Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hi everyone, it's Paul muldoon. Before we get to
Speaker 1: this episode, I wanted to let you know that you
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Speaker 2: The organizers of this civil rights march promised that they
Speaker 2: would be non body.
Speaker 3: There seemed to us to be a perfectly peaceful demonstration
Speaker 3: that had gone wrong, and that our army boys had
Speaker 3: acted indiscriminately and fired on innocent period.
Speaker 2: The army have said throughout the day that they hope
Speaker 2: to use minimum force, But three hours after the procession began,
Speaker 2: this has ended up as Comes onto the bog Side,
Speaker 2: as the worst ever confrontation between the Army and the
Speaker 2: Catholic people of the Kragan and Bog Side.
Speaker 3: It just seemed so sort of wrong to me that,
Speaker 3: even though I wasn't a writer of protest songs, I
Speaker 3: just felt I had to try and say something about this.
Speaker 4: Why didn't you just give Alan back to the big.
Speaker 1: I'm Paul mill doon for a while now, I've been
Speaker 1: fortunate to spend time with one of the greatest songwriters
Speaker 1: of our era, and.
Speaker 3: Will you look at me, I'm going on to I'm
Speaker 3: actually a performer.
Speaker 1: That is Sir Paul McCartney. We worked together other on
Speaker 1: a book looking at the lyrics of more than one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty of his songs, and we recorded many
Speaker 1: hours of our conversations.
Speaker 3: It was like going back to an old snapshot album
Speaker 3: looking back on work I hadn't ever analyzed.
Speaker 1: This is McCartney, A life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
Speaker 1: an improvised journey with one of the most iconic figures
Speaker 1: in popular music. In this episode give Ireland Back to
Speaker 1: the Irish, one might well ask who had taken Ireland
Speaker 1: from the Irish. When Ireland gained independence from England in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two, the northern region of the island remained
Speaker 1: under British rule. Those who felt Northern Ireland should continue
Speaker 1: forever as a part of the United Kings Kingdom were
Speaker 1: known as loyalists, and so for decades they were locked
Speaker 1: in conflict with Republicans, those who wished for a united
Speaker 1: Ireland with no tie to Great Britain. This was all
Speaker 1: further complicated by centuries of antagonism in the country between
Speaker 1: Catholics and Protestants, and had burst into political violence in
Speaker 1: the late nineteen sixties and seventies, a period called the Troubles.
Speaker 1: British soldiers were installed in border towns and the Northern
Speaker 1: Ireland capital of Belfast. The mainly Catholic Irish Republicans who
Speaker 1: lived in Northern Ireland came to fail that they resided
Speaker 1: under a kind of occupation. On Sunday, the thirtieth of
Speaker 1: January nineteen seventy two, British soldiers shot twenty six un
Speaker 1: armed civilians at a peaceful protest in the northern Irish
Speaker 1: city called Derry. Several of the victims were shot while
Speaker 1: fleeing from the soldiers, and others were shot while trying
Speaker 1: to help the wounded. There's an image from that day
Speaker 1: of a priest, father Daily, moving through the crowd with
Speaker 1: this white handkerchief held out as a flag of truce.
Speaker 1: That's absolutely seared on my mind's eye.
Speaker 2: Father, how many dead have you seen in the box
Speaker 2: side appearing.
Speaker 3: You to be dead?
Speaker 4: There are the three in that Saracen card. There are
Speaker 4: two men laying at the end of this block of flats.
Speaker 4: There's another man at least very close to being dead.
Speaker 5: There's one, there are two others up there.
Speaker 1: Fourteen people die. The incident became known as the bog
Speaker 1: Side massacre or Bloody Sunday.
Speaker 3: There was immediately a cover up. No, they wanted listen
Speaker 3: throughout rifles they're all there. But when you saw the
Speaker 3: footage of it all, it just looked yeah, and they
Speaker 3: could have just left these people to be And if you've.
Speaker 4: Been shot then maybe you know.
