Paul McCartney's 'The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present' Offers Autobiographical Look At His Songs

Paul McCartney (Mary McCartney)

PAUL McCARTNEY's "THE LYRICS: 1956 To The Present," will present the legendary musician's musings on 154 of his songs in a two-volume, 960-page set that will retail for $100 through U.S. publisher LIVERIGHT/W.W. NORTON.

Said SIR PAUL, ‘More often than I can count, I’ve been asked if I would write an autobiography, but the time has never been right. The one thing I’ve always managed to do, whether at home or on the road, is to write new songs. I know that some people, when they get to a certain age, like to go to a diary to recall day-to-day events from the past, but I have no such notebooks. What I do have are my songs, hundreds of them, which I’ve learned serve much the same purpose. And these songs span my entire life."

With true candor McCARTNEY recounts his life and art through the prism of songs from all stages of his career – from his earliest boyhood compositions through the legendary decade of THE BEATLES, to WINGS and his solo albums to the present. Arranged alphabetically to provide an impressionistic rather than chronological account, the two volumes establish definitive texts of the songs’ lyrics for the first time and describe the circumstances in which they were written, the people and places that inspired them, and what he thinks of them now. Presented with this is unearthed material from McCARTNEY’s personal archive – drafts, letters, photographs – never seen before, making it a unique visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time. 

We learn intimately about the man, the creative process, the working out of melodies, the moments of inspiration, with the voice and personality of PAUL. 

Added MACCA, ‘I hope that what I’ve written will show people something about my songs and my life which they haven’t seen before. I’ve tried to say something about how the music happens and what it means to me and I hope what it may mean to others too."

PAUL MULDOON, the PULITZER PRIZE-winning author of 14 full-length collections of poetry, including his latest, "Howdie-Skelp," said of the collaboration with PAUL, "Based on conversations I had with him over a five-year period, these commentaries are as close to an autobiography as we may ever come. His insights into his own artistic process confirm a notion at which we had but guessed — that PAUL McCARTNEY is a major literary figure who draws upon, and extends, the long tradition of poetry in the ENGLISH language."

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