他们会站起来舞动。这很完美，我们尝到了甜头，因为他们在需要他们叫时叫，也会在你希望他们可能会听的时候认真听。"

McCartney opens a fresh pack of cigarettes – the brand, Senior Service – lights up and continues:

McCartney新开了一包Senior Service牌香烟点着了继续说。

“There is this feeling that I should mind if they come to see me as a Beatle. But I really don’t mind. They’re coming to see me; I don’t knock it. It doesn’t matter why they came, it’s what they think when they go home. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve got a feeling that they go away thinking, ‘Oh, well, it’s a band.’ It lets them catch up. I think the press, the media is a bit behind the times, thinking about the Beatles a lot. And I think the kids go away from the show a lot hipper than even the review they’re going to read the next day.”

“有人会觉得，如果人们过来是为了看前披头士的，我应该会介意才对。但其实我不介意，有人专程来见我，我不介意的。他们赶来的原因是什么不重要，他们看完演出，回家路上脑子里想着的咂摸的是什么才重要。虽然我不能肯定，但我感觉他们回家后会想，"好吧这确实是一个成型的乐队。"这样他们能跟上我们的节奏。我觉得媒体老是盯着披头士，这有点落后于时代了。而我觉得孩子们看完演出后会比第二天刊发的评论上写的那样还要开心。"

The press, however, seems to be catching up. On numerous next mornings, reviews have told about the reviewers’ discovery – that Wings is a rock & roll band. The New York Times attended the first show, in Fort Worth, and called it “impressively polished yet vital” and “harder-edged” than expected. Newsweek, apparently forgetting Wings’ six-year stack of golden wax, declared, “Paul McCartney had proved that he could make it on his own.”

不过媒体似乎也在追赶步伐。许多个演出隔天，评论员们都发出了”Wings确实是一个摇滚乐队“的声音。纽约时报参加了Fort Worth首演，称其为"处理到位，但又充满活力"并且“比想象中更充满锋芒”。Newsweek，显然忘记了Wings六年来的一叠金唱片，说" Paul McCartney证明了，他可以凭自己做到这一点。"

“The whole idea behind Wings,” says McCartney, “is to get a touring band. So that we are just like a band, instead of the whole Beatles myth.”

"Wings背后的整个想法，"他说，"就是要搞一个巡演乐队。这样我们是一个乐队，而不是个披头士传说。"

But no matter how much he wants to be just a member of a band, and no matter how good the band is, most of the audience is there to see one man. You can tell by the explosion of strobes and flashes from cameras around the auditorium when the moment occurs that McCartney is by himself on the stage. And by the subsequent explosion set off by people who want to capture the actual moment McCartney is singing “Yesterday.”

但无论他有多渴望自己只是乐队中的普通一员，也无论这个乐队有多棒，大部分观众都只为了看他而来。这，当McCartney独自在台上从观众席摄像机传出海量闪光灯咔擦声中，就能看出。而随后人们掀起的轰鸣，则是想要捕捉他演唱 “Yesterday”的真实瞬间。

Wings is a talented group of musicians, especially with Laine and McCulloch. But the Beatles came to be considered geniuses in the studios. I wonder whether Paul misses the other three as sounding boards. Or were Linda and Denny right in their assertion that they always knew “what’s gone wrong” with every album.

Wings确实由一群才华横溢的音乐人组成，尤其是Laine与McCulloch。但人们通常认为披头士们是录音室里的天才。我不知道保罗是否怀念以前还有其他三人互相激发想法出主意，还是说是Linda和Denny的说法是对的，他们总是知道每张专辑 "出了什么问题"。

He does miss the Beatles, he says. “I don’t know about the genius bit, but yeah, I think the Beatles was a very equal thing . . . yeah, I used to worry a little more about that, kind of saying to Linda, ‘Look, I know Denny’s good, but he’s not used to me enough. Will I dare offer him this riff; what if he turns it down?’ This standoffishness. But again, you consult your inner oracle and it tells you, well, it’s time that does all of that. You can’t take a baby and make him 14 overnight. Everyone is coming forward a bit more now. So I just thank me lucky stars that I hung in there.”

他说自己确实怀念披头士乐队。“天才不天才我不知道，但披头士内部非常平等【No, it’s not……】。以前我有点担心，会和Linda说，‘我知道Denny很棒，但是他还不够习惯与我合作。我敢不敢给他个riff让他弹啊？他会不会拒绝啊？’，这种很纠结的心态。但最终还是要从心，内心会说是时候做这些了，一口吃不成一个胖子。现在大家心态都放开些了，我就挺感激，幸运星还是在的。“

But democracy, as McCartney knows, has its price. “You’re opening the door to other possibilities, and that’s sort of what broke the Beatles up, really. The freedom for the personalities to do it. I started a group, I’ve got my wife in, took the kids on the road, just because it was all part of the way I feel.”

