Paul McCartney Love, Music & My Memories

The Legend Looks Back on Making the Album Flowers in the Dirt— and the Moving Stories Behind It

- Jordan Runtagh

Back in the mid-1980s,Paul McCartney wasn’t feeling nostalgic about being part of the FabFour. The pop icon had moved on, but his fellow superstar Elvis Costello prodded him to look back. “He was a big Beatles fan and said, ‘Hey, do you still use your old Hofner?’” McCartney recalls Costello asking of the violin-shaped bass guitar he’d plucked alongside John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison in Beatlemania’s heyday. “I had semiretired it, but he said I should get it out, and I rediscovered it.” McCartney dusted off the instrument and went on to make the acclaimed 1989 album Flowers in the Dirt. The deeply personal record—which includes songs inspired by his wife, Linda, who died of breast cancer in 1998—will be reissued March 24 with rare demos and outtakes. In a People interview, the 74-year-old rock star looks back on a labor of love and those who helped make it happen.

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