“It’s a collection of songs, and I’ll leave it to you to say if they are good or not, The basic idea about the band on the run is a kind of prison escape. At the beginning of the album the guy is stuck inside four walls, and eventually breaks out. There is a thread, but it’s not a concept album. [Does the story apply to Wings escaping from the Beatles? – Ed]. Sort of – yeah. I think most bands on tour are on the run.”Paul McCartney (1019)

“Well, we were in Adelaide and rented a house to stay at rather than a hotel. And after the gig each night, Linda and I would get dropped off and sit up in the kitchen and have a late night bite. They had these pots of sage and onion – all the condiments Of the season – that’s a joke that, condiments of the season. Well all this stuff was lined up, and it was a kind of freak song, and I took everything I saw and tried to work it into the song. Every line in the song was actually in that kitchen.”Paul McCartney (1026)

“I was in Atlanta recently with one of my kids and we went down to the funky area of town and found this shop that sold various kind of potions to stop evil, “Put this in your bath and it’ll chase the devil out” seemed a bit voodoo to me, sprinkling powder for your floors. It actually said that on there, “Stop troublesome neighbours, evil relatives, get rid of bad people from your life, put some of this in your bath and then carry a piece of white cloth anointed in this oil and repeat the Lord’s Prayer.” All a bit superstitious, and one of these products was called Run Devil Run and I thought that was good rock’n’roll title. The album cover is the shop where I found the stuff.”Paul McCartney (1027)

“I hadn’t realised that that was ‘appropriate’. You don’t always realise the meaning of things as you write them, you’re just throwing stuff out and sometimes it’s only when it lands that you’re able to get objective. There are some little references in there inevitably [to Linda after her death – Ed]. But I’m writing some other stuff currently and that probably is more to do with it, to do with her.”Paul McCartney (1027)

“Those times after the 60s were pretty high and you know a lot of people were getting high so to me it’s just like a fantasy song – hey girl come on let’s get high. Now, I must admit it could get a little bit embarrassing because I’ve got grandkids. At the time it was just about the times and multi-coloured band and it’s very much a period piece.”Paul McCartney (1188)

“I was in a songwriting mood and was up in Scotland. I just thought. “Okay, I just gotta go somewhere and try and write a song,” and we happened to have a little pony that was called ‘Jet’ on the farm. I was on a farm in Scotland and actually took my guitar and hiked up this great big hill. I just kind of found myself a place there which is in the middle of nature and just sat there and just started making up a song. It’s not one of those songs that, even when I sing it now, I don’t kind of know where all the words came from. I know where ‘Jet’ came from and I like the name. The words are probably about me and my father-in-law. You know, the early days of getting married when your father-in-law is kind of a nuisance, so he’s probably the major in it.”Paul McCartney (1188)

“After John died there’d been a lot of talk about who did what and who liked who, did the Beatles argue? I was almost buying into this idea that me and John was sort of fighting all the time but I just remembered it wasn’t true so I wrote this song about, you know, if you were here you might say this or that but I know better. I know I remember well some of the things we did. It was really me thinking about John and just thinking, you know, that we had a great relationship and like any family there’s always arguments, there’s always disputes but in the end, you know, we loved each other and I wanted to make a song where I actually said, “I love you” to John and so that was that song. Again it’s quite emotional, you know, because it came from a real feeling about him and wanted to correct the record kind of in my mind as much as in anyone else’s mind. There are some photos from that period which are really beautiful and there’s just him and me working and you can see we loved each other but, you know, when there’s all these rumours about you almost buy into them yourself. Anyway, so that song kind of helped me set the record straight.”Paul McCartney (1188)

“One of the lucky things after The Beatles broke up was that I found Linda, so the two of us had this bond that could fight the world. In writing that song I was trying to get my feelings about “maybe I’m amazed at they way I leave you” and “why do I do that?” and “you pull me out of time” and “hung me on a line”. I was just trying to get my my feelings into that song and express my love for her so, in writing that, and writing it for her it strengthened our bond and gave me the strength to go forward.”Paul McCartney (1219)

“The stuff I’m talking about and our relationship, there was just two of us in a room [Paul and John – Ed], I have to know better than someone commenting on it. You read the books, and there were a lot of books commenting on The Beatles. I try not to read them but when I do the first thing is like, “That’s wrong!” In ‘Early Days’ it was just me remembering walking down Mather Avenue with John in the drainees, the black jackets and the guitars over our shoulders before we were discovered. That’s what the song was about. At the end of it I do say, “How can you know when you weren’t where it was at?””Paul McCartney (1219)

“I wrote to my guitar. It’s a long story. It does sound like it’s a break-up song but it isn’t.”Paul McCartney (1220)