The first woman to break Paul McCartney's heart: The Beatle reveals his dearest wish would be to see his mother again

Paul McCartney penned Let It Be and Yesterday in tribute to his mother

Told a Brazilian fan he would go back and see her if he had a time machine

His mother Mary died in 1956 from an embolism when he was just 14



We have all said things that we’ve immediately and eternally regretted.

For Paul McCartney it’s a thoughtless, inexplicable quip made when he was 14 and had just been told his mother had died.

‘What will we do without her money?’ the teenage Paul blurted, not knowing how to handle his shock and grief.



Words of wisdom: Paul McCartney, left, with his mother Mary and brother Michael during a family tripinterest in the guitar turned into an obsession.

Eight months later, in the summer of 1957, Paul was to meet John Lennon, who was also soon to lose his mother in a road accident. Paul believes their shared sense of loss helped bond them, cementing their early friendship.

Decades ago, when I was at a Beatles recording session at London’s Abbey Road, Paul took me into an empty studio, sat at a piano and played me a song he was writing.

It sounded to me like a hymn and, though at that point, he didn’t have many lyrics, one phrase he repeatedly sang that night stayed in my head for more than a year until the record was released. It was: ‘Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom .