From: saki@evolution.bchs.uh.edu (saki)
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles
Subject: Re: Is Paul left-handed?? (Re: "I'm So Tired" backwards mumbling?)
Date: 6 Jun 1996 05:26:23 GMT

Steph [stephb@sirius.com] wrote:

Paul has said in numerous interviews that he is, and always has been, left handed.

What I'd like to know is how the "Paul is right-handed but plays left" urban myth got started in the first place, since it continues to be perpetuated in several places.

Then saki wrote:

The culprit is...Philip Norman, author of "Shout!", a 1980s biography of the Fabs that borrows heavily from Hunter Davies (the authorized biographer) and invents therefrom a few unwarranted myths.

Here's the passage in Davies (1968): "His [Paul's] guitar cost fifteen pounds and Paul couldn't get anything out of it at first. There seemed to be something wrong with it. Then he realized it was because he was left- handed. He took it back and got it altered...."

And here's Norman (1981): "Paul, strangely, made little progress [at the guitar]. His left-hand fingers found it irksome to shape the patterns of black dots shown in the tuition book, and his right hand, somehow, lacked the bounce necessary for strumming. Then he made the discovery that, although right-handed for every other purpose, he was left-handed as a guitar player".

Considering that McCartney, who worked closely with Davies on the earlier book, must have been the early source that he was left-handed, and has since corroborated the fact that he's left-handed, one can only wonder where Norman got his information.

Indeed, one often wonders that about Norman. :-)

but then Steve Robinson [steve@comcat.com] wrote:

In "A Day In The Life" (1995 Delacorte Press), author Mark Hertsgaard asserts that Paul was right-handed - the only thing he did left-handed was play guitar.

A friend of mine remembers seeing a photo of Paul with a pen in his left hand.

and northcut@mindspring.com wrote:

From Rolling Stone issue 482, September 11, 1986

Kurt Loder: On a more trivial but similarly ancient note, a new biography of you claims that Paul McCartney, the world's most famous left-handed bassist, is actually right-handed. True?

Paul McCartney: No, I'm quite definitely left-handed.

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