With Paul McCartney getting set to hit the road next month, he was asked in the "You Gave Me the Answer" column on his website what he does on a plane to pass the time.
He says, "I don’t knit, [although] I imagine that would be quite cool, actually...a great release of tension. But I watch movies. So when I travel from London to New York, its normally a seven-hour journey so I end up watching about three movies, and in the middle of it all I try and have a meal."
Asked if he plans what movies he'll watch, he says, "No, I just go to ‘New Releases’ and unfortunately they’re not new – I’ve seen most of them! They don’t update them quick enough for me. I scan through and think ‘Ah, I’ve been meaning to see that’.
"On car journeys, I watch stuff on my iPad which can be films or series. I’m currently on Better Call Saul and it’s a good one. I don’t read on journeys so much, I read at home instead before going to bed. I get ready for bed and the last thing I do is read. [My wife] Nancy will often look at a series at that time, but I think it’s not conducive to sleep because some of the things she’ll watch are a little too exciting, and the plot will keep you up all night! So I try to read biographies, which can be a little bit dry. After a few pages you start to yawn, the page goes fuzzy, so it’s light off and straight to sleep. I like that!"
Asked if he reads music biographies he says, "Yeah, and I sometimes will make a note if they’re talking about something I don’t know about. I read a [composer] Phillip Glass book and some of his pieces I didn’t know about, so looked them up on Spotify. Some others I’ve recently read are about [conductor Leonard] Bernstein and Mozart. One of the things I find interesting is relating to them as musicians, because without meaning to, I’ve ended up as one of them! So if the biography is talking about Mozart struggling to write a piece, I can relate to that."
McCartney starts his Got Back tour on October 18th in Adelaide, Australia.