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Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi everyone, it's Paul muldoon. Before we get to

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Speaker 1: this episode, I wanted to let you know that you

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Speaker 1: can binge all twelve episodes of McCartney A Life and

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Speaker 1: Lyrics right now, add free by becoming a Pushkin Plus subscriber.

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Speaker 1: Find Pushkin Plus on the McCartney A Life and Lyrics Show,

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Speaker 1: pedge in Apple Podcasts, or at pushkin dot fm, slash plus.

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Speaker 2: The organizers of this civil rights march promised that they

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Speaker 2: would be non body.

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Speaker 3: There seemed to us to be a perfectly peaceful demonstration

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Speaker 3: that had gone wrong, and that our army boys had

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Speaker 3: acted indiscriminately and fired on innocent period.

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Speaker 2: The army have said throughout the day that they hope

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Speaker 2: to use minimum force, But three hours after the procession began,

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Speaker 2: this has ended up as Comes onto the bog Side,

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Speaker 2: as the worst ever confrontation between the Army and the

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Speaker 2: Catholic people of the Kragan and Bog Side.

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Speaker 3: It just seemed so sort of wrong to me that,

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Speaker 3: even though I wasn't a writer of protest songs, I

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Speaker 3: just felt I had to try and say something about this.

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Speaker 4: Why didn't you just give Alan back to the big.

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Speaker 1: I'm Paul mill doon for a while now, I've been

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Speaker 1: fortunate to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters

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Speaker 1: of our era, and.

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Speaker 3: Will you look at me, I'm going on to I'm

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Speaker 3: actually a performer.

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Speaker 1: That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together other on

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Speaker 1: a book looking at the lyrics of more than one

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many

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Speaker 1: hours of our conversations.

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Speaker 3: It was like going back to an old snapshot album

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Speaker 3: looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.

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Speaker 1: This is McCartney, A life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,

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Speaker 1: an improvised journey with one of the most iconic figures

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Speaker 1: in popular music. In this episode give Ireland Back to

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Speaker 1: the Irish, one might well ask who had taken Ireland

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Speaker 1: from the Irish. When Ireland gained independence from England in

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two, the northern region of the island remained

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Speaker 1: under British rule. Those who felt Northern Ireland should continue

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Speaker 1: forever as a part of the United Kings Kingdom were

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Speaker 1: known as loyalists, and so for decades they were locked

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Speaker 1: in conflict with Republicans, those who wished for a united

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Speaker 1: Ireland with no tie to Great Britain. This was all

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Speaker 1: further complicated by centuries of antagonism in the country between

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Speaker 1: Catholics and Protestants, and had burst into political violence in

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Speaker 1: the late nineteen sixties and seventies, a period called the Troubles.

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Speaker 1: British soldiers were installed in border towns and the Northern

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Speaker 1: Ireland capital of Belfast. The mainly Catholic Irish Republicans who

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Speaker 1: lived in Northern Ireland came to fail that they resided

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Speaker 1: under a kind of occupation. On Sunday, the thirtieth of

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Speaker 1: January nineteen seventy two, British soldiers shot twenty six un

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Speaker 1: armed civilians at a peaceful protest in the northern Irish

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Speaker 1: city called Derry. Several of the victims were shot while

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Speaker 1: fleeing from the soldiers, and others were shot while trying

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Speaker 1: to help the wounded. There's an image from that day

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Speaker 1: of a priest, father Daily, moving through the crowd with

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Speaker 1: this white handkerchief held out as a flag of truce.

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Speaker 1: That's absolutely seared on my mind's eye.

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Speaker 2: Father, how many dead have you seen in the box

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Speaker 2: side appearing.

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Speaker 3: You to be dead?

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Speaker 4: There are the three in that Saracen card. There are

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Speaker 4: two men laying at the end of this block of flats.

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Speaker 4: There's another man at least very close to being dead.

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Speaker 5: There's one, there are two others up there.

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Speaker 1: Fourteen people die. The incident became known as the bog

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Speaker 1: Side massacre or Bloody Sunday.

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Speaker 3: There was immediately a cover up. No, they wanted listen

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Speaker 3: throughout rifles they're all there. But when you saw the

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Speaker 3: footage of it all, it just looked yeah, and they

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Speaker 3: could have just left these people to be And if you've.

