THE CUTE ONE GOES CLASSICAL : Roots of McCartney’s ‘Liverpool Oratorio’ Reach Back to ‘Yesterday’ and Beyond

These are good times again professionally for Paul McCartney, and you can sense it in his relaxed, even playful manner on the phone.

The 50-year-old ex-Beatle is calling from a Sussex, England, recording studio to talk about the West Coast premiere of his “Liverpool Oratorio” Saturday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

But it takes a couple of minutes before he settles down and addresses the questions. He opens the interview with a series of inside jokes, puns mostly--all delivered in an exaggerated English accent.

One reason for his good spirits is that McCartney is putting the final touches on an album that will be released early next year--an album that will be his most widely anticipated collection in years.

It’s the studio follow-up to 1989’s “Flowers in the Dust,” his most acclaimed work in a decade, and it comes after a triumphant world tour that demonstrated for a new generation of rock fans that McCartney--and not just the late John Lennon--was responsible for much of the Beatles’ most stirring music.

McCartney--who is married with four children--was so delighted by the last tour that he plans to tour again in support of the new album, a surprise given that he has only toured the U.S. twice in the 22 years since the breakup of rock’s greatest band.

Meanwhile, McCartney’s first classical work has traveled the world. The oratorio, commissioned three years ago by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic to celebrate its 150th anniversary, made its debut to mixed reviews last year in the huge Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, where McCartney--a Liverpool native--once failed a choir audition.

McCartney wrote the oratorio with Carl Davis, associate conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The work, which has been performed in more than a dozen cities, including Tokyo, London and New York, is a story about the search for love and faith that opens in Liverpool in 1942, the year of McCartney’s birth.

The former Beatle was on hand for the 1991 premiere, but he hasn’t attended other performances and says he does not expect to be present Saturday when William Hall conducts the Master Chorale of Orange County and the Boys of the Costa Mesa Children’s Choir. (A spokesperson for the Master Chorale, however, says that seats have been reserved for McCartney.)

Q: Why weren’t you intimidated when approached by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic?

A: I don’t know. The first time I even thought about that was about half way through the writing. I was in a pub, just killing some time before going to see Carl, who lived around the corner. I was having a drink with this Irish actor and he said, “Boy, you must be intimidated by this.” And I remember, I thought, “No, not really.”

To me, it was more a feeling of being afforded this incredible luxury . . . the idea that people would just play and sing what I asked them to. That was so inviting for me because normally I tend to play and sing what I write. So, the idea of having a whole orchestra do it was like a gift or something.

Q: But didn’t you worry what the critics would say? Any pop or rock star stepping into the classical area is a big target, especially a former Beatle.

A: It’s hard to explain, but I just didn’t think about it, even the night of the first performance in Liverpool. In some sort of innocent/ignorant way, I’d forgotten I would be putting it out there for every Cambridge matriculation exam on the planet. Of course, I was foolish not to expect the critics to go after it--but I suppose it was just a safety valve in me, something that just says, “Don’t worry about it.”

If I had been worrying about the critics’ reaction all the time, it would have taken a lot of the excitement and fun out of it. In the end, you just do the best you can and then let everyone else have their say. It was the same with the Beatles.

Q: Why haven’t you gone to other productions of the oratorio?

A: That was always the deal with it. I didn’t want it to have to depend on my presence. I wanted it to be able to stand on its own so I could go on with the other things I want to do. I would like to check in once a year just to see how it is going, but my own schedule takes over, which is the case now. I’m just finishing the sequencing on the album today, and then there’s the tour planning. But I understand some of the (productions) have been quite amazing. In Tokyo, for instance, I would loved to have seen the Japanese chorus all singing, “I was born in Liverpool.”

Q: How did you get involved with Carl Davis?

A: The orchestra asked me through Carl. I didn’t really know him, but I had seen a couple of things in newspapers that were quite complimentary. I thought he would be good to work with because he was supposed to be the consummate writer-downer, and that’s what I need more than anything. . . . someone who can write music.

Q: The music is credited to you both. Was it 50-50?

A: No, it’s more 70-30, really, with me leading the dance. It started out where I was going to write it all, but it became more of a collaborative effort as we got rolling on it. We used to work in three-hour sessions. It’s funny because we mapped out chapters, and I remember Carl started a section titled “War” in a lyrical, sort of McCartney-ish way, and I’d go “No, no, it has to be much harder. This is about a war.”

Q: What about the text?

