Sir Paul McCartney duetted with a video of John Lennon on the opening night of his ‘Got Back’ tour.
The Beatles legend thrilled crowds in Spokane, Washington as he performed the band’s classic song ‘I’ve Got a Feeling’ with footage of Lennon from Peter Jackson’s ‘The Beatles: Get Back’ documentary in the background.
Paul revealed that Jackson had isolated the late music icon’s vocals after getting the idea of having Lennon “sing” along with the band.
McCartney recalls the ‘Lord of the Rings’ filmmaker texting him: “We can extract John’s voice, and he can sing with you. (I replied) ‘Oh, yeah!”
The 79-year-old musician also dedicated the song ‘Here Today’ to Lennon, who was shot dead in 1980 aged 40, and told fans that he regretted that he hadn’t “properly told (Lennon) he loved him while he had the chance”.
McCartney also paid tribute to fellow Beatles bandmate George Harrison by using a ukulele that the late singer had given him to play the tune ‘Something’.
The gig marked McCartney’s return to the stage following the pandemic and he was overjoyed to be performing once again as he treated the crowd to hits from the Beatles, Wings and his solo career.
He said: “They said ‘get back’, and we got back. And it feels cool.
“You’ll have to give me a moment to myself, just to let me take this in.”
Meanwhile, Paul previously revealed in his book ‘The Lyrics: 1956 to Present’ that “eroticism” was the “driving force” behind many of his early songs – including the 1963 Beatles single ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’
Paul wrote: “There was an eroticism behind it all. If I’d heard myself use that word when I was 17, there would have been a guffaw. But eroticism was very much a driving force behind everything I did. It’s a very strong thing. And, you know, that was what lay behind a lot of these love songs. “I want to hold your hand” [and probably do a lot more!]”