Paul McCartney said remembering the attitude displayed by his parents after World War II helped keep him going as he worked on the upcoming McCartney III album during lockdown.

“You know, when you turn on the news, the lead story is going to be how many people died. That’s depressing, after a while,” McCartney told BBC Radio 6's Matt Everitt. “But in truth, what kind of saw me through a lot of this was, I remembered that my parents, my mum and dad, Jim and Mary, were in World War II.

“They survived. They survived the bombing and losing people left, right and center," McCartney added, "and yet they came out of it with incredible spirit. And so us kids in Liverpool, we grew up with this really, you know, ‘Let’s have a good time, let’s roll out the barrel!’ – this great sort of wartime spirit that all the people had, because they’d had enough. And so I was brought up in a lot of that, so it’s kind of good to draw on that and think, ‘Well, if they could do it, I can do it.’”

He confirmed that the COVID-19 crisis also influenced some material on the record. “A couple of the newer songs,” McCartney added. “There’s one called ‘Seize the Day’ that had echoes of the pandemic – when the cold days come, we’ll wish that we had seized the day, kind of thing. So, that was just reminding myself and anyone listening that we better grab the good stuff and you know, try and get on through the pandemic.”

McCartney previously admitted that he didn't realize the nature of this project, which he constructed on his farm while in quarantine with daughter Mary and four of his grandchildren, until McCartney III was basically completed. McCartney said he suspects people's reactions to the music will continue to evolve, as they did with his debut solo album.

“Time brings an edge to all these things – because at the time it was supposed to be just a load of crap. Just me on my own, just indulging myself – which it kind of was, you know. But I liked that and I thought, 'There's something here,'" McCartney said. "I got messages from some people saying, ‘I love that; it’s so sort of laid back and it just, it doesn’t give a damn.’ So, people tend to think better of it now.”
 
 

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