It's been more than 45 years since The Beatles split up, and while Paul McCartney has remained a superstar instead of fading into musical history, he confesses that he got depressed when the band that launched his career called it quits after ten years of epic hits.

Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney was depressed over Beatles split

More many musicians, disbanding can be a relief; a window of opportunity to explore other musical ventures. But for Sir Paul McCartney, it led to depression, drinking a lot and forming a new band that he confesses now really wasn't very good.

During an interview for BBC Radio 4's Mastertapes, he revealed just how the Beatles split affected him. 'I was depressed. You would be. You were breaking from your lifelong friends', he said. 'So I took to the bevvies. I took to a wee dram. It was great at first, then suddenly I wasn't having a good time . I wanted to get back to square one, so I ended up forming Wings.'

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Unfortunately, Wings didn't turn out to be the passion project that he thought it would, despite releasing a string of hits including 'Band on the Run', 'Silly Love Songs' and 'Coming Up'. 'It was difficult to know what to do after the Beatles. How do you follow that?' He continued. 'We were terrible. We knew Linda couldn't play, but she learned.'

While it might not have been a career highlight for McCartney in hindsight, he still doesn't regret a moment of his time in the band, which he formed with first wife Linda and Denny Laine. 'Looking back on it, I'm really glad we did it', he mused. 'I could have just formed a supergroup, and rung up Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page and John Bonham.'

Plus, there were other things he was extremely thankful for during that difficult period of his life. Reconciling with Beatles co-member John Lennon - with whom he had a difficult relationship - before he died, for example. 'I was really grateful that we got it back together before he died. Because it would have been very difficult to deal with if... well, it was very difficult anyway', he admitted.