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Speaker 4: Been shot then maybe you know.

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Speaker 3: But it seemed to me like it was a reasonable demonstration,

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Speaker 3: the kind of which had been happening in the black

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Speaker 3: communities and then all sorts of communities throughout recent history

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Speaker 3: and throughout history. So I was kind of shocked by

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Speaker 3: this whole idea, mainly that our soldiers had perpetrated this,

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Speaker 3: because up until that point I thought our boys were

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Speaker 3: all great.

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Speaker 6: I was great supporter, you are to me, nobody does that.

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Speaker 3: Really what I do? Across the see, I just startedn't

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Speaker 3: worry a minute. You know what if there were Irish

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Speaker 3: soldiers behaving that way in Liverpool where I was growing up,

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Speaker 3: and you couldn't go here, you couldn't go there because

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Speaker 3: these soldiers were God's armed soldiers were.

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Speaker 4: Going to stop you going down the street.

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Speaker 6: What do you lie.

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Speaker 4: If on your where to work.

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Speaker 5: You were stop restals?

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Speaker 6: Would you lie down?

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Speaker 3: Do you know them?

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Speaker 2: Would you give?

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Speaker 4: And so it just seemed so sort of wrong to me.

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Speaker 3: Why aren't you going to United Island and get down

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Speaker 3: because to sort it out.

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Speaker 1: Even though the Beatles were writing in the nineteen sixties

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Speaker 1: during what seemed like a renaissance of protest music, they

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Speaker 1: had never released a song that was overtly political. After

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Speaker 1: the dissolution of the Beatles, however, McCartney went to New

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Speaker 1: York and paid a visit to John Lennon and Yoko

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Speaker 1: Ono in Greenwich Village, where political art was very much

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Speaker 1: part of the zeitgeist.

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Speaker 7: This song is called The Luck of the Irish, and

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Speaker 7: the proceeds from this song and record will go to

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Speaker 7: the Civil Rights Defense in North Island, Civil Defense, whatever

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Speaker 7: it's called.

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Speaker 1: John and Yoko had written The Luck of the Irish

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Speaker 1: at the end of nineteen seventy one, inspired by a

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Speaker 1: protest they attended the year before in support of the

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Speaker 1: Irish Republican Army.

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Speaker 8: If you had the luck of the Herridge you'd be

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Speaker 8: sorry and wish you were dead. You should have the

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Speaker 8: luck of the herriage, and you'd wish you was English instead.

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Speaker 1: In early nineteen seventy two, in a furious response to

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Speaker 1: the Bogside massacre, John and Yoko also wrote Sunday Bloody Sunday.

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Speaker 8: For Sunday, bloody Sunday when the shot the people left

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Speaker 8: to cry a thirty miles.

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Speaker 7: To build a breed very head?

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Speaker 8: Is there any one amongst you? Instead of payment on

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Speaker 8: the kids not sold yet?

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Speaker 1: I was deeded when they live. McCartney was similarly furious

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Speaker 1: about the British soldiers unprovoked attack on Irish civilians, even

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Speaker 1: though he's rarely found anger to be generitive for his art.

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Speaker 3: I realized this actually, that sometimes I really want to

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Speaker 3: sit down and write a song that sums up my

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Speaker 3: dismay and anger at the political situation that I read

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Speaker 3: about every bloody Moore, you know, and I read about

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Speaker 3: politicians saying this and this and this and this.

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Speaker 4: It's like, God, what twork? This guy is a complete idiot,

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Speaker 4: you know.

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Speaker 9: So I'll sit down and think, Okay, you are an idiot.

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Speaker 9: But I can't do it. It doesn't really work. I wrote,

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Speaker 9: the song was called angry. It was an attempt at that,

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Speaker 9: but it's not angry, you know. It seems to be

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Speaker 9: something I can feel in myself. I can't easily tran

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Speaker 9: slate that into a.

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Speaker 4: Song. Yeah, so that's not one of my genres.

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Speaker 1: McCartney may not feel protest music is an easy genre

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Speaker 1: to access, but Give Arland Back to the Irish is

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Speaker 1: a passionate protest song. Instead of focusing on anger and accusations, though,

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Speaker 1: the song is an appeal for empathy, asking the British

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Speaker 1: to imagine themselves in Irish shoes.

