“More than I can count, I was asked if I would write an autobiography, but the time was never right,” McCartney said in a statement.
‘The one thing I’ve always managed to do, whether at home or on the go, is to write new songs. I know some people, when they are a certain age, like to go to a diary to recall day-to-day events from the past, but I do not have such notebooks. What I do have is my songs, hundreds of them, that I have learned serve the same purpose. And these songs span my entire life. ”
Financial terms for ‘The Lyrics’, which has a price of $ 100, have not been announced. Publishers have long sought a McCartney memoir, although he has regularly spoken about the past and participated in projects such as Barry Miles’ biography “Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now”, and the documentary and book “The Beatles Anthology” from the nineties. The Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards was equally open about himself, but his 2010 memoir “Life” still sold millions of copies.
No Beatle has written a standard, full-fledged account of his life. Lennon has published two stories, poems and drawings and is considered the most gifted with words, but he was murdered in 1980 at the age of 40. Ringo Starr’s “Another Day In The Life” is focused on photos and quotes, because the drummer said a traditional memoir would require multiple volumes. George Harrison, who died of cancer in 2001, released the scrapbook “I, Me, Mine” in 1980.
According to McCartney’s publishers, his songs will be arranged alphabetically, and it contains McCartney’s comments on when and where they were written and what inspired them. The American edition of the book will be divided into two parts, contained in a single box.
“This presents a treasure trove of material from McCartney’s personal archive – concepts, letters, photographs – never seen before, which also makes it a unique visual recording of one of the greatest songwriters of all time,” according to the announcement of Wednesday .
McCartney has often received more praise for his melodies than for his lyrics, but he has written some of the most quoted songs in recent history, including ‘Let It Be’, ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Eleanor Rigby’. Muldoon said in a statement that their talks in recent years “confirm an idea we have only guessed at – that Paul McCartney is an important literary figure who uses and expands the long tradition of poetry in English.”
Muldoon is known for poetry collections such as “Moy Sand and Gravel” and “Horse Latitudes”, and also has a background in music. He has delivered spoken performances, backed by music collective Rogue Oliphant; publishes a book of rock lyrics, “The Word on the Street”; and collaborated on the title track of Warren Zevon’s “My Ride’s Lord.” He even mentions McCartney in a poem, ‘Sideman’:
“I’ll be McCartney for you Lennon / Lenin for you Marx / Jerry for you Ben and / Lewis for you Clark”