但是民主是有其代价的。“这扇门打开迎接了各种可能性，虽然这也是披头士解散的原因，太个性太自由了。我组了个乐队，带上老婆孩子上路，也是因为我跟着自己的feel走。

The McCartney family image does not seem to bother or affect any of the other band members, but McCartney seems sensitive about its effects on Wings’ audience and on the band’s image.

McCartney家庭的形象似乎没有困扰或影响到乐队成员，但他似乎对其对Wings的观众和乐队形象的影响很敏感。

The audience, he says, is “kind of the age group that goes to concerts – kids – and with us it stretches through to older people who were listening to the Beatles and have come right through. And I think we have a bit of a family audience because the way Linda and I live is pretty straight, in a way. So I think people maybe identify who’ve got kids and are bringing them up the same kind of way – sort of liberal, kind of ‘now’ way, rather than . . .” Paul seems momentarily embarrassed. “Sounds terrible, doesn’t it?” he asks.

他说，“观众所处的年龄段是平时会去看演唱会的孩子，青年，对于我们，年龄段会直接延伸到那些听过披头士乐队的老人们。我觉得我们有一些观众会一家一家地来，因为我和Linda的生活方式在某种程度上会很直接传达到他们。所以我想，和我们带孩子风格一样的人会认同我们这些做法，这种有些自由，专注当下的风格，而不是......" Paul似乎突然害羞了。"听起来不太好，不是吗？"他问。

Surprisingly, the audience is, as Paul notes, pretty much your rock concert crowd, more wheelchairs than baby strollers and not a picnic basket or a leisure suit in sight. And no one seems perturbed that the leader of Wings is not on the loose, the way a Robert Plant or Roger Daltrey or Mick Jagger seem to be. And even if they’re married, they don’t display their wives up onstage with them.

出乎意料的是，现场几乎都是摇滚演唱会的受众，轮椅比婴儿车还多，看不到一个野餐篮或休闲服。而且没有人因为他没有像Robert Plant，Roger Daltrey 或Mick Jagger那样豪放感到不安。甚至即使上述歌手已经结婚了，也不会和妻子一起上台表演。

“I used to think of that, when we first got together, had Linda in the group. ‘Oh, oh, we’ve had it with the groupies now! Everyone’s gonna think we’re real old squares – blimey! Married! God, at least we could have just lived together or something – that would have been a bit hip.’ Then you realize it doesn’t matter. They really come for the music. At first it did seem funny to be up there with a wife instead of just friends or people associated with the game. But I think the nice thing that’s happened is it seems to be part of a trend anyway, where women are getting in a bit more, families are a bit cooler than they were, Things change.

“我们刚在一起让Linda进乐队的时候会觉得，‘oh，我们这看着像是受够groupie了！大家都会觉得我们是老古董！天哪，结了婚的人！但是我们至少可以住在一起什么的，这挺酷。‘然后你就意识到这其实无所谓。观众是来欣赏音乐的。一开始确实挺搞笑的，是妻子在台上而不是朋友或者行内人士。但我觉得这是好事，似乎已经是一个趋势了，女人越加融入，家庭这个概念比以往更酷，风向变了。

“And the show doesn’t have anything that’s ‘family.’ I mean, I kissed Linda onstage the other night, and for me, that’s kind of, ‘Wow, I must be getting real relaxed,’ ’cause I can’t do that in public, normally. I’m a bit kinda shy.”

“表演本身并不打家庭牌。有一晚我在台上亲了Linda一下，我就觉得，‘哇我在台上一定是太放松了，因为我在一般在大庭广众下干不出这个，我还是有点害羞的。“【啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊】

It is past eight now; the show, it was decided, would start around 8:30. Capitol and local press are still waiting. Paul waves all that aside with a hand. He had told a publicist that he wanted to do this interview right.

