Sir Paul McCartney feels 'lucky' to have teamed up with Kanye West.

The former Beatle has confessed he was surprised when the 'Stronger' hitmaker approached him about a collaboration and felt ''flattered'' to have been asked to join him on the project.

In an interview with London's Evening Standard newspaper, he said: ''It's good to connect with different artists. The secret is I keep myself very open to suggestions - I still feel like I'm about 30. I'm lucky that someone like Kanye would go, 'Yes I would like to work with Paul McCartney'. I was quite flattered, I thought, 'Why does he want to work with me?''

The 'Penny Lane' hitmaker admits he felt ''soppy'' when he later called up the rapper to check whether anything would come of the collaboration.

He admitted: ''It was a few months later when I was starting to think, 'Should I ring him and ask him did anything come of the stuff we did?'

''But then I thought, 'I can't do that - that's too soppy!' I'll just leave it and try and act cool.' And suddenly he sends me 'Only One', and then Rihanna's on the other record ['Four Five Seconds'].''

The 72-year-old singer added working with other stars has helped him learn to appreciate his former band, made up of himself, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, far more now than ever before.

He admitted: ''The Beatles were a really good band! The more I go on, the more I appreciate it.''