SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY - MCCARTNEY'S CHORAL DREAMS

MCCARTNEY'S CHORAL DREAMS

SIR PAUL MCCARTNEY jumped at the chance to switch pop for choral music on his new album and fulfill a lifetime ambition of singing with a top choir. Classical record ECCE COR MEUM was commissioned by Oxford University's Magdalen College and MCCartney was thrilled to prove a point to the local choir which refused him entry as a child. He says, "I love choirs. I tried out for Liverpool cathedral, and sort of got to the last stages. But I was not musical enough, obviously. "At school, in terms of musical education, I got zero. We'd all go into the classroom, about 30 Liverpool boys, and the teacher would put on a record - TCHAIKOVSKY, BEETHOVEN, something like that - then he'd leave the room. "So of course we just took it off, posted a guard on the door, got the ciggies and the cards out, and when he came back, we put the record back on for the last couple of bars. "He'd go, 'What did you think of that?' And we were like, 'Oh, really good, sir. Fabulous.'"