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Speaker 3: Tell me.

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Speaker 8: What do you lie?

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Speaker 4: If you too?

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Speaker 2: Well?

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Speaker 4: You wis the results?

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Speaker 6: Would you lie down?

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Speaker 5: Would you give?

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Speaker 1: McCartney wrote Give Ireland Back to the Irish from the

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Speaker 1: British perspective, but the conflict in Ireland must have struck

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Speaker 1: a personal chord due to his family's Irish roots. In fact,

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Speaker 1: the two opposing signs represented in the troubles were replicated

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Speaker 1: within McCartney's own household.

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Speaker 4: My mom was Catholic, being more Irish than my dad.

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Speaker 3: My dad was like Liverpool Irish when a few generations back.

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Speaker 3: My mom was a bit more recent right.

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Speaker 4: From Ireland, and so she was Cathy.

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Speaker 3: My dad was Protestant, must be free.

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Speaker 5: Do you mean it looks like me because I look Irish?

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Speaker 4: What it means is no, not really.

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Speaker 3: I was thinking that deeply into it when I see

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Speaker 3: that now as I'm kind of rereading it.

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Speaker 4: No, I was more meaning that it could be me. Yes,

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Speaker 4: it could be this guy. This could be me.

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Speaker 3: You know, if we're talking about England where we were,

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Speaker 3: how would you like it if on your way to work?

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Speaker 3: So as a moment looks like me. There's just a

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Speaker 3: way of saying, you know, he's it's just like you.

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Speaker 3: I could have said, or it's just like you and me.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, he's not other an mean.

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Speaker 1: As I revisited this song, I couldn't help but think

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Speaker 1: about my own childhood in County armyor just one county

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Speaker 1: over from County Monaghan, where Paul McCartney's family had lived.

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Speaker 4: Were you involved in the troubles?

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Speaker 5: Not as an active participant?

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Speaker 4: No?

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Speaker 3: No, No, who was around about that time wouldn't be

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Speaker 3: in consumable.

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Speaker 5: No, not at all. It could easily have happened, honestly.

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Speaker 5: But my mother, I think very like your mother, was

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Speaker 5: a very protective person and she wanted us to do

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Speaker 5: well in the world, and she didn't want us to

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Speaker 5: get involved in these guys who were done at the end.

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Speaker 4: Of the lane.

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Speaker 1: This period of history has of course crept into my

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Speaker 1: own poetry. That a poem, for example, called Ireland, which

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Speaker 1: goes as follows Ireland, the Volkswagen part in the gap,

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Speaker 1: but gen ticking over. You wonder if it's lovers and

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Speaker 1: not men hurrying back across two fields and a river

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Speaker 1: with that somewhat ominous feel at the end there of

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Speaker 1: men probably armed, probably up to no good, going about

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Speaker 1: their business in the country, and the river of course

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Speaker 1: representing the separation of those two fields.

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Speaker 3: So when you talk about that in your poems, yes,

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Speaker 3: you're recounting stuff.

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Speaker 1: Just while I was there being a person on the

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Speaker 1: street with it all happening around you.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: City.

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Speaker 1: Paul McCartney was still on his trip to New York

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Speaker 1: when he heard news of Bloody Sunday. He rushed to

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Speaker 1: organize a recording of the track with some of the

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Speaker 1: musicians from his new band Wings. It was the first

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Speaker 1: Wings recording that included the guitarist Henry McCullough, who was

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Speaker 1: himself a Northern Irishman, so.

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Speaker 3: He made the record, and then I sent it over

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Speaker 3: to EMI. Immediately got a phone call from Sir Joseph Lockwood.

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Speaker 3: It was the head of AMI, but Sir Joe, he said.

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Speaker 4: Paul, you can't put this record out of the Irish situation.

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Speaker 4: I said, look, said, Joe said.

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Speaker 3: The thing is, I'm not really a protest songwriting, but

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Speaker 3: this is a factory deeply, and I feel like I've

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Speaker 3: got to say something.

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Speaker 4: He said, oh, record, please don't put it out. Reconsider.

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Speaker 4: So I gave it a couple of days and just

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Speaker 4: ran back. No.