已经八点多了，表演应该八点半开始的。Capitol和地方媒体还在等待，但是Paul挥手示意他们等一下。他对公关人员说过想把我这次采访做好。

Being a family man, he is saying now, has not affected his songwriting. McCartney, after all, was always the softer, poppier side of the Beatles. “I still think basically the same kind of things I used to; the only difference is I’ll do a tune like ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ [an early Wings single], but that’s the kind of thing kids request. Limitations? Maybe. The only kind I can think of is not wanting to be maybe too . . . far out. But I write songs basically the same way, which is any way. It’s mainly just when I’ve got a minute, but that can come in any different form. Just sit around . . . if I feel like playing my guitar, a song comes out. That’s the same as it’s always been.”

当一个恋家男并没有影响他写歌，他说。毕竟McCartney一直是披头士里更温柔，更流行的一面。"我想的东西基本还和以前一样，唯一不同的是，我会去做一首像'Mary Had a Little Lamb'（Wings早期单曲）这样的歌，这首是我孩子想要的。有限制吗？可能吧。我唯一能想到的就是不想太......扯太远。但我写歌的方法基本是一样的，那就是没有方法。基本就是，如果我有一分钟时间，任何形式的一分钟。就随便坐着也行......如果我觉得想弹吉他，一首歌就出来了，我写歌一向这样的。"

Onstage, Linda McCartney stays discreetly in the shadows, behind her keyboards, for the first few numbers, leaving Paul looking unattached at least for a while. When he introduces her as “my better half,” she gets a roar of approval. In Detroit, with Paul on piano, she steps up to a vocal mike in front of the keyboards only after the 19th song has passed. Number 20 is “My Love,” and she places her hands, rather dramatically, on her hips, as if to show the crowd just who “does it good.” But for the most part, she is there to lend able support to the band. And she has developed into a capable backup vocalist, and a spirited rock & roll cheerleader.

Linda在最初几首歌一直藏在键盘后呆在阴影里，显得Paul有一段时间身边空荡荡。当他介绍她为 "我的另一半 "时，她得到了一片叫好。在底特律，Paul弹着琴，过了第19首歌，她才走到键盘前的话筒前。第20首是 "My Love"，她很戏剧性地将手放在臀部上，仿佛在向观众展示谁才 "does it good"。但她大多情况是为了给乐队强有力的支持。她已经变为一个能干的后援伴唱，和一个元气的肉啃肉拉拉队长。

WINGS IS A POP MACHINE that has produced five albums in five years, with singles filling in the occasional lags. And now, as McCartney had hoped before the most recent personnel were affixed, it is a traveling band as well, with annual U.S. tours a real possibility. As such, there is less time for other projects but McCartney is still hoping to do the songs and score for a full-length animation film of Rupert, a British cartoon character. Rupert, McCartney explained, is a bear. “I like Walt Disney cartoons,” he says. “They sort of live forever.”

Wings是流行音乐老黄牛，五年内出了五张专辑，偶尔的空档还有单曲填充。现在，正如McCartney对最近才定下来的阵容期望的一样，Wings成为了一支巡演乐队，每年巡演一次美国都有可能。这样一来，开展其他项目的时间就更少了，但McCartney还是希望能为英国卡通人物Rupert的长篇动画电影写歌做配乐。他解释说，Rupert是一只熊。"我喜欢迪士尼动画片，"他说，"它们总是充满活力。"

Rupert the bear is not exactly Yellow Submarine, in which, you remember, the Fab Four took on the Blue Meanies in defense of good old Pepperland and what it stood for: music, beauty and color. And some other stuff. Without getting into what the real-life Beatles seemed to stand for, one wonders what McCartney stands for today.

小熊Rupert风格并不像 "黄色潜水艇"，在黄潜中Fab Four反抗Blue Meanies,以捍卫old Pepperland的美好和它所代表的：音乐，美丽与多彩。还有其他一些东西。撇开现实生活中的披头士代表什么不谈，McCartney现在支持什么呢？

“Same goals exactly,” he says, with no hesitation. “It is still peace and light.”

"目标一模一样，"他毫不犹豫，"还是和平与光明。"

A year and a winter ago, another former Beatle went on tour and, to put it mildly, flopped. George Harrison had maturity, sincerity and the best intentions on his side. He appreciated the Beatles and his role in the phenomenon, he said, but he had grown up, changed, and did not care to dwell in the past. And to let everyone know how firmly he felt, he did a two-and-a-half-hour show dominated by Indian music. He did four Beatles songs, and this only after active encouragement from fellow musicians on the tour. He changed lyrics in three of the four Beatles songs, and rearrangements (along with George’s overworked, hoarse voice) turned them into hardly reasonable facsimiles of the songs many in the audiences had wanted to hear.