Speaker 3: But it seemed to me like it was a reasonable demonstration,
Speaker 3: the kind of which had been happening in the black
Speaker 3: communities and then all sorts of communities throughout recent history
Speaker 3: and throughout history. So I was kind of shocked by
Speaker 3: this whole idea, mainly that our soldiers had perpetrated this,
Speaker 3: because up until that point I thought our boys were
Speaker 3: all great.
Speaker 6: I was great supporter, you are to me, nobody does that.
Speaker 3: Really what I do? Across the see, I just startedn't
Speaker 3: worry a minute. You know what if there were Irish
Speaker 3: soldiers behaving that way in Liverpool where I was growing up,
Speaker 3: and you couldn't go here, you couldn't go there because
Speaker 3: these soldiers were God's armed soldiers were.
Speaker 4: Going to stop you going down the street.
Speaker 6: What do you lie.
Speaker 4: If on your where to work.
Speaker 5: You were stop restals?
Speaker 6: Would you lie down?
Speaker 3: Do you know them?
Speaker 2: Would you give?
Speaker 4: And so it just seemed so sort of wrong to me.
Speaker 3: Why aren't you going to United Island and get down
Speaker 3: because to sort it out.
Speaker 1: Even though the Beatles were writing in the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: during what seemed like a renaissance of protest music, they
Speaker 1: had never released a song that was overtly political. After
Speaker 1: the dissolution of the Beatles, however, McCartney went to New
Speaker 1: York and paid a visit to John Lennon and Yoko
Speaker 1: Ono in Greenwich Village, where political art was very much
Speaker 1: part of the zeitgeist.
Speaker 7: This song is called The Luck of the Irish, and
Speaker 7: the proceeds from this song and record will go to
Speaker 7: the Civil Rights Defense in North Island, Civil Defense, whatever
Speaker 7: it's called.
Speaker 1: John and Yoko had written The Luck of the Irish
Speaker 1: at the end of nineteen seventy one, inspired by a
Speaker 1: protest they attended the year before in support of the
Speaker 1: Irish Republican Army.
Speaker 8: If you had the luck of the Herridge you'd be
Speaker 8: sorry and wish you were dead. You should have the
Speaker 8: luck of the herriage, and you'd wish you was English instead.
Speaker 1: In early nineteen seventy two, in a furious response to
Speaker 1: the Bogside massacre, John and Yoko also wrote Sunday Bloody Sunday.
Speaker 8: For Sunday, bloody Sunday when the shot the people left
Speaker 8: to cry a thirty miles.
Speaker 7: To build a breed very head?
Speaker 8: Is there any one amongst you? Instead of payment on
Speaker 8: the kids not sold yet?
Speaker 1: I was deeded when they live. McCartney was similarly furious
Speaker 1: about the British soldiers unprovoked attack on Irish civilians, even
Speaker 1: though he's rarely found anger to be generitive for his art.
Speaker 3: I realized this actually, that sometimes I really want to
Speaker 3: sit down and write a song that sums up my
Speaker 3: dismay and anger at the political situation that I read
Speaker 3: about every bloody Moore, you know, and I read about
Speaker 3: politicians saying this and this and this and this.
Speaker 4: It's like, God, what twork? This guy is a complete idiot,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 9: So I'll sit down and think, Okay, you are an idiot.
Speaker 9: But I can't do it. It doesn't really work. I wrote,
Speaker 9: the song was called angry. It was an attempt at that,
Speaker 9: but it's not angry, you know. It seems to be
Speaker 9: something I can feel in myself. I can't easily tran
Speaker 9: slate that into a.
Speaker 4: Song. Yeah, so that's not one of my genres.
Speaker 1: McCartney may not feel protest music is an easy genre
Speaker 1: to access, but Give Arland Back to the Irish is
Speaker 1: a passionate protest song. Instead of focusing on anger and accusations, though,
Speaker 1: the song is an appeal for empathy, asking the British
Speaker 1: to imagine themselves in Irish shoes.
