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Paul McCartney closed out the final episode of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert by duetting with the host on ‘Hello, Goodbye’.
The long-running late night show aired for the last time last night (May 21), after Colbert announced on air last summer that CBS had cancelled it in what the network described as “purely a financial decision”. Many have speculated that the move was politically motivated, with Colbert among the most prominent critics of the Donald Trump administration.
The final week of shows featured appearances from Bruce Springsteen, Steven Spielberg, Jon Stewart and David Byrne, before the finale ended with Colbert singing backing vocals alongside McCartney on ‘Hello, Goodbye’.
Elvis Costello also joined the band for the rendition, as did Jon Batiste, the former Late Show band leader, and his successor Louis Cato. Staff from the show led a parade through the theatre – watch here:
The Beatles legendarily played on The Ed Sullivan Show to an audience of more than 70million people in February 1964 in the same Manhattan building that would later become home to The Late Show, and in the episode’s closing moments, McCartney poignantly turned out the lights in the Ed Sullivan Theatre.
Earlier in the show, Colbert asked McCartney what he remembered about the 1964 appearance. “We’d never been to America; we come here and people said this is the biggest show,” he said. “To tell the truth, we’d never heard of it. It was fantastic… You had to go a few floors down to get makeup… We went down there and the girls put makeup on us and it was, like, bright orange.”
“That’s very popular in certain circles these days,” Colbert replied, in reference to the President. “Now we know where it started. Thanks a lot, Paul McCartney”.
During his interview on the penultimate episode on Wednesday (May 20), Springsteen said Colbert was “the first guy in America who lost his show because we got a president who can’t take a joke”, and “because [Paramount-Skydance owners] Larry and David Ellison feel they need to kiss his ass to get what they want”.
Trump publicly responded to the news of Late Night‘s cancellation at the time, writing: “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!”
Colbert hit back at the President on his next show, feigning outrage and saying: “How dare you, sir? Would an untalented man be able to compose the following satirical witticism?”.
Turning to a camera marked “Eloquence Cam”, Colbert deadpanned in a New York accent: “Go fuck yourself”.
As for McCartney, he releases his reflective new solo album ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ on May 29 and you can pre-order your copy here.
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