一年多前，另一位披头去巡演，委婉说，结果有些flop。George Harrison成熟、真诚也目的明确。他说自己很欣赏披头士乐队以及他在这一现象中的作用，但他长大了也变了，不会留恋过去。为了让大家知道他有多坚定，他做了一个以印度音乐为主的两个半小时的演出。他唱的四首披头士的歌，也是在巡演中同行的音乐人积极鼓励下才唱的。一共四首披头士的歌，他改了三首的词，重新编曲（加之George过度疲劳沙哑），与观众期待的相比有些四不像。

Paul and Linda attended Harrison’s Madison Square Garden show, Paul disguised in Afro wig, shades and walrus mustache, “and we loved it,” he says. He agrees that George had the right, at whatever critical cost, to say, “This is me, now.”

Paul与Linda参加了George的麦迪逊广场花园演唱会，Paul乔装打扮，戴着非洲假发，架着墨镜，贴上海象胡子，"我们很喜欢，"他说。他认为乔治有权利说："现在这样子的我，就是我自己。"无论代价。

People, says McCartney, have this . . . attitude about the Beatles. “There was some girl on holiday and we were talking to her. She’s a real average British girl and she sort of summed up her view of the Beatles: these lads from Liverpool, lovely, cheery and singing lovely songs . . . and then, drugs! And they all went crazy on drugs. And that was the end of the story for her. Well, that’s kind of silly. And I think there’s a lot of people approaching the new shows like that. ‘Oh, well, can they actually stand up there when they were once the Beatles.’ You just have to say, ‘Well, this is me now, sorry, folks.’ Sergeant Pepper‘s a big change from the record before it. That was us then. So I think George is just taking it very naturally and saying, ‘This is me.’ “

McCartney说，人们对披头士乐队有这种......的态度。"我们有次和一个正在度假的普通英国女孩聊天，她总结了她对披头士的看法：几个利物浦小伙子，可爱、快乐，唱着小曲......然后，Drug！他们开始疯狂搞drug。她以为这是最后的结果。其实这有些啥。我认为有很多人看我们的演出时想，"他们当年还是披头的时候在台上究竟站不站得住啊？“ 你只需要说，"现在这就是我了，对不起，伙计们。”Sergeant Pepper和之前的唱片完全不同。那就是当时的我们。所以我觉得乔治只是很自然在说，“这就是我“。

McCartney has said he doesn’t want to get into criticizing Harrison, but the producer in him finally wins out: “If I’d been producing him and if I’d been his impresario on that tour,” he says, “I would have asked him to do a few more songs he was known for. And also to stick to the arrangement a little bit.” McCartney puts on a good-natured look. “To which he’d probably say, ‘Piss off,’ and good luck to him.”

McCartney曾说过，他不想去批评George，但他内心的制作人的一面憋不住了。"如果我是他的制作人，是他的巡演经纪人，"他说，"我会让他多唱几首他比较出名的歌，以及坚持对编曲发表一下意见，" 麦卡特尼拿出一副好脾气的样子，"不过我猜他会对我说一句'滚蛋'。祝他好运咯。"

But, he adds, “I can see his attitude totally.” On the first Wings tours – a limited, bus-hopping affair to British universities in 1972, a larger European swing in ’73 – “We did the same thing; just no Beatles whatsoever. I’ll tell you the truth: it was too painful. It was too much of a trauma. It was like reliving a sort of a weird dream, doing a Beatles tune. One of the guys promoting us on that European tour said, ‘At the end, you should just come on with a guitar and do “Yesterday.” ‘I thought, ‘Oh God, I couldn’t face it.’ Because there was a lot of rubbish on, you know. We were into fighting for a while, we were being poisoned against each other by various people, mainly by one man who shall remain anonymous.”

他补充说，"我完全理解他的态度。" 在第一次Wings巡演中--1972年在英国大学校园进行的一次限量、在大巴上穿梭的活动，73年在欧洲的大巡演--"我们也做了同样的事情，完全不想有披头元素。老实告诉你：这太痛苦了，太殇了。唱披头士的作品像是在做一个怪梦。有一个欧巡宣传组的人说，'你最后应该拿着吉他上台唱Yesterday。'我想，'天哪这怎么面对。当时垃圾事情一大堆，有一段时间我们在大吵，我们之间的关系被各种人荼毒，主犯我名字都不想提。"

The man, of course, was Allen Klein, who became manager of John, George and Ringo in May 1969, over McCartney’s protests. As tension in the studios mounted, as Apple teetered, and as Ringo, John and Paul announced separate threats to split, McCartney suspected Klein of taking more than his share of Apple’s money. In spring 1970, in order to take action against Klein, he was forced to sue Apple – and the other Beatles themselves – for dissolution of the group. After several difficult years, the years of the rubbish, Lennon, Harrison and Starr, along with others involved in Apple, filed suit in London against Klein, for “fraud,” for taking “excessive commissions” and for “otherwise mismanag[ing]” his clients. Klein turned around and filed a suit, in New York, against the three ex-Beatles, Yoko Ono and Apple for more than $63 million in damages and future earnings; Klein enjoined McCartney as part of a “conspiracy” to damage or injure him and his company, seeking damages of $34 million plus interest. The London case against Klein is scheduled to go to court next January.

