Legendary singer Paul McCartney has no interest in seeing America further divided and even expressed hope that one of his signature tunes can heal the fissure.
The former “Beatles” icon revealed to The Rest Is Entertainment podcast that he likes it when he sees whole audiences singing “Hey Jude” together, adding that such moments give him hope for Republicans and Democrats living in harmony.
“Particularly these days, you do something like ‘Hey Jude’ and you see this whole audience singing together,“ McCartney said. ”I mean, in Trump’s America, and the Republicans and Democrats all at each other’s throats — when we do that song, they’re not. They’re all loving it, and it’s like, wow, this is pretty amazing.”
“You know, suddenly this room has forgotten all of that, and it’s not, you know, going to argue with each other, they’re just going to sing together. So those kinds of things, I think, are valuable,” he added.
Paul McCartney has taken a fairly apolitical tone during the Trump era, along with his fellow countryman Elton John, though he did notably flex his bona fides against generative AI last year when he released a silent music track in protest of the United Kingdom relaxing copyright protections for tech firms to push the technology. He was joined by musical titans Hans Zimmer and Kate Bush for the protest album, titled Is This What We Want?, which drew “attention to the damning impact on artists’ livelihoods controversial government proposals could cause,” the artists said in a statement.
“Called Bonus Track, it is a 2-minute 45-second recording of an empty studio featuring a series of clicks,” reported RTE at the time. “More than 1,000 artists, including Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn and Jamiroquai, have collaborated on the silent album which was first released in February.”