Paul McCartney has confirmed that he will publish a book, reflecting on his career and eight decades of songwriting. It is called THE LYRICS: 1956 to the Present and is due for release in November 2021.
This book is to recount the singer’s life through his earliest boyhood compositions, songs from the Beatles, as well as his successful solo career.
This book will also contain previously unseen drafts, as well as letters and pictures from his personal archive.
The book also describes the circumstances that the songs were written as well as the places and people that inspired these tracks.
Paul McCartney will also reflect on those songs himself in the book too.
McCartney “These songs span my entire life”
Sir Paul McCartney explained the unique layout of this book. As he explained himeself, it is not a typical autobiography.
McCartney released the following statement, “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”.
He added, “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”.
“commentaries are as close to an autobiography”
The book is being put together by Pulitzer Prize winning author, Paul Muldoon. Muldoon said the “commentaries” used in the book are as close as we may get to an autobiography from the former Beatles star.
Muldoon said, “Based on conversations I had with Paul McCartney 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 English”.
A former Beatles bandmate of McCartney, Ringo Starr said last month that he maintains a good relationship with his former colleague. More here.