这个人就是Allen Klein，即使McCartney强烈抗议，他还是于1969年5月成为John、George和Ringo的经纪人。工作室局势愈加紧张，Apple也摇摇欲坠，Ringo, John和Paul分别威胁着说要解散，McCartney更是怀疑Klein多拿了Apple的钱。1970年春，为了反抗Klein，他被迫起诉Apple—以及其他乐队成员—他要求解散乐队。过了十分垃圾的几年后，Lennon, Harrison and Starr以及其他与Apple有关的人在伦敦对Klein提起诉讼，指控他 "欺诈"、收取 "过高的佣金 "以及 "各种管理不善"。Klein转而在纽约对三位前披头士、小野洋子和Apple提起诉讼，要求赔偿超过6300万美元的损失和未来收益；克莱因指控McCartney暗地里想损害他以及公司，要求赔偿3400万美元加利息。对克莱因的案件将于明年1月在伦敦开庭审理。

McCartney hopes to steer clear of the trial, he says, but will cooperate with testimony – “anything that can help. I just want everyone’s head to be clear, to get on with what they do.” Klein’s countersuit, McCartney says, “is an old manager’s trick; the best form of defense being attack. It’s ridiculous what he’s doing. Even for himself. He should just get on with his business and think, ‘Well, Christ, I got the Stones’ old masters, I got this’ – he had a half million out of the company, so he’s had a bit, you know. But he’s just trying to hang in there, to prove a point. It’s a bit … to me it’s very like the Nixon thing, of ‘I said I was a goodie and I’m damn well going to prove it.’ “

他希望避开审理，但表示还是会配合作证--"只要我能帮忙就行。我就希望大家头脑清醒，能够继续自己的生活。" Klein的反诉，McCartney说,"这是经纪人的老伎俩了，最好的守是攻，这做法太可笑，这手法就算是Klein也太下作了。他应该继续做他的生意，然后想，'欧好的我拿到了滚石的版权，我搞到了这个那个'--他从公司搞到了50万，所以他有点小钱。但他一直挣扎着证明自己的观点。这有点... ... 我觉得，蛮尼克松的，'我说了，我是个好人，我特么要证明自己是个好人。“

With the pressures between him and the others off, McCartney found the songs coming back. “You think, well, they’re great tunes, I like the tunes. When we played them we’d get a bit nostalgic, think, ‘Oh, this is nice, isn’t it.’ So I just decided in the end, this wasn’t such a big deal. I’d do them.”

随着他和另外三人之间的矛盾减退，McCartney发现那些歌自己又回来了。"你会觉得，嗯，它们是很棒的曲子，我喜欢。我们演奏的时候觉得有些怀旧，但会想，'这很好，不是吗'。所以我还是决定唱一些披头士的歌，没什么大不了。"

McCartney, in fact, is doing only one more Beatles song than George did on his tour. He, too, wanted to play down the Beatle identity (the tour is billed “Wings over America” and McCartney’s name does not appear on tickets or advertising). He selected the songs at random, he says, rejecting “Hey Jude” as a closer simply because “it didn’t feel right,” and choosing instead a song played on previous tours but never recorded, an all-out jam rocker called “Soily.”

McCartney在巡演中其实只比George多唱了一首披头士的歌。他也想淡化披头士的身份（巡演名字是 "Wings over America"，McCartney的名字没有出现在门票和广告上）。他选歌随机，但拒绝了 "Hey Jude "作为终曲，因为 "感觉不对"，而是选择了一首在之前的巡演中演过但从未录制过的歌，一首名为 "Soily "的即兴摇滚。

But the difference between Harrison and McCartney is in the faithfulness of Paul’s arrangements, so that the horn section does a credible impression of a cello on “Yesterday,” and “Lady Madonna” is churned out happily, and “The Long and Winding Road” and “Blackbird” are almost straight off the records. Only on “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” played on amplified 12-string Ovation guitar, with the McCartneys’ and Laine’s voices blending together in a folky, Rooftop Singers style, does he wander.