A: When it felt like it was time for a bit of words, I either had a couple of ideas ahead of time or I’d just sort of ad-lib them with the idea that we’d go back and fix them. I think one of the criticisms was that the words could have been slaved over a bit more, which is certainly true. But what I found in the end was that if the piece was supposed to really be addressing Liverpool, simple people, war, life, birth, death, children . . . all that sort of stuff, I wanted to keep it all fairly common, so there isn’t really anything too obscure in there or really that clever. I was thinking of it as almost conversational, which I think is a bit of a new slant on oratorios, which can be big pompous affairs.

Q: Did you set out to make it autobiographical?

A: The first three movements were basically memories from my childhood. I don’t really remember the war, but I have the image of Hitler’s bombers sort of going over Liverpool--the kind of pictures you see when you are a kid on the telly . . . millions of bombers and the black city beneath, then seeing little sort of puffs as fire bombs go off. We thought a lot of it in movie terms. Those first three movements are pretty personal, but after that, I just thought, “I don’t want to tell my story. Let’s move away from it, make it not quite so literal.”

Q: What do you see as the dominant message?

A: Hope . . . hope for the future. . . . the same old thing about giving peace a chance.

Q: How emotional was it for you to go back to Liverpool for the premiere?

A: The thing about the oratorio was that it was in the cathedral, which is the second biggest in Europe and right next to my old school. So, I had memories of childhood . . . memories of failing the chorus audition. My dad had sent me to try and get a scholarship because free books came with it. But I didn’t manage to do it. So, it was kind of strange to see all these kids in the chorus the night of the premiere--because they had gotten the gig.

Q: How different was the feeling when you played Liverpool on the last world tour?

A: That show was equally as emotional, especially when we did the tribute to John . . . “Give Peace a Chance” and “Strawberry Fields” and “Help.” But it reminded me of another period in my life . . . the teen-age days and growing up and dreaming about being in a band and getting people to listen to our music.

Q: How did you feel in the ‘60s when classical people, including (conductor-composer) Leonard Bernstein, praised the Beatles?

A: It was very flattering. The thing that struck me the most from those days was when people would say Mozart was like a pop star. We didn’t know enough history . . . the idea that a lot of those guys were sort of writing pop songs for their time.

Q: Wasn’t “Yesterday” the first Beatles song to use strings? How did that come about?

A: The funny thing is I was against the idea of having strings on “Yesterday.” I brought the song in and just played it with an acoustic guitar. We all talked about it and decided we couldn’t put drums on it or more guitar or bass, so the others (in the Beatles) were just going to lay out. Once we recorded it, however, (producer) George Martin said he had an idea for a string quartet. My reaction was, “Oh, no, George, that’s not a good idea.” I thought it would be too sweet or too soft. I had this image of a little baroque quartet. But he said, “Let me try it. If you don’t like it, we’ll wipe it (from the tape). So, I said, “Fair enough.” And it was great.

Q: Was that a liberating experience for you?

A: Oh, yes, it was intoxicating. I got more and more intrigued with the idea of strings and experiments. We went on to “Eleanor Rigby,” which I think was just strings, not even the guitar. We often experimented with sounds . . . a French horn player here or a piccolo trumpet on “Penny Lane.”

Q: Do you see yourself attempting more classical works?

A: Actually, I’ve found little things from the oratorio experience leaking onto the new album . . . just in tiny little ways. But I have also just been doing a series of piano pieces with Carl. It is interesting to go from the grandeur of a full-blown classical thing to the idea of one little pianist sitting there.

Q Why are you going on tour again so quickly? After all, it was 13 years between tours before the last one.

A: We had a great time, and we had a real good band, which is a central point.

Q: Do you feel it helped you regain your place in the Beatles legacy? Do you think your contribution was underappreciated for a while?

A: That’s a touchy one. . . . I understood what happened (in the ‘80s) because when someone like John dies, you can’t help but lionize him. I missed him too. But, yes, it is nice when people look at the overall picture and kind of will say, “Yes, John was great, but this other geezer is not so bad either.”

What: The West Coast premiere of Paul McCartney’s “Liverpool Oratorio.”

When: Saturday, Oct. 24, at 8 p.m.

Where: Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

Whereabouts: San Diego (405) Freeway to Bristol Street exit. North to Town Center Drive. (Center is one block east of South Coast Plaza.)

Wherewithal: $25 to $100 (as of press time, only $75 and $100 seats were still available).

Where to call: (714) 556-6262.