Speaker 3: Tell me.
Speaker 8: What do you lie?
Speaker 4: If you too?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 4: You wis the results?
Speaker 6: Would you lie down?
Speaker 5: Would you give?
Speaker 1: McCartney wrote Give Ireland Back to the Irish from the
Speaker 1: British perspective, but the conflict in Ireland must have struck
Speaker 1: a personal chord due to his family's Irish roots. In fact,
Speaker 1: the two opposing signs represented in the troubles were replicated
Speaker 1: within McCartney's own household.
Speaker 4: My mom was Catholic, being more Irish than my dad.
Speaker 3: My dad was like Liverpool Irish when a few generations back.
Speaker 3: My mom was a bit more recent right.
Speaker 4: From Ireland, and so she was Cathy.
Speaker 3: My dad was Protestant, must be free.
Speaker 5: Do you mean it looks like me because I look Irish?
Speaker 4: What it means is no, not really.
Speaker 3: I was thinking that deeply into it when I see
Speaker 3: that now as I'm kind of rereading it.
Speaker 4: No, I was more meaning that it could be me. Yes,
Speaker 4: it could be this guy. This could be me.
Speaker 3: You know, if we're talking about England where we were,
Speaker 3: how would you like it if on your way to work?
Speaker 3: So as a moment looks like me. There's just a
Speaker 3: way of saying, you know, he's it's just like you.
Speaker 3: I could have said, or it's just like you and me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's not other an mean.
Speaker 1: As I revisited this song, I couldn't help but think
Speaker 1: about my own childhood in County armyor just one county
Speaker 1: over from County Monaghan, where Paul McCartney's family had lived.
Speaker 4: Were you involved in the troubles?
Speaker 5: Not as an active participant?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: No, No, who was around about that time wouldn't be
Speaker 3: in consumable.
Speaker 5: No, not at all. It could easily have happened, honestly.
Speaker 5: But my mother, I think very like your mother, was
Speaker 5: a very protective person and she wanted us to do
Speaker 5: well in the world, and she didn't want us to
Speaker 5: get involved in these guys who were done at the end.
Speaker 4: Of the lane.
Speaker 1: This period of history has of course crept into my
Speaker 1: own poetry. That a poem, for example, called Ireland, which
Speaker 1: goes as follows Ireland, the Volkswagen part in the gap,
Speaker 1: but gen ticking over. You wonder if it's lovers and
Speaker 1: not men hurrying back across two fields and a river
Speaker 1: with that somewhat ominous feel at the end there of
Speaker 1: men probably armed, probably up to no good, going about
Speaker 1: their business in the country, and the river of course
Speaker 1: representing the separation of those two fields.
Speaker 3: So when you talk about that in your poems, yes,
Speaker 3: you're recounting stuff.
Speaker 1: Just while I was there being a person on the
Speaker 1: street with it all happening around you.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: City.
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney was still on his trip to New York
Speaker 1: when he heard news of Bloody Sunday. He rushed to
Speaker 1: organize a recording of the track with some of the
Speaker 1: musicians from his new band Wings. It was the first
Speaker 1: Wings recording that included the guitarist Henry McCullough, who was
Speaker 1: himself a Northern Irishman, so.
Speaker 3: He made the record, and then I sent it over
Speaker 3: to EMI. Immediately got a phone call from Sir Joseph Lockwood.
Speaker 3: It was the head of AMI, but Sir Joe, he said.
Speaker 4: Paul, you can't put this record out of the Irish situation.
Speaker 4: I said, look, said, Joe said.
Speaker 3: The thing is, I'm not really a protest songwriting, but
Speaker 3: this is a factory deeply, and I feel like I've
Speaker 3: got to say something.
Speaker 4: He said, oh, record, please don't put it out. Reconsider.
Speaker 4: So I gave it a couple of days and just
Speaker 4: ran back. No.