但Harrison 和McCartney区别在于Paul他忠于编曲，所以“Yesterday”中，铜管部分模拟了大提琴，“Lady Madonna”也带动快乐气氛，The Long and Winding Road”和“Blackbird”几乎是直接从唱片上下来的。只有在 "I've Just Seen a Face "中，用了放大器的12弦Ovation吉他演奏，McCartney和Laine的声音融合在一起，以一种Rooftop Singers的风格，才变了样。

In Toronto, there was a rash of reunion rumors. By show time, scalpers outside were happily selling their tickets for $50 and $60 apiece, while inside, film crews from as far away as London had their cameras hoisted and ready. From the first show in Texas, there had been talk that the once-again-friendly Beatles might do a friendly number together. In New York, where Lennon lives, similar talk persists. And in London, “Yesterday,” the single, leads a pack of two dozen Beatles reissues invading the pop charts.

多伦多场充斥着重组传闻。到了演出时间，场外的黄牛们以每张50美元60美元的价格开心卖着票，而在场内，大老远从伦敦来的摄制组也已举起相机准备好了。从德克萨斯的首演开始就有传言说，重归于好的甲壳虫可能会一起表演一段。在Lennon住的纽约类似的传言依然存在。而在伦敦，“Yesterday”这首单曲引领着二十几张重新发行的披头士单曲，又杀入了榜单。

McCartney is pleased about “Yesterday.” “It happens to coincide, luckily for us. It’s bringing it to people’s ears. That’s the main thing, really, ’cause if you’re not in with a single or record, people just tend to forget.” He is not wary of an acetate Beatlemania leading to even more fervent calls for a reunion.

McCartney对“Yesterday”很满意。"这是个巧合，我们挺走运的。它又重新传入了人们的耳中。这真的很重要，因为如果出的不是单曲或唱片，人们就会忘。"冲着唱片去的Beatlemania呼唤出的重组，他对此并不担心。

“We maybe could be together for a thing but it always feels to me like it would be a bit limp.” In response to an American promoter’s offer of between $30 and $50 million for one Beatles concert, McCartney told a reporter that he would not participate in a reunion purely for money. Now, in Toronto, he is qualifying that remark.

"我们可能会在一起做些项目，但我总觉得缺些什么。"美国有人对一场披头士演唱会报价3000万到5000万美元，McCartney回应记者说，他不会纯粹为了钱而重聚。现在在多伦多，他再次强调了这句话。

“The truth is very ordinary. The truth is just that since we split up, we’ve not seen much of each other. We visit occasionally, we’re still friends, but we don’t feel like getting up and playing again. You can’t tell that to people. You say that and they say, ‘How about this money, then?’ ‘Or how about this?’ And you end up having to think of reasons why you don’t feel like it. And, of course, any one of them taken on its own isn’t really true, but I was just stuck for an answer, so I said I wouldn’t do it just for the money anyway. And I saw John last time, he says, ‘I agreed with that.’ But there’s a million other points in there. A whole million angles.

"真相很普通。事实就是，我们分开后，就没怎么见过面。我们有时会去做客，也还是朋友，但我们不想一起表演了。可对大众不能这样说。这么说他们会问，"给你这个数，怎么样？""或者这个那个，怎么样？"。最后要强行憋出不想这么干的理由。当然，任何一个单独的理由都不是真实的，但我必须要给一个答案，所以我说我不会为了钱而去做。上次见到John他也说："我同意"。但其实原因有一百万个，角度也有一百万个。“

“I tell you, before this tour, I was tempted to ring everyone up and say, ‘Look, is it true we’re not going to get back together, ’cause we all pretty much feel like we’re not. And as long as I could get everyone to say, ‘No, we’re definitely not,’ then I could say ‘It’s a definite no-no.’ But I know my feeling, and I think the others’ feeling, in a way, is we don’t want to close the door to anything in the future. We might like it someday.

