Mojo - The Music Magazine

You don't know what you've got till it's gone. Never were rock fans made more aware of the truth of that adage than when we lost the oft-maligned veggie evangelist and all-round good egg Linda McCartney on April 17, 1998. Yes, there were the terrible alleged backing vocals and the goofy anti-angling diatribes, but the overwhelming strengths of the Lovely Linda could not have been more sharply revealed the moment Heather Mills hopped on the scene. So, don't blame Linda for Macca's sappiness; he was quite capable of that under his own steam. Instead, celebrate a model of mutual support, unconditional love and old-fashioned sane and decent parenting.

Of course, Linda Eastman had had a spot of early practise at the marriage lark, having married geologist/college sweetheart John Melvin See Jr - the sire of her eldest child, Heather - in 1962. But she was already two-years divorced when she met McCartney, at a Georgie Fame gig at the Bag O' Nails on May 15, 1967. Their relationship began in earnest in September 1968 and they married on March 12, 1969 - after which, legendarily, they spent just the one night apart (not counting Macca's stint behind bars in Tokyo in 1980). And while it is a matter of debate whether Linda's songwriting co-credits were genuine, or a ruse to channel royalties away from ATV/Northern songs to Paul's own MPL Publishing, let's be generous and conclude that she had a minor hand in the thunderous Live & Let Die and is culpable for the entirety of Seaside Woman. We are smarter today than the contemporaries who "blamed" the Beatle wives for the demise of the Fabs (there were far too many other factors in play; and, besides, what could the band conceivably have added to their legacy?). And if Linda and Paul weren't the "cool" ones, what the hay - they were happy. [CP]