Paul McCartney made a detour from the promotional tour for his latest album to drop in on the lucky kids at Astoria’s Frank Sinatra School of the Arts. The former Beatle played the youngsters songs off the aptly titled New as well as some he’d written with “George Harrison of the Beatles” — according to the New York Times, specification was necessary since the student there are sooo young. Despite the surprise element of McCartney’s drop-in, ten kids were prepared with questions ranging from why his collaborations with John Lennon were so successful (“We didn’t want to do the same thing twice”) to the most important lesson he’s learned (people don’t mind if you make mistakes on stage). The 71-year-old also explained how fame affected his musical evolution: “The thing that fame does is it gives you freedom. So you start off doing stuff that you think other people want to hear and you end up thinking, ‘Well, that’s O.K., but I could give them something they don’t know they want to hear just yet,’” — which is likely how the once floppy-haired youth from Liverpool is hoping we’ll feel about New.
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