Book of the week: The Lyrics by Paul McCartney

McCartney’s charming delve into his back catalogue is the ‘closest to an autobiography we’ll get’

George Harrison and Paul McCartney on stage
George Harrison and Paul McCartney in New York, circa 1970
(Image credit: Art Zelin/Getty Images)

“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,” said John Walsh in The Sunday Times.

There are “nearly 900 shiny pages of the songs, from All My Loving to Your Mother Should Know, alongside their creator’s explanatory notes”, along with photos galore – most previously unpublished – “plus scribbled first drafts, pencilled music scores and adoring fan letters”. And the “whole gallimaufry” is “squeezed into two breezeblock-sized hardbacks, sheathed in a monochrome slipcase”.

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