An Interlude: Meet a Beatle

The moment when I held Paul's hand in mine.

Oct 15, 2024

Always meet your heroes!

I’m digging into the archives to share the story of when I met mine. Below is my op-ed column from the Rutgers Daily Targum, dated March 9, 2000—a quarter century ago, my God.

The writing still sounds like me, if slightly more ham-handed. I’m glad to have been that guy then, and also that I’m different now. Enjoy!

Meet a Beatle

Just for fun, here's one of the best stories from my life, music-related or otherwise. It's uncharacteristically short on sarcasm, soaked in hero worship, and dashed with some magic for good measure.

One year ago this week, I hit a slump in my semester abroad in London. I was recovering from a mild case of the flu, and for some reason the Mickey Mouse classes at Richmond College started to get difficult. The nerve. This was my vacation — I mean, “unique cultural learning experience.”

Anyway, I was exploring the northern part of the city one Wednesday with my friend Berrie. We were planning to visit Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles recorded almost all of their albums (and also the site of the famous zebra-stripe crosswalk). Before we knew it, the day was nearly gone, and I didn't want to miss my class at the Parliament building that evening. During a lull in our conversation on the Tube ride to get back to our dorm in South Kensington, Berrie caught me with my eyes closed, smiling. After a bit of prodding on her part, I admitted to have been dreaming about meeting Paul McCartney and going out to dinner with him. She giggled at me, knowing that Paul inspired me to pick up a guitar, to learn to sing harmony and to whistle Beatles tunes from time to time. Fine, all the time.

Fast forward a few hours: I decide to leave the Parliament class 20 minutes early so I can catch a free gourmet meal with my friend's parents. As I meander through the labyrinthine passages of British government's most famous building and reach the main concourse level, my mouth falls open, I turn ghostly pale and my blood pressure either rises or falls precipitously (to this day, I'm not sure).

As if in a dream, I find myself looking at my hero, and my hero looking back at me. His is the most boyish 57-year-old face I have ever seen. He is cool, suave, larger than life. Whereas he exudes confidence and has an attractive young woman in stylish clothes at his arm, I assume the countenance of a lithium addict, and carry a Mead spiral notebook. Of all the six billion living people, standing in front of me is the one I want to meet most.

Sir Paul McCartney nods in my direction, as he heads toward the gallery of the House of Commons. I know that I cannot let the moment pass without speaking to him. But what do you say to an absolute stranger who has played an integral part in your life? I follow him.

As he fills out paperwork to enter the visitors' chambers, I offer up the best line I can come up with on the fly:

“Paul, your music has brought a lot of joy to my life.”

“Well, yeah, thanks,” says Paul.

Admittedly, it's not the best opener. But panic quickly takes hold of me: I realize that my favorite member of my favorite band, the best pop songwriter ever, is no less than a foot from me, acknowledging my presence. My brains quickly turn to mush. I can no longer look him in the eye. There is so much I want to say, but I know no words that can fully express the depths of my feelings for his work, and transitively, for him. I think of Paul as a friend. I shouldn't tell him that, should I?

"Spit it out...," says Paul in his Liverpudlian accent, with perfect nonchalance, as he takes notice of my panic.

"I'm sorry, you must get this a lot."

"Oh, no," Paul retorts deadpan.

I eventually recognize Paul's companion is his daughter, Stella, the fashion designer. She looks at me as if I have left my wits back in the USA.

In my cracking voice: “‘Blackbird' is my favorite song. It's the first one I learned to play on guitar. Thank you.” Stella continues to eye me, and Paul keeps filling out his papers. I later guess that he is accustomed to post-adolescent males approaching hysteria in his presence.

I forget all about inviting him and Stella out to dinner. Little else comes to mind, and I don't want to bother him for too long. I offer him my notebook and a pen, and ask: “Could you please...”

“Oh, sure.” And he signs it. He turns and looks me straight in the eye, puts his left hand on my right arm, as I grab his right hand and never really want to let it go. (I, of course, thought of “Hey Jude”: “The movement you need is on your shoulder.”).

He asks me a favor: “I'd appreciate it if you kept this quiet, so I don't have to do a lot of this here.”

“Sure, I've never even seen you before,” I reply, in a retrospectively meek attempt to be clever. “Bye.” Paul walks up the stairs with Stella.

So there it is: the story of my 90-second one-on-one with Paul McCartney. It was a passing nothing to him, like too many other conversations painfully similar. I've got a feeling that he's learned to treat these chance encounters with fanatics as tolerable annoyances of über-fame. But I credit and thank him for letting it be, and not blowing me off.

After a year of processing, the experience and its aftermath are pretty bizarre. Instant karma (sorry) brought me to that place at that time, and somehow I had foretold our encounter earlier that day. Afterward, I just could not listen to Beatles records or strum Paul's songs at all for a while. Even now, I still can't read about him for fear of throwing my mind out of balance. I think it's something like post-traumatic stress disorder. Maybe I'm amazed. And I swear I'm not nuts.

Berrie and I visited Abbey Road a week later. I should've known better, Paul wasn't there, not a second time.