Rick Rubin No.1: Lunch and McCartney 3,2,1.

The quest for creativity as guided by the greats.

“You’re a music guy, do you know this guy?”

This question came from Lee Clow, legendary Chairman and Creative Director of Chiat/Day, Media Arts Lab and all things TBWA.

I looked at the email in Lee’s hand.

“Rick Rubin?!” I exclaimed a little too exuberantly for that morning’s moment. “Of course I know who Rick Rubin is.”

“He wants to have lunch. Wanna go?”

“Absolutely.”

And just like that I was Lee’s wingman off to a lunch with Rick Rubin, perhaps the most influential music producer of the last 30-plus years.

We went to Chaya Venice and sat in Johnny Carson’s booth (aka Lee’s).

Burly and beardy Rick appeared in life as he appears in pictures and film.

Sporting his Ray-Ban New Wayfarers throughout the whole meal, he had but one question on his mind: “How do you stay creative in a corporate entity?”

This was around 2007. Rick had just taken the helm over an ailing Columbia Records.

Lee talked about focusing on ideas: generating them, developing them, protecting them and launching them into the world with as many resources as you can muster.

“Talent is the ability to let ideas manifest through you.”

~Rick Rubin

There was also a lot of discussion about the frustrations of being a right-brained person having to deal with and convince a lot of left-brainers throughout an organization.

“We are dealing with a magic realm. Nobody knows why or how it works.”

~Rick Rubin

The lunch ended with agreements to stay in touch and that was that.

Fast forward to last week, my wife and I watched the documentary McCartney 3, 2, 1.

It’s an ingenious format. Paul McCartney, Rick Rubin and a studio mixing board. In dramatic black and white film, the two music legends, go through two dozen or so songs from McCartney’s prolific, popular and astonishingly pleasing catalog.

You hear stories behind the songs along with isolated instruments and vocals — and plenty of discussion about those elements, including the influences, the performances, the assembly and the production.

There’s a moment that stands out when Paul talks about what is arguably the most popular Beatles song, “Yesterday.”

Paul thought someone had written ‘Yesterday’ before him.

He tells the story that he woke up one morning with the tune stuck in his head. He thought it was a song he heard from his father.

With no recording equipment, he simply memorized the melody, got it down on piano and then transposed it to guitar.

He played it for his partner, John Lennon, insisting they had heard it somewhere before, but John couldn’t place it.

He then took it to their producer George Martin who had a much more vast knowledge of older music. But all Martin could come up with was an older song called “Yesterdays.”

McCartney said, “I don’t care about the title, it’s this melody. I couldn’t have written it. There was no conscious effort at all. I just woke up and it was there.”

Now, whenever anyone asks Paul if he believes in magic, he says, “Well, I have to. I mean, how did that happen?”

The end of the documentary took me back to that lunch with Rick and Lee.

“How do you stay creative in a corporate entity?”

This is a question we should be asking every day.

Lee says focus on ideas.

For Paul and Rick, it’s all about the song.

What is it for you?

How will you stay creative?

“If you are open and stay tuned to what’s happening, the answers will be revealed.”

~Rick Rubin