Paul McCartney & Taylor Swift
When Taylor Swift walked into Paul McCartney’s MPL Studios office in London, in early October, for this issue’s cover story, she arrived without assistants or stylists or even a makeup person. (Appropriately, Taylor chose to wear clothes designed by Paul’s daughter Stella McCartney for the occasion.) For most of the day it was just Taylor and Paul, along with Paul’s daughter Mary McCartney, a photographer, in what turned out to be a revelatory meeting of megastars from across the generations.
Taylor came armed with questions; Paul was loose and relaxed, singing to Motown songs and sharing personal stories, like the time he made veggie burgers for Quincy Jones in his kitchen. They talked about songwriting, how to keep a semblance of normal life as a celebrity, and the risk-taking albums they both made during lockdown. “I was using words I always wanted to use — bigger, flowerier, pretty words,” Taylor says in one exchange. “I have favorite words, like ‘elegies’ and ‘epiphany’ and ‘divorcée’ . . . that I think sound beautiful.”
Source: Jason Fine/rollingstone.com