"这次巡演前，我很想给每个人打电话问，'我们是不是真的不会重组了？‘因为我们都觉得自己不会同意重组了。只有我让大家都说出'不，绝对不会'，我才能说'这是绝对不可能的'。但我知道自己的感觉，我也觉得其余三个在某种程度上，都不想向任何可能性关上大门。所以有一天我们会改变主意也说不定。

“Again, talking to John before the tour, I’m saying to him, ‘Well, are you coming to the show at Madison Square?’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘Everyone’s kind of asking me, “Am I going?” Should I go?’ And I’m saying, ‘Oh, god, that’s a drag, isn’t it. You just can’t even come out and see our show.’ So there are these other involvements. If anyone comes, they feel like they’ve got to get up. Then they get up, we’ve got to be good. Can’t just get up and be crummy, ’cause then they say, ‘The Beatles really blew it on the Wings tour,’ or something. So, but you see how long I’ve taken just to answer this question. God, it goes on forever. So you can see why I just wanted to say no.”

"我又要说了，巡演前和约翰聊天，我问他，'你会来麦迪逊广场的演出吗？"他说，"每个人都问我，去吗？应该去吗？"我说，'天哪这太扯了，你都不能出来看我们的演出。‘所以这件事有太多牵扯。如果有任何一个来了，其余的会觉得自己必须来。既然大家都到了，我们就板上钉钉重组了。既然四个都到了就不能表现很差劲，不然人们会说‘披头士的Wings巡演上的表演真烂。’所以，你看我真的花了好多时间回答这个问题，这问题从��没停过。现在你懂我为什么我只想说 ‘不‘了吧？“

And yet, McCartney just cannot close the door.

然而McCartney依然没有断绝人们念想。

“We’ve left it,” he says, “if John feels like coming out that evening, great, we’ll try and get him in. Have it all cool, no big numbers. We’ll just play it by ear.”

“我们说过，如果有一晚John想再次出动，我们会试着和他一起玩。淡定面对，不要搞很宏大的歌，咱们凭感觉表演就行。“

The emotional high point of the concert, of course, is “Yesterday,” but the showstopper is “Live and Let Die,” the song McCartney wrote for a James Bond film. In concert, Wings attacks the audience with powder kegs, strobes, smoke, syncopated spotlights, and the laser machine gunning string beams of light from back of the stage to the opposite end of the hall. And the music – teasing, then exploding into rat-a-tat violence – fully warrants the effects.

演唱会的高潮自然是“Yesterday”，但重头戏是麦卡特尼为007电影写的“Live and Let Die”。演唱会上，Wings用火、闪光灯、烟雾、射灯，以及激光机从舞台后方向大厅另一端射出的光束照向观众。而音乐--先是挑逗，然后发出猫捉老鼠般的火爆--也完全配得上这些效果。

For “Band on the Run,” the last number before the encore call, a film of the shooting of the album cover is projected onto a movie screen; behind other songs, paintings – and one cartoon – appear on another screen, behind the band. The paintings, McCartney says, are by Magritte and David Hockney; the etchings of Magneto and Titaniun Man are by Marvel Comics. “It’s all art,” says the Beatle.

对于"Band on the Run"，也就是安可声爆发前的最后一首，专辑封面拍摄的影片投影在荧幕上，其后还有画作--还有一个动画--出现在乐队后另一屏幕上。McCartney说，这些画作是Magritte和David Hockney的作品；Magneto and Titaniun Man的蚀刻画是漫威漫画的。"这都是艺术，"这位披头说。

Before the tour, the best guesses had Wings grossing $4.5 million for 28 shows in 20 cities. Since then, a huge show has been added in Seattle – at the 60,000-capacity King Dome – and additional concerts have been added in Los Angeles and Chicago. The gross should be over $5 million, roughly a million more than the Harrison tour. But the net should be another story, given the lavishness of the stage show, the size of the entourage (17 with Showco, nine-piece band, family, friends, publicists, manager, security and various other aides) and the private Braniff-leased Bac 1011 jet that flies the band back to a base city after every concert – not to mention a mess of Wings memorabilia. Out in the lobbies, fans can pick up a T-shirt, a program and a poster. But backstage, for the touring party, there are Wings jackets, T-shirts from all the different tours, badges, pins, patches and medallions. Linda wears jeans with “Wings” embroidered on a back pocket; she and Paul wear matching ivory wings on necklaces. And the crew drinks from Wings paper cups.

