McCartney knows that, even in a gathering of film stars or prime ministers, he is surrounded by Beatles fans. “Everyone is second fiddle to Paul McCartney, aren’t they?” I asked him if he minded playing second fiddle to his guest. For the encore, “Let It Be,” Joel ceded his piano to McCartney. In July, 2008, when Joel closed Shea Stadium, as the final rock act before the place came under the wrecking ball, he invited McCartney to join him and perform “I Saw Her Standing There.” Shea Stadium is, after all, where Beatlemania, in all its fainting, screaming madness, reached its apogee, in the sixties. You encounter someone like Paul and you wonder how close you can be to someone like that.” Still, Joel told me, “he’s a Beatle, so there’s an intimidation factor. Billy Joel, who has sold out Madison Square Garden more than a hundred times, has spent Hamptons afternoons over the years with McCartney. This effect extends to friends and peers. There are myriad ways in which people betray their pleasure in encountering him-describing their favorite songs, asking for selfies and autographs, or losing their composure entirely. McCartney greets his guests with the same twinkly smile and thumbs-up charm that once led him to be called “the cute Beatle.” Even in a crowd of the accomplished and abundantly self-satisfied, he is invariably the focus of attention. Would he like one? He narrows his gaze, trying to decide then, with executive dispatch, he declines. Bloomberg nods gravely at whatever Shevell is saying, but he has his eyes fixed on a plate of exquisite little pizzas. A slender, regal woman in her early sixties, Shevell is talking in a confiding manner with Michael Bloomberg, who was the mayor of New York City when she served on the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Their hosts are Nancy Shevell, the scion of a New Jersey trucking family, and her husband, Paul McCartney, a bass player and singer-songwriter from Liverpool. Through the gate, they mount a flight of stairs to the front door and walk across a vaulted living room to a fragrant back yard, where a crowd is circulating under a tent in the familiar high-life way, regarding the territory, pausing now and then to accept refreshments from a tray. They all wear expectant, delighted-to-be-invited expressions. And out they come, face after famous face, burnished, expensively moisturized: Jerry Seinfeld, Jimmy Buffett, Anjelica Huston, Julianne Moore, Stevie Van Zandt, Alec Baldwin, Jon Bon Jovi. At the last driveway on a road ending at the beach, a cortège of cars-S.U.V.s, jeeps, candy-colored roadsters-pull up to the gate, sand crunching pleasantly under the tires. The surf is rough and pounds its regular measure on the shore. He says his phone was going off constantly, and he was hearing from radio stations wanting to play it.Early evening in late summer, the golden hour in the village of East Hampton. Over the next 48 hours, it just took off. I figured my friends would get a kick out of it.” “I was fooling around with it Sunday afternoon, and just decided to record it and post it. “I guess I was just sitting around and really wanting to get out there playing golf,” says Driscoll, who works for Canada Post in Peterborough. “Almost 11 … Where’s the beer cart? I’m just kidding, I’m standing in my backyard … Chipping golf balls, over my kid’s toys … Wishing I was out there, playing a round with the boys.” - Chad Driscollĭriscoll says he’s not sure where it came from. As of Tuesday night, May 11, it had been viewed more than 62,000 times.īorrowing a melody from John Denver’s “Country Roads,” Driscoll sings of his desire to get back out on the golf course again when the current provincewide lockdown comes to an end. The Peterborough singer-songwriter sat down this past Sunday, May 9, penned a new tune in his basement, and for fun, he put it up on YouTube. Chad Driscoll says boredom and frustration may have given him his biggest hit to date.