Short Takes : McCartney Wary on Outtakes

Paul McCartney says he sometimes listens to bootleg Beatles music, but he’s ambivalent about releasing such recordings.

McCartney, the other two surviving former Beatles and EMI Records settled protracted lawsuits a year ago, clearing the way for the release of some of the band’s unreleased audio and video work--and possibly some of hundreds of hours of studio outtakes, the New York Times reported Sunday.

“If someone were to come to me and say, ‘Look, I’ve got this very charismatic little album of outtakes,’ I’d have no problem with that,” McCartney said in an interview in Sunday’s New York Times.

“I do like to hear some of the bootlegs, where we’re setting up things. And I often argue with people that if Picasso was great, then his sketches are great, too.

“But we’ve tried to release the very best of our work,” McCartney said. “If you start making the alternate takes available, in 10 years people may not know which was the finished take and which wasn’t. I’d rather avoid the confusion.”

The singer-songwriter recently released “Tripping the Live Fantastic,” an album taken from his 10-month tour that ended three months ago. A film about the tour, “Get Back,” is due out in the spring.