巡演前， Wings在20个城市的28场演出的最高的收入估值是450万美元。此后，西雅图加了一场--在能容纳6万人的King Dome，洛杉矶和芝加哥也加场了，所以总票房应该超过500万美元，大约比Harrison巡演多出100万。但考虑到高级的舞美、随行人员的规模（Showco公司的17人舞美团队、9人乐队、家人、朋友、公关、经纪人、保安和其他各种助手），以及每场演唱会结束后乐队飞回大本营城市的Braniff Bac 1011私人飞机钱，利润应该是另一件事--更不用说各种Wings周边了。乐迷们在大厅可以拿到一件T恤、一份场刊和一张海报。但在后台，对于巡演大队来说，有Wings的夹克、各种巡演T恤、徽章、胸针、补丁和奖牌。Linda穿的牛仔裤后袋上绣有"Wings"字样；她和保罗在项链上戴着情侣象牙色Wings项链。大家还用 "Wings "纸杯喝酒。

The in-group level of a kind of Wingsmania is furthered by the chronicling of this tour: concerts are being recorded for a possible album, filmed for a possible movie, photographed separately by two cameramen for the press and a possible book, and sketched, courtroom-artist style, for possible future paintings or inclusion in another possible book.

巡演拍摄进一步提高了乐队内的"Wingsmania"的级别：演唱会可能会被录制成一张专辑，也可能拍摄成一部电影，有两位摄影师，分别为为媒体需要和以及一本可能发行的书，甚至被画下来，以courtroom-artist的风格，为未来可能出版的绘画或另一本可能的书提供草图。

But all these projects, McCartney says, aren’t even that probable. “It’s all ‘in case.’ ” In case some day he wants a film, a photo, a record, even a sketch of the first Wings American tour. It’s nice to look back.

但McCartney说这些项目都是“不一定“，”只是为了以防万一“。万一哪天他想回顾这次Wings美巡，搞一个电影，一张照片，一张唱片，甚至是画什么的。能用来回顾一下也不错。【你把硬盘交出来。。。】

It is 8:30 now, the Wings are all in costume and they should be onstage by now. They are instead in an upstairs room backstage. Here, they manage to oblige the executives of Capitol Records/EMI of Canada, shake hands all around, accept six gold and platinum albums, pose for photographs, have a laugh or two and apologize for having to run – all within three minutes. But everybody, in the end, is happy.

八点半了，乐队都穿上了服装，也已经应该在舞台上了，他们却在后台楼上房里。在这里，他们答应了加拿大Capitol唱片/EMI公司的高层，正在四处握手合影留念，收了六张金唱片和白金唱片，笑了一两声，并为不得不跑路而道歉--这些都在三分钟之内搞定了，不过大家最后都很开心。

The local interviewers are still afloat; they’ve been informed that after the show Wings have to make a quick getaway because their jet has to be off the runway by midnight, to comply with a noise-abatement ordinance. So they are not planning to get any time with McCartney.

当地采访人员还在四处飘荡，他们已经知道，演出结束后，Wings必须赶紧走，因为他们的飞机必须在午夜之前飞走，不然会违反噪音规定。所以他们也不指望能与McCartney有任何时间相处。

But after the concert, with Showco breaking down the light-stands, the sound system and the stage, with band members, security guards, aides, photographers and the sketch artist all scurrying around, and with the five Fleet-woods already warmed up and purring, Brian Brolly, the manager, gathers up the local reporters and hustles them into the dressing room, apologizing all the way. They will have just about two hot minutes.

但演唱会结束后，Showco在拆灯架、音响系统和舞美，乐队成员、保安、助手、摄影师和画手都在四处乱窜，五辆limo正在待命，经纪人Brian Brolly则召集当地记者，边催他们进化妆间，一路道歉。他们时间紧张，大概只有两分钟。

McCartney, back in street clothes, greets them, looking relaxed and interested. He apparently wants to do this right, too. He shows them a painting a friend has done of him and Linda and they proceed to field a dozen questions, about musical roots, the first time Linda saw Paul (Beatles, Shea Stadium, 1966) and, of course, the rumors about the Toronto Beatles reunion. Brolly gets itchy and clears his throat and the room all at once, and the McCartneys scram into their limo and screech away.

McCartney穿回日常装向他们打招呼，看着很轻松也很有兴趣。他显然也想把采访做好。他展示了一幅朋友为他和Linda作的画，然后他们继续回答了十几个问题，关于他们音乐作品的源头，Linda怎样第一次见到Paul（披头士，Shea体育场，1966年【？？？？？】），当然，还有关于披头士乐队会在多伦多重聚的传闻。Brolly等不及了，咳了咳嗓子开始清场，McCartney夫妇忙不迭钻进limo离开了。

Outside, a knot of the faithful wave to them and come up with a modified ovation. It is not exactly Wingsmania, and it is by no means Beatlemania. But it sure seems like rock & roll.

场外，一团团忠实观众向他们挥手致意。这不完全是Wingsmania，也绝不是Beatlemania，但它确实很肉啃肉。

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