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Speaker 3: You know, I've got a p said, it'll be banned,

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Speaker 3: It'll get banned. No good, Oka, I've got microstraate. This

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Speaker 3: thing was big enough event in my history, in my

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Speaker 3: country's history, to take some kind of a style.

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Speaker 1: Joseph Lockwood's concerns about the song were perhaps vindicated. When

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Speaker 1: the song was released, The BBC Radio Luxembourg and other

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Speaker 1: organizations banded from broadcast. It was too provocative, they said,

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Speaker 1: too controversial. Most radio stations in the United States also

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Speaker 1: avoided playing the song.

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Speaker 10: The British Broadcasting Corporation will play your song.

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Speaker 4: What do you think about that?

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Speaker 10: I think they're silly, you know, I think any kind

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Speaker 10: of repression like that. You know, it always ends up

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Speaker 10: in the person who is being banned getting more out

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Speaker 10: of it than the people who ban it. Witnessed this,

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Speaker 10: you know, you want an interview about it. It's such

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Speaker 10: big news because they ban.

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Speaker 4: It and all that.

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Speaker 1: On an ABC special report, McCartney was explicit in his

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Speaker 1: support of the Irish nationalists.

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Speaker 5: You think the British should get.

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Speaker 10: Out, Yeah, you know, eventually, that's what I think.

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Speaker 4: Yeah. I was brought up to be proud of it.

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Speaker 10: You know, the British Empire obviously own most of the

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Speaker 10: world at one time, almost gradually had to sort of

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Speaker 10: give it back because people said, hey, listen, it's ours,

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Speaker 10: you know, not yours, and they want to back Well,

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Speaker 10: I just see that's the same thing in Ireland. You know,

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Speaker 10: it's a little bit of territory we've gained in the past.

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Speaker 10: And I think there's Bloody Sunday, you know, where the

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Speaker 10: British parachute Regiment went in and sort of shot at

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Speaker 10: the people. Me as a British citizen, I don't like

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Speaker 10: my army going around shooting my Irish brothers. In a way,

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Speaker 10: if people are shooting at them, they can't just sit

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Speaker 10: there and not shoot back, you know. So whilst I

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Speaker 10: don't dig it, it's inevitable, you know that if they

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Speaker 10: get shot at, they'll shoot back.

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Speaker 1: Give Ireland Back to the Irish may have been banned

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Speaker 1: in Britain and overlooked in America, but in Ireland it

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Speaker 1: hit number one on the charts. It also curiously hit

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Speaker 1: number one in Spain, where McCartney believes it may have

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Speaker 1: resonated with the Basque struggle for self determination. Much of

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Speaker 1: the violence surrounding the Troubles came to an end with

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Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety eight Good Friday Agreement, which restored self

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Speaker 1: government to Northern Ireland, but the aftershocks of Bloody Sunday

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Speaker 1: still reverberate, and they raise questions about what, if any,

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Speaker 1: punishment should be faced by those involved in the killing.

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Speaker 11: Yes, it was a moment where, you know, there was

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Speaker 11: a sense that art could respond to that situation, which

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Speaker 11: either way is a situation still hasn't really been resolved.

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Speaker 4: Bloody something itself.

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Speaker 3: No, no, no, I know this is a very thorny issue.

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Speaker 1: Give Arland Back to the Irish a single released by

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Speaker 1: Paul McCartney and Wings in February nineteen seventy two. In

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Speaker 1: the next episode.

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Speaker 3: John, being older and at art school, would go to

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Speaker 3: art school parties, which NNT George normally wouldn't have an

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Speaker 3: entree into. But I remember going to one and I

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Speaker 3: took my guitar, so I'm sitting enigmatically in the corner

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Speaker 3: with my black pole and neck sweater. I remember sort

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Speaker 3: of lounging around and trying to look interesting to this

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Speaker 3: older crowd to One of the weapons that I used

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Speaker 3: was to play this sort of frenchy sounding song and

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Speaker 3: sort of make gottural noises, kind of half thinking that

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Speaker 3: someone will think, well, he's French.

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Speaker 1: Probably Michelle. That's next time on McCartney A Life in Lyrics.

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Speaker 1: McCartney A Life in Lyrics is a co production between

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Speaker 1: iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries.