Paul "Doing Fine" Post-Heather

In the midst of tabloid rumors, lock-changing snafus and a potentially costly divorce battle, Paul McCartney has remained relatively mum about his split from Heather Mills McCartney, instead relying mainly on lawyers and publicists.

But on Monday, he briefly broke his silence.

During a press conference in London touting his new classical album, Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart), the former Beatle told the media that he's "doing fine" when asked how he's been coping with the breakup.

Without going into detail, McCartney said he was "okay" and offered a glass-half-full take.

"Life beats you down occasionally," he said. "But I am the eternal optimist. No matter how rough it gets, there's always light somewhere. The rest of the sky may be cloudy, but that little bit of blue draws me on."

McCartney was quick to divert attention back to his craft. "I'm enjoying music," he said. "It's something I love to do. It's something that sustains me. So I'm enjoying it, finishing this project off and also the next one."

He then lobbed what could be perceived as a backhanded dig at Mills McCartney, telling the press that the album honors the memory of his first wife, Linda. He said he started the album when she was alive and, out of grief, put it on the backburner after she died of breast cancer in 1998.

"I took a year or so before I could get back into it," he said. "The interlude in the middle is a particularly sad melody and is what got me going again. Her spirit is very much in this. It would have been her birthday yesterday so it's very appropriate."

McCartney added that the album's lyrics were inspired by what he calls the important things in life.

"When I came around to thinking, `what do I want the words to say?' I just wrote down a whole load of things that interest me about truth, about love, about honesty and about kindness. Stuff that I thought was important in life," he said.

McCartney's recollections of his second marriage are likely to be much less nostalgic.

In May, the couple announced their breakup, claiming the dissolution of their seven-year marriage was quite amicable. Since then, it's taken a turn.

In August, police were called to McCartney's estate after Mills McCartney was seen scaling the walls after discovering the gate locks had been changed. The former model laughed off the incident, calling it a misunderstanding and saying she was just visiting the couple's two-year-old daughter, Beatrice.

Prior to that, McCartney froze the couples' joint bank account after his estranged wife reportedly withdrew more than 1 million pounds in less than a month. Things have apparently become so touchy that he reportedly filed a complaint against her for absconding with three bottles of cleaning solution from his Sussex home to clean her nearby office.

With her husband a beloved figure, Mills McCartney has suffered the brunt of the public criticism since the split. She's been accused, among other things, of participating in pornography and posing for risqué photos in her early modeling days, as well as acting as a high-priced hooker in her early 20s, a charge that brought even McCartney to her defense.

Still, she may be laughing all the way to the bank. Because the couple did not sign a prenuptial agreement, she may stand to pocket nearly $1.6 billion of McCartney's hefty fortune.

It's likely to be a battle royale on the scale of the Prince Charles-Princess Diana divorce. In fact, Anthony Julius, who represented Diana, will stand up for Mills McCartney, while Fiona Shackleton, Charles' legal attack dog, will rep McCartney.

As for the new album, McCartney's fourth classical effort will be released Tuesday by EMI Classics. His prior three were 1991's Liverpool Oratorio, 1997's Standing Stone and 1999's Working Classical.