I Can’t Remember Breakfast, but Paul McCartney Remembers Being Born

Paul McCartney remembers being born, or at least he thinks he does. On Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast, the 84-year-old Beatle described white tiles, chrome instruments and a clanging of forceps at Walton Hospital in Liverpool, then added, “I don’t know if it’s true.” I have never respected a man more for filing his own disclaimer.

That clip from @Tokyo_pi1 is where a lot of people first heard it on Tuesday, and PEOPLE’s report on McCartney’s claim that he remembers being born fills in the setup: his daughter Stella asked for his earliest memory. Most of us answer that with a birthday cake or a dog. Paul went straight to the delivery room, and the replies went straight to his age.

The Forceps Got Top Billing

Of every detail in the story, the forceps won. A memory with its own sound design is a lot to ask people to accept, so they did the reasonable thing and imagined baby Paul reacting to it in real time. Then the Beatles nerds arrived with the deep cut, pointing out that this is the same man who later made his bandmates sit through days of somebody banging on metal for one song.

I want to be clear that I have been inside a hospital as a fully conscious adult, and I could not tell you what color the tiles were. I was too busy reading the bill and asking a nurse if the parking was validated. This man clocked the decor on his first day on Earth.

Being 84 and a Beatle Comes With Privileges

The second wave of Paul McCartney memes decided he has earned the right to say anything he wants, and I think they’re right. Once you’ve written “Yesterday,” you get a lifetime pass on dinner party stories. Some people found that inspiring. Others found it a little suspicious, in a loving way.

Not everyone signed the affidavit. A few went with the polite nod you give a grandparent at Thanksgiving, one person ranked him above Bob Dylan on the list of musicians who embroider, and others reached for the most obvious sixties explanation available.

The Paul McCartney Memes Went Full Clone Theory

And then, as always, the clone people showed up. The old Paul is dead theory claims the real McCartney died in 1966 and was quietly swapped for a lookalike, so a man insisting he remembers his own birth is either a very good replacement or the best cover story ever told. I have spent whole nights on worse theories than this one, and I regret none of them.

The smartest joke of the bunch is the Tristram Shandy one. That novel’s narrator famously tells his life story starting before he is even born, and a doctor’s forceps flatten his nose on the way out, so the comparison is honestly too accurate. The horror movie take is also right: whispering about the tiles you saw at birth is exactly what the creepy kid says before the lights go out.

So did it happen? Paul himself says he doesn’t know, which puts him one step ahead of everyone yelling about clones. Until somebody produces the hospital records, I’m treating the whole thing like those tiles: very white, very clean and impossible to check.

Anyone now lying awake trying to remember their own birth needs a gentler prescription: Beatles Memes: 32 Memes With the Spirit of the Fab Four for the fandom, Cool Old People Have More Swagger at Eighty Than I Had at Any Point in My Twenties for perspective, and Music Memes For People Who Think Their Taste Is A Personality Trait for anyone who already has a strong Paul opinion. Take as needed.