Despite the fact that Linda McCartney was very ill with breast cancer at the time, she was able to attend both the London and New York premieres of her husband’s symphonic tone poem, Standing Stone, in the fall of 1997.
The original poem had been inspired by an enigmatic ancient monolith standing in the meadow on their Scottish farm. The lush symphonic piece climaxes with a chorus singing of Paul’s great subject, love:
Now
with all the time it seemed we had
whatever time I have to spare
will be with you
for ever more
But the original poem, which was as stark as the landscape it portrayed, contained this line:
She left him to his slab of stone
Linda McCartney died months later, in the early hours of the morning of April 17, 1998. Paul was at her side.
