Paul McCartney will release a book exploring his lyrics later this year.
Titled The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present, it will delve into 154 of Macca’s songs, from his earliest compositions through to the Beatles, Wings and solo career, with the book edited by Paul Muldoon.
It’ll be released on November 2 through Liveright Publishing Corporation and is now available to pre-order. Watch the launch trailer below.
McCartney says: “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.
"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."
The songs will be listed in alphabetical order and along with the lyrics, McCartney will reveal the people and places that inspired the tracks and what he thinks of the songs now. The Lyrics: 1956 To The Present will also feature drafts, photographs and more memorabilia from throughout his career.
Muldoon adds: “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.”
