Paul McCartney says he knows he'll never have a better writing partner than John Lennon.
McCartney, who this week is celebrating the reissue of his Flowers in the Dirt album with Elvis Costello, talked to the BBC about his many musical partnerships over the years, like those with Lennon, Costello, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and even Kanye West.
"My thing with collaboration, I know I can never have a better collaboration than John," McCartney said. "That is just a fact. So I don't try and escape it. I just know there's no way I can find someone now who's going to write better stuff with me than I wrote with John."
Still, McCartney says that's no reason to give up music. He says he's working on a new album now with Adele's producer, Greg Kurstin.
"I'm interested in working with other people because they bring their own particular thing to it," he continued.
McCartney went on to talk about a few of his biggest post-Beatles collaborations. We summarized his comments below:
Stevie Wonder: Tardy. Sir Paul says Wonder was constantly late because he was always intrigued with whatever he happened to be playing on piano. "You invite [Stevie] to dinner. He shows up 10 hours later because he was fiddling around on his keyboard."
Michael Jackson: "We just stay upstairs in this office and I tinkled on the piano and we just made up a song there."
Kanye West: McCartney says he didn't know what to expect, but the two bonded while talking about dealing with the deaths of their mothers. The Beatles hit "Let It Be" was inspired by a dream McCartney had about his mother about 10 years after she died. West and McCartney worked out a melody for Kanye's song "Only One" with Paul noodling around on the piano.
Elvis Costello: Paul thought a collaboration with Costello could be fruitful, since he and Elvis (both from Liverpool) probably had a lot in common. The pair collaborated much like John and Paul used to; they sat face to face with acoustic guitars and bounced ideas off one another till they finished songs. "[He] was John, basically, and I was Paul."
The Flowers in the Dirt reissue is available now. For more information, go here.
Original article by Andrew Magnotta at iHeartRadio