Paul McCartney has addressed his 60-year music career in a new interview.

The former Beatles singer/bassist, who will release his new solo album ‘McCartney III‘ on December 11, said people often ask him when he will retire from music but that he never commits to the idea.

“Everything I do is always supposed to be my last. When I was 50 – ‘That’s his last tour.’ And it was like, ‘Oh, is it? I don’t think so.’ It’s the rumour mill, but that’s ok,” McCartney told Loud And Quiet in a new interview. “When we did [Beatles album] ‘Abbey Road’ I was dead, so everything else is a bonus.”

‘McCartney III’ is the musician’s eighteenth solo release, which was recorded during the coronavirus lockdown. It follows 2018’s ‘Egypt Station’ and is completes his eponymous record trilogy following 1970’s ‘McCartney’ and 1980’s ‘McCartney III’.

The singer added that his new album bears some resemblance to his debut solo record. “I think it’s similar [to ‘McCartney’ – thematically]. It’s to do with freedom and love. There’s a varied lot of feelings on it, but I didn’t set out for it to all be like, ‘This is how I feel at this moment.’ The old themes are there, of love and optimism. ‘Seize the Day’  – it’s me. That’s the truth,” he said.

Elsewhere in the interview, McCartney revealed that he was advised to take up to six weeks off work to fight an illness that reared its head in Japan earlier in 2020. The artist, who said he enjoys being busy making music, explained he in fact relished the opportunity to put the brakes on. “I like doing stuff, I must say. I like the idea of, ‘Ooh, I can do that.’

“All my mates said, ‘You’re never going to be able to stand that,’ but in actual fact I loved it. I think I read every book, every script, watched every bit of telly I’d missed – I surprised myself that I actually enjoyed it.”

He rounded the conversation off with reiterating that his position on music hasn’t changed.

“There’s a lot of things in my life that I’m surprised at. People say, ‘After touring for all these years, don’t you just hate it? Aren’t you fed up?’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not.’”

He continued: “I still enjoy what I do very much, and it all comes out as clichés – ‘I feel very lucky’ – but it’s true. When I was a kid, all I wanted to do was plug a guitar into an amp and turn it up for that thrill, and it’s still there. So it’s not so much that I’m looking for something new, more that I’m looking for something to do to keep me off the streets.”

In other news, a letter written by The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein following the sacking of the band’s drummer Pete Best is going up for sale at auction.