Paul McCartney Q&A: Behind the Fireman's New Psych-Pop Gem : Rolling Stone

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What kinds of words and phrases were appealing to you?
What I was looking for was not to steal an idea as much as to find beautiful words. I remember just seeing the words "silent lovers" — to me, that's a couple of kids in love, you can make a movie about that — and I thought, "That's good, I can sing about that." So I pulled that onto my pad at the mike and then went delving into another book — so as not to be plagiarizing someone else's poem — and then came upon "angels smiling," which is kind of nice... they're not frowned upon, there's something beautiful going down, and then the final phrase: "Don't stop running" — which is my advice to you, kids. Just let it flow. Groove on. I don't mean running away from something. Keep on going! And these three phrases were the basis of the song "Don't Stop Running."

So, as in "Tomorrow Never Knows," you turned off your mind, relaxed, floated downstream, and listened to the color of your dreams.
Exactly. That's the spirit of the Fireman. Originally, when I started the group, I used to joke with Youth in the studio, where we we'd be putting together these midnight-dancey, ambient records, saying to him, "This is like everything they won't allow me to do in the studio, what I won't even allow myself to do in the studio. This isn't like working, it's like goofing around." And Youth would pull the best bits out, get rid of the indulgent bits — and that's the good thing about him, he's like a DJ/producer, and I trust him, even if sometimes begrudgingly, to be my editor. And he'll use the very best of my words.

How did you and Youth originally hook up for the Fireman project?
Originally, I found Youth when I was looking for someone to do a mix on one of my tracks that I wasn't satisfied with. Allen Crowder, who works in my office, suggested Youth or Nitin Sawhney — he's got an album out, and I do a track on it, and we became friends. But Youth and I became friends who decided we should do something more elaborate together. We'd get a little bit of a background going and, on the two earlier Fireman albums, he might put in a machine vibe or a dancey music thing, and we developed through from that. He would sort of pretend to be like an American DJ on the radio, and we kind of read each other.

How does working with Youth differ from the way you worked with Nigel Godrich [producer of McCartney's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard] and John Lennon?
The process of making music with Youth is different from the way I collaborated with Nigel or John. With Nigel I brought finished songs to him and we worked on them and he'd say what he did and didn't like, and we did the editing process that way, too. But the Youth process is instantaneous and one of spilling out ideas and then mixing them. Or he'll say, "Give me a couple of minutes and I'll do an arrangement." It's not just thinking about things and carefully going about it. I always do a bit of goofing around in the studio, but with Nigel it would be a bit more considered.

And the difference with working with John... well, there's nothing like John, so everything differs from John. I could go on for hours, but that's the explanation.

You've always been forever young and now you've got Youth along with you for the ride.
I know, can you believe it? And neither of us are the most youthful of specimens. It's funny. I'm thinking of asking him to change his name to Middle Age. But I think he's stuck with Youth.

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