The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present

by Paul McCartney, Paul Muldoon (Editor)

Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

A landmark publishing event featuring two volumes of Paul McCartney's lyrics from his time before The Beatles, with The Beatles, Wings and his solo career — 154 songs in all. Included in the book is McCartney's commentary, never-before-seen photos, handwritten notes, art and ephemera, all of which are part of his personal collection and viewed by the public for the first time. This two-volume set is a masterpiece inside and out with an attractive case and McCartney's face on the spine. It is the gift item of the year and an essential addition to any fan's library.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Washington Post Notable Book
Excerpted in The New Yorker

A work of unparalleled candor and splendorous beauty, The Lyrics celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of Paul McCartney through 154 of his most meaningful songs.

From his early Liverpool days, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his long solo career, The Lyrics pairs the definitive texts of 154 Paul McCartney songs with first-person commentaries on his life and music. Spanning two alphabetically arranged volumes, these commentaries reveal how the songs came to be and the people who inspired them: his devoted parents, Mary and Jim; his songwriting partner, John Lennon; his “Golden Earth Girl,” Linda Eastman; his wife, Nancy McCartney; and even Queen Elizabeth, among many others. Here are the origins of “Let It Be,” “Lovely Rita,” “Yesterday,” and “Mull of Kintyre,” as well as McCartney’s literary influences, including Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and Alan Durband, his high-school English teacher.

With images from McCartney’s personal archives—handwritten texts, paintings, and photographs, hundreds previously unseen—The Lyrics, spanning sixty-four years, becomes the definitive literary and visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631492563
Publisher:	Liveright Publishing Corporation
Publication date:	11/02/2021
Pages:	960
Sales rank:	532
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 10.70(h) x 2.80(d)

About the Author

Born in Liverpool in 1942, Paul McCartney was raised in the city and educated at the Liverpool Institute. Since writing his first song at fourteen, McCartney has dreamed and dared to be different. He lives in England.

Paul Muldoon is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of fourteen full-length collections of poetry, including Howdie-Skelp.

Editorial Reviews

"Careening from decade to decade, and invoking John Lennon on the regular, it is likely the closest thing to a memoir McCartney will ever publish, with lyric sheets and a hefty number of unseen personal photos of his family and The Beatles."

USA Today - Kim Willis

"The Lyrics is a triumph. It is hugely readable, devoid of rock cliché, and full of fresh stories and opinions that even devoted fans won’t have encountered before. The pictures of McCartney and of handwritten lyrics, many of them never previously published, are worth the entry ticket on their own and the quality of the boxed product makes it a tactile pleasure and fun to possess.... The Lyrics is McCartney at his best."

The Times (UK) - David Finklestein

"To read over the words to these 154 songs is to be impressed not merely with McCartney’s productivity but with the fertility of his imagination and the potency of his offhand, unfussy style.... The Lyrics makes clear that McCartney has written on a high level long past his Beatles years, and even the weakest lyrics in the books have a character all their own: a feeling of giddy playfulness and unguarded experimentation. They’re a joy to read because they exude the joy their maker took in their making.... Over and over, McCartney shows how deeply he is steeped in literary history and how much his output as a songwriter has in common with the works of the likes of Dickens and Shakespeare."

New York Times Book Review - David Hajdu

"With a gravity, reverence and sense of occasion that hasn't been seen since the Levites rolled out the Ark of the Covenant, the complete lyrics of Paul McCartney are published at last."

Sunday Times - John Walsh

"An unparalleled look at [McCartney's] creativity process... The breadth of his influences is astonishing."

People - Jordan Runtagh

"Indeed, The Lyrics easily represents the finest collection of illustrations associated with McCartney's life and work. And it's beautifully rendered, to boot. Drop-dead gorgeous as books go, The Lyrics rivals the finest art imprints."

Salon - Kenneth Womack

"Reading The Lyrics is like standing in a master chef’s kitchen as he prepares a dish, adding a dash of this and a spoonful of that and talking to us so winningly.... The Lyrics is able to cram in much more — show posters, set lists, handwritten notes, group photos both staged and casual.... There’s nothing like listening to Macca (as McCartney was known in his Liverpool days) talk about the rise of a band composed largely of working-class teens who changed the world forever.... Almost 60 years later, it’s still an amazing story.... Muldoon interviewed him for hours and coaxed out these charming commentaries."

Washington Post - David Kirby

11/05/2021

In this immense two-volume collection, McCartney reflects on his musical career and eight decades of songwriting through 154 of his songs, whose lyrics are reproduced in full. In the book's introduction, McCartney (who needs no introduction) explains his decision to compile this work: "Some people, when they get to a certain age, like to refer to a diary to recall day-to-day events from the past, but I have no such notebooks. What I do have is my songs." With so much reported—and occasionally misreported—about the composer over the years, McCartney is the ultimate primary source and he sets the record(s) straight here, collaborating with editor (and unseen interviewer) Muldoon. The collection combines the best aspects of two earlier publications, Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics, 1965–1999 (2001) and Barry Miles's Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now (1997), the authorized McCartney biography (now out of print). Certain stories may be familiar even to casual fans, but there's still new information to be gleaned throughout. Perhaps most impressive is the book's unprecedented access to McCartney's archives, producing previously unseen photographs and manuscripts. VERDICT McCartney's contributions to culture are foundational, extending well beyond enthusiasts and devotees. This set serves as his testament of a career and a life dedicated to music.—Gregory Stall, New York P.L.

Library Journal

★ 2021-10-26
Closing in on 80, the iconic musician looks back on a long career and reveals how his songs came about.

“The best comparison I can think of is an old snapshot album that’s been kept up in a dusty attic.” So writes McCartney of this gathering of his lyrics, which, though overall less poetic than Bob Dylan’s, still read well on the page. This is true even of his earliest songs: “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you / Tomorrow I’ll miss you” pretty well says it all, but McCartney’s extensive commentary places it in the context of his life, his band’s trajectory (“The thing that strikes me about the ‘All My Loving’ recording is John’s guitar part; he’s playing the chords as triplets”), and the pop-music tradition generally. Studded with photographs and featuring an introduction by editor Muldoon, the book is a gold mine of Beatles lore and reminiscence. Among countless other intriguing bits, McCartney notes how Allen Ginsberg called “Eleanor Rigby” “a great poem.” While it’s well known that “Yesterday” started with the placeholder lyrics “Scrambled eggs,” it will come as news that “it was almost recorded as an electronic avant-garde song” until George Martin decided to add a string quartet and make a sad song even sadder. McCartney airs some dirty laundry—e.g., why John Lennon was so nasty to him after the Beatles’ breakup—but he allows that none of his musical backing afterward came close to his Beatles band mates. Even so, he includes plenty of Wings material, as well. Some of the omissions are odd (“I’m Looking Through You,” “Little Lamb Dragonfly”), while some of the songs are largely attributed to Lennon, notably “A Day in the Life” and “Ticket To Ride.” The odd curiosity aside, though, what emerges here is a portrait of a songwriter constantly searching for the elusive tune.

A delightful, surprising treasure trove that no Beatles completist should miss.

Kirkus Reviews