Paul McCartney Confesses He Almost Quit Music: Here's Why

The former Beatles member almost quit the biz.

Paul McCartney is getting real about how he almost left the music industry. 

The legendary Beatles star, 80, recently revealed that he didn't know whether he should continue in the music industry after The Beatles went their separate ways in 1970. 

In a monthly newsletter shared by the singer, McCartney addressed a fan question that pondered what his biggest professional risk was throughout his career, inquiring if it was involved leaving The Beatles.

"The main question I had was whether to keep going after The Beatles because it was a hard act – some might say, an impossible act - to follow," he explained. "The ingredients in the Beatles were so unique. You had John right there, who could have made any group brilliant. Then you had George’s talent, and Ringo’s, and then me."

"Once that band had finished, I didn’t know what to do with myself, and trying something new was really risky," McCartney admitted, before going on to talk about how he started a new band, Paul McCartney and Wings, which caused people to question why his wife at the time, Linda, was in the band when she wasn't necessarily a musician.  

"I rationalized it by thinking about when we started The Beatles and none of us knew our chords - over time we got better and picked things up," he said of involving Linda. 

McCartney revealed that he started his music career from scratch all over again with Wings, stating, "In the early days of Wings, we decided to go right back to square one, taking a van up the motorway and playing little spontaneous gigs at universities for students, rather than jumping straight in with big live shows."

"I’d doubled back to almost being nothing - just some guy in the band - and now I was earning my fame again. By the time the mid-70s came around when we were doing a big American tour, that was the vindication of it. We were so tight and had come up together, as it were. The risk paid off," he added.

Thank goodness McCartney stuck it out, otherwise we wouldn't have hits like "Silly Love Songs," "Band on the Run," and "FourFiveSeconds!"