James Corden describes it as “quite possibly the best #CarpoolKaraoke we’ve done so far,” and we have to agree.
In an extraordinary 23-minute installment of the hit concept, Corden goes on a tour of Liverpool with its most famous (living) son, Paul McCartney.
The short film begins with Corden on the phone saying, “Hey mate, I’m in Liverpool and I wondered if you could help.”
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Pause.
“Yeah, I need somebody.”
Pause.
“Not just anybody.”
Pause.
“Can you please, please, help me?”
Cut to the legendary Beatle in the passenger seat.
The segment is probably one of the most extraordinary interviews with Paul McCartney ever done, combining poignant reflections on his life growing up in Liverpool with Corden and McCartney belting out classic tunes, including “Baby You Can Drive My Car,” “Let It Be” and “Penny Lane.”
McCartney explained the genesis of “Let It Be,” saying his mother came to him in a dream and reassured him everything was going to be OK. “Just let it be,” he said she told him in the dream.
Singing the song left Corden in tears: “That’s the power of music,” said McCartney. “It’s weird how it can do that to you.”
The pair take a trip down the real Penny Lane, a street in Liverpool where McCartney autographs a street sign, and call into the barber referenced in the song’s lyrics.
In another amazing sequence, the pair go into McCartney’s childhood home, which has been kept unchanged as a shrine by the current owner—even down to the wallpaper and furniture—and McCartney tells how, after he and John Lennon played “She Loves You” to his father in the kitchen, his dad replied that the song was good, but suggested that maybe the lyrics should go, “She loves you, yes, yes, yes,” as there were already too many “Americanisms” around.
In the final sequence, Corden serves drinks at the bar of local pub the Philharmonic where the Beatles used to play, but when a customer steps up to use the jukebox, a curtain is drawn back to reveal McCartney on stage.
To screams and gasps of astonishment, McCartney plays tracks including “Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da,” “Back in the USSR” and “Hey Jude.”
The segment was shown as part of a sequence of special Late Late Shows recorded and transmitted in the UK this week.
