McCartney Quotes
Paul McCartney may be the closest thing our generation has produced to Franz Schubert -- a master of melody, writing tunes anyone can sing, songs that seem to have been there all along. Most people don't realize that "Ave Maria" and "Serenade" were written by Schubert (or that his "Moment Musical in F" so resembles "Martha My Dear"). McCartney writes with similar universality. His "Yesterday" has been recorded by more musicians than any other song in history. Its stepwise melody is deceptively complex, drawing from outside the diatonic scale so smoothly that anyone can sing it, yet few theorists can agree on exactly what it is that McCartney has done.
Daniel Levitin
I talked to Paul McCartney over the years ranging from 1967 to 2004. ... At the landmine show he did "God Only Knows" with me and I did "Let It Be" with him. And then I called him about four months ago asking him if he could come out and do - sing a song called "A Friend Like You," which I wrote for him, me and my collaborator wrote for him. And he said he'd love to come out. And he came to the studio and that was one of the bigger thrills of my life to tell you the truth, to produce Paul McCartney. And that was a thrill for me. That was a thrill.
Brian Wilson
It's no accident that so many fabled rock ensembles have had two contrasting leaders (Lennon and McCartney, Jagger and Richards, Plant and Page, Bono and The Edge) to play off each other and cross-pollinate and, at times, butt heads. But Chris Martin completely dominates Coldplay; there's no yin to his smiley enraptured yang. He's the rock-king superstar the other band members all worship, humbly, as the genius who made their fates possible, and almost every moment of the band's creative energy is organized around what Chris is going to do next: the piano chords he's playing around with, the lyrics he's writing, his endless studio perfectionism. source.
Chris Martin