On November 2nd, Paul McCartney will release The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. A lyric book compiling 154 of McCartney’s works, from childhood compositions to his time in The Beatles, to Wings and his current solo albums.
The Lyrics was edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Paul Muldoon, who also penned the introduction. The collection will feature handwritten lyrics, unpublished photos, drafts, and drawings. With commentary by McCartney detailing the creative process behind each song.
Ahead of the release of The Lyrics, McCartney has detailed that the collection will feature handwritten lyrics to an unrecorded Beatles song, ‘Tell Me Who He Is,’ unearthed from a notebook dated back to the early 60s.
“I hope that what I’ve written will show people something about my songs and my life which they haven’t seen before,” McCartney of the collection. “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.”
He added, “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.”
The release of The Lyrics will be accompanied by a new display from the British Library. The exhibition will run from November 5th to March 13th. You can preorder the book here and watch a trailer for the collection below.
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Paul McCartney – The Lyrics
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