Paul McCartney married his first wife, Linda, in 1969. They were together for almost 30 years until his death in 1998. McCartney and Linda had a famous marriage, especially for someone whose work the obliged to be on the road so often. During their long marriage, the couple only spent 10 nights apart. The only reason they weren’t together every night was because McCartney was in jail.
Paul McCartney married Linda McCartney in 1969
In 1967, McCartney met American photographer Linda Eastman at the Bag O’Nails nightclub in London. He felt an immediate attraction to her and they soon started dating.
“She stayed with me when she arrived in London,” Linda’s friend Miki Antony told The Guardian. “[She said] ‘Guess who I went out with last night? … It was Paul McCartney, and we had a great evening. She said that Paul really liked white rabbits, and the next day she… bought a white rabbit and sent it to him. That night, she told me, he called her and said, “Thank you so much for the White Rabbit, do you still want to go out to dinner?” That’s how I knew they started dating. The rest is history.
The couple married in 1969 and had three children together. McCartney also adopted Linda’s daughter from a previous marriage.
They hardly spent any time apart during their marriage
Linda was a photographer, but she joined McCartney’s post-Beatles band, Wings, as a keyboardist. At the time of his death in 1998, they had been together for almost 30 years. During this period, the only time they spent a night away from each other was when McCartney was in a Tokyo jail.
He had traveled into the country with half a pound of marijuana, which was quickly discovered by a customs officer. By the book Paul McCartney: A Life by Peter Ames Carlin, he spent 10 days in “virtual isolation”. This period was the only time the McCartneys were apart.
“I have the privilege of having been her lover for thirty years, and during all that time, with the exception of an enforced absence, we never spent a single night apart,” McCartney said, according to the book. Paul McCartney: Many Years Away by Barry Miles. “When people asked why, we said, ‘what for?'”
Paul McCartney wrote one of his most famous songs for Linda McCartney
While McCartney did some of his best-known work in The Beatles, he also had many hit songs in the years after the group broke up. One of them is the song “Maybe I’m Amazed”, which he wrote for Linda. He explained that over the years it has become an important song for others.
“It was for Linda, but over time and people say they like it, I always like to give up the property and say, ‘Great, well, I hope this fits your life'” , he told NPR. “And you know, it’s really nice when people say, ‘We used that song in our wedding.’ That’s a huge compliment. Once you’ve written [songs] and once you release them, they are like birds: they fly away, and you have no control over them. And I’m glad they land in other people’s lives.
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