Speaker 3: You know, I've got a p said, it'll be banned,
Speaker 3: It'll get banned. No good, Oka, I've got microstraate. This
Speaker 3: thing was big enough event in my history, in my
Speaker 3: country's history, to take some kind of a style.
Speaker 1: Joseph Lockwood's concerns about the song were perhaps vindicated. When
Speaker 1: the song was released, The BBC Radio Luxembourg and other
Speaker 1: organizations banded from broadcast. It was too provocative, they said,
Speaker 1: too controversial. Most radio stations in the United States also
Speaker 1: avoided playing the song.
Speaker 10: The British Broadcasting Corporation will play your song.
Speaker 4: What do you think about that?
Speaker 10: I think they're silly, you know, I think any kind
Speaker 10: of repression like that. You know, it always ends up
Speaker 10: in the person who is being banned getting more out
Speaker 10: of it than the people who ban it. Witnessed this,
Speaker 10: you know, you want an interview about it. It's such
Speaker 10: big news because they ban.
Speaker 4: It and all that.
Speaker 1: On an ABC special report, McCartney was explicit in his
Speaker 1: support of the Irish nationalists.
Speaker 5: You think the British should get.
Speaker 10: Out, Yeah, you know, eventually, that's what I think.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was brought up to be proud of it.
Speaker 10: You know, the British Empire obviously own most of the
Speaker 10: world at one time, almost gradually had to sort of
Speaker 10: give it back because people said, hey, listen, it's ours,
Speaker 10: you know, not yours, and they want to back Well,
Speaker 10: I just see that's the same thing in Ireland. You know,
Speaker 10: it's a little bit of territory we've gained in the past.
Speaker 10: And I think there's Bloody Sunday, you know, where the
Speaker 10: British parachute Regiment went in and sort of shot at
Speaker 10: the people. Me as a British citizen, I don't like
Speaker 10: my army going around shooting my Irish brothers. In a way,
Speaker 10: if people are shooting at them, they can't just sit
Speaker 10: there and not shoot back, you know. So whilst I
Speaker 10: don't dig it, it's inevitable, you know that if they
Speaker 10: get shot at, they'll shoot back.
Speaker 1: Give Ireland Back to the Irish may have been banned
Speaker 1: in Britain and overlooked in America, but in Ireland it
Speaker 1: hit number one on the charts. It also curiously hit
Speaker 1: number one in Spain, where McCartney believes it may have
Speaker 1: resonated with the Basque struggle for self determination. Much of
Speaker 1: the violence surrounding the Troubles came to an end with
Speaker 1: the nineteen ninety eight Good Friday Agreement, which restored self
Speaker 1: government to Northern Ireland, but the aftershocks of Bloody Sunday
Speaker 1: still reverberate, and they raise questions about what, if any,
Speaker 1: punishment should be faced by those involved in the killing.
Speaker 11: Yes, it was a moment where, you know, there was
Speaker 11: a sense that art could respond to that situation, which
Speaker 11: either way is a situation still hasn't really been resolved.
Speaker 4: Bloody something itself.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I know this is a very thorny issue.
Speaker 1: Give Arland Back to the Irish a single released by
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney and Wings in February nineteen seventy two. In
Speaker 1: the next episode.
Speaker 3: John, being older and at art school, would go to
Speaker 3: art school parties, which NNT George normally wouldn't have an
Speaker 3: entree into. But I remember going to one and I
Speaker 3: took my guitar, so I'm sitting enigmatically in the corner
Speaker 3: with my black pole and neck sweater. I remember sort
Speaker 3: of lounging around and trying to look interesting to this
Speaker 3: older crowd to One of the weapons that I used
Speaker 3: was to play this sort of frenchy sounding song and
Speaker 3: sort of make gottural noises, kind of half thinking that
Speaker 3: someone will think, well, he's French.
Speaker 1: Probably Michelle. That's next time on McCartney A Life in Lyrics.
Speaker 1: McCartney A Life in Lyrics is a co production between
Speaker 1: iHeartMedia NPL and Pushkin Industries.