Paul: I Was the Political Beatle

In a revelation that will likely befuddle longtime Beatles fans, Paul McCartney claims he was the one who turned the band onto politics, the Times reports. Though McCartney was writing pop songs while activist John Lennon penned blatantly political tunes, as McCartney tells it in a Prospect magazine interview, it was he who met with pacifist Bertrand Russell in the 1960s and brought his anti-Vietnam message back to his bandmates.

Some of the ex-Beatle’s peers are calling McCartney’s claim revisionist history: “This is news to me. We never heard of Paul’s views at the time,” said anti-war leader Tariq Ali. “It was John Lennon who was concerned about the war. He never mentioned McCartney and I never thought of asking him to join us.”
(More political activism stories.)