Paul McCartney never got over his filmmaking flop

Witnessing the recent imperial progress of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, it occurred to me how impossible it is to imagine her ever shedding her current incarnation as world-bestriding, bronze-thighed musical potentate. But of course, she will. The time will come when the hits will dry up and new sorts of eras will beckon: the ‘disappointing sales’ era, the ‘desperate collaboration with younger artists’ era and, ultimately, the ‘Las Vegas residency’ era. It won’t be her fault. It happens to everyone eventually.

Forty years ago this month, Paul McCartney, who had been a global superstar for more than two decades, effectively torpedoed his career with an ill-advised movie project called Give My Regards to Broad Street. Hyperbole? Read on…

It’s hard to convey, unless you were around, what an extraordinary figure he seemed in his prime. He stayed in the UK and paid his taxes when most other big stars fled.