Parenting & Family Quote by Paul McCartney

McCartney is admitting something pop stars almost never say out loud: your own catalog can feel like a bad sequel, even when the crowd is singing every word. The line is doing a quiet rewrite of rock history. For decades, “Wings” has been treated as the postscript to the Beatles epic, the less-glamorous middle chapter between mythic peak and late-career legacy act. McCartney voices that internalized hierarchy bluntly - “second-rate” - then undercuts it with a more powerful metric than critics: time.

The key turn is generational. “Not kids from my Beatle generation” signals a release from the original comparison trap. If the same audience that lived through Beatlemania approves, it can still feel like nostalgia grading itself on a curve. But younger listeners arrive without the sacred text lodged in their nervous system. They’re not auditing Wings as “what came after.” They’re encountering songs as songs: “Band on the Run,” “Live and Let Die,” “Let ’Em In” as functional pop objects that still spark recognition and pleasure.

Subtextually, it’s also about authorship and permission. McCartney, forever cast as the upbeat craftsman opposite Lennon’s tragic cool, is describing a rare moment where validation comes from outside the old narrative. The intent isn’t self-pity; it’s recalibration. Legacy doesn’t just descend from critics or canon-makers. Sometimes it bubbles up from teenagers who weren’t there for the myth, but are there for the melody.