Paul McCartney recalls writing 'When I'm Sixty-Four' as he approaches 84

12 June 2026, 11:53 | Updated: 12 June 2026, 12:25

Paul McCartney looks back.

It was 20 years ago today... that Paul McCartney was looking his 64th birthday straight in the face.

That was always going to be a slightly odd age for the man who immortalised that particular birthday in song.

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"When I get older, losing my hair / Many years from now" the future Sir Paul sung on the Beatles track, released on Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in May 1967, when he was just 24 and that 64 landmark was 40 years off.

Macca actually wrote the song when he was even younger.

He was just 14 years old when he wrote the song in the spring of 1956, being one of the first songs he ever wrote.

"I wrote a lot of stuff thinking I was going to end up in the cabaret, not realising that rock and roll was particularly going to happen," McCartney said in 1974.

The Beatles - When I'm Sixty Four (Official Video)

"When I was 14 there wasn't much of a clue that it was going to happen."

The band played it in their early days when their amps broke down, and brought it out for Pepper around the time Paul's dad turned 64.

Sir Paul was quizzed about his own advancing years by Rob Brydon during a special event in London this week in celebration of his new, nostalgic album The Boys of Dungeon Lane.

"I wrote 'When I'm Sixty-Four', thinking, '64! My God, that’s so old!'," McCartney said. "And then I go, 'Oh, I'm 64! Oh, wait a minute, I'm 74!' And now I'm looking at 84…"

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He added: "When you're a kid, you just look at older people, and I think, in truth… you think they're a bit thick, really.

"As your hearing goes, you realise that older people just couldn't hear the question."

Asked about how he manages to stay so vital and healthy in his advancing years, Sir Paul quipped: "Serious question? Drugs."

He later admitted that it was probably his vegetarianism and pilates that helped him stay so young.