Being a pop genius is not enough

Created: 12/14/2021 Updated: 12/14/2021, 4:25 PM

From: Johannes Löhr

Not always glamorous: Paul McCartney in 1969 on the London Underground.

© Linda McCartney / Publisher

So far, Paul McCartney has been asked in vain to write an autobiography.

Now he's done it - with a trick.

The 79-year-old speaks in the book "Lyrics" about 154 of his songs.

This is how he tells his life - and shows that he would also like to be recognized as a poet of high standing.

It's not just nice when the whole world loves your songs.

Paul McCartney even chased them into a Japanese massage parlor.

He recalls, “A young woman came in and said, 'Lie on the floor,' and she gave me a massage.

I gradually began to relax, but then suddenly she was singing, 'Yesterday, all my Troubles seemed so far away.'

And I thought, Shit, how embarrassing.

How do I get out of the number? '

Thank God she didn't know what to do with the middle section. "

The songs in the two volumes were written between 1957 and 2020

It's anecdotes like these that make Paul McCartney's autobiography "Lyrics" so worth reading. They show the absurd and the banal alongside the glamorous and ingenious in this utterly unlikely rock star existence. To recapitulate it, the now 79-year-old used a simple trick: If the songs already determine your life - why not tell it based on songs written between 1957 and 2020? In alphabetical order from “All my Loving” to “Your Mother should know”, plus rare photos, paintings, notes and amusing doodles. Almost 900 pages in a brick-heavy two-volume box.

According to McCartney, this method hides the lack of other memory aids.

“Once people have reached a certain age, they like to use diaries or diaries, remembering past events day after day, but I don't have such records.

What I have are my songs - hundreds - and actually they serve the same purpose.

They span my entire life. "

Two themes recur again and again: the loss of the mother and that of the friend John Lennon

And Paul remembers: of his childhood in a sheltered, sociable and musical working class family, the Beatles, the Wings, the women and friends. And of course the breaks in his life: his mother died when he was 14 years old. And his friend and partner John Lennon left him 13 years later. He keeps coming back to it. It's always about songwriting. Regarding the song “Here today”, which McCartney composed for Lennon shortly after Lennon's death, he writes: “As so often, it started with the fact that I found something beautiful on the guitar, in this case a chord, and from there I carried on. The chord was the dock, and from there I pushed the boat onto the water and finished writing the song. ”This shows not only McCartney's origins from the port city of Liverpool, but alsothat he himself lacks the words for how he ultimately came up with those songs that in the end often ended up as world cultural heritage.

Long before the Beatles: (from left) George Harrison, John Lennon and Paul McCartney with friend Dennis Littler in the living room of relatives.

© Photo: Mike McCartney / Velag

McCartney practices understatement, as is so often the case: “If I'm lucky with the songs, they just come out of the blue.

It's less like composing it;

they just happen. ”Sometimes he also dreams them,“ Yesterday ”is the most famous example of this.

Everything else, he admits, is a craft - and that worked best with John Lennon.

In the early Beatles' days, they usually had their world hits ready after around three hours.

He doesn't just want to be a great composer, he also wants to be a poet of high standing

But this book is not called “Songs”, but “Lyrics”.

And even if that does not mean “poetry” in English, but simply lyrics, the thrust is already clear: McCartney wants to be seen not only as a brilliant composer, but also as a world-class lyricist.

It is more likely not to be.

There is no doubt that he wrote really wonderful lyrics with “Eleanor Rigby” or “For no one”, but also many that simply serve the song and also some that do not exactly identify him as Bob Dylan's Breznsalzer.

And that doesn't just mean early teenage poetry, but also later practical kitsch like “Ebony and Ivory”.

Paul McCartney at the piano today © Photo: Mary McCartney / Verlag

McCartney has brought an Irish Pulitzer Prize winner on board as a co-author

Against this background, the choice of its co-author, the renowned Irish poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Muldoon, is remarkable.

McCartney met with him from 2015 to 2020 to discuss the songs.

Muldoon transcribed the 50 hours of tape recording and edited them into short essays on the respective songs.

In his foreword, Muldoon tries to place the famous cousin of his first name in a literary line of ancestry: Dickens, Lewis Carroll, Dylan Thomas.

And in fact he is right when he ascribes McCartney the gift of "creating a scene with just a few well-placed words".

Just think of the imaginary bus ride in "Penny Lane".

John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the late sixties © Linda McCartney / Verlag

The ex-Beatle is still working on his relationship with John Lennon

McCartney is considered the more complete composer compared to Lennon anyway - he catalyzed influences from Cole Porter to the avant-garde John Cage. Of course, John Lennon has always been seen as the more powerful copywriter, and that may be another motivation for the book title. Once again, “Lyrics” shows not only McCartney's charm, but also his urge to have something right. He can't help saying that Lennon “never had such a keen interest in literature as I did”. In the end, however, the sympathy towards the friend and the regret that we never fully regained him seem undisguised.

McCartney is best read when he doesn't want to prove anything but uses the lyrics as a starting point for his anecdotes.

Then “Lyrics” is the perfect counterpart to the documentary “Let it be” by Peter Jackson recently broadcast on Disney +.

Its success has shown that the world still loves Paul McCartney's songs.

Definitely because of the lyrics.

Paul McCartney:

"Lyrics.

1956 until today. ”Translated from the English by Conny Lösch.

CH Beck Verlag, Munich, 874 p .;

78 euros.