On Monday, August 23, 2021, the former Beatles unveiled 154 songs that will be included in a Book based on conversations between McCartney and poet Paul Muldoon, as The Guardian reported. Described as "selfies in 154 songs," The Lyrics will consist of songs throughout McCartney's career, including Blackbird, Live and Let Die, Hey Jude, Band on the Run, and Saturday.
Publisher Allen Lane said the book would also contain the unscripted lyrics to Tell Me Who He Is. According to the People, the never-before-published handwritten lyrics were found in one of McCartney's notebooks, dating back to the early 1960s, during the book's preparation.
Allen Lane said the book will be released November 2 and will also include "many additional treasures" from McCartney's archives, from handwritten lyrics to portraits, sketches, and previously unseen drawings. From All My Loving to Yellow Submarine, each song will be accompanied by McCartney's comments about its creation.
Book's preface
In the book's preface, McCartney wrote, "You often asked me if I could write an autobiography, but the time was never right. One thing I could always do, whether at home or on the road, wrote new songs. When they get to a certain age, I know that some people like to go into a diary to remember everyday events from their past life. But I don't have such diaries.
I have hundreds of songs that I've learned serve the same purpose. And those songs span my entire life."
How the idea for the book came about
Muldoon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet from Northern Ireland, previously told The Guardian that the book was based on a series of interviews he conducted with McCartney over five years, during which they discussed "very intensely" the background to his songs.
"In some strange way, our process mimicked the daytime sessions he had with John Lennon when they were writing for the Beatles. We were determined never to leave the room without something interesting," Muldoon said. - He takes a long, hard look at every aspect of life, and I believe readers, old and new, will be stunned by a book that shows that side of it.
He will emerge from this book as a significant literary figure."
A new look at the Beatles
Bob Spitz, a Beatles biographer, said he was "more worried than he wanted" to see the lyrics to Tell Me Who He Is. "Discovering a new Beatles song would be discovering Cleopatra's sarcophagus during an archaeological dig," Spitz said. John and Paul's notebooks were full of words that had not yet been started and even finished songs that they ignored. In the early years, the songs came so quickly and powerfully that many of them were either put down or hidden in the back of a drawer. I can only imagine how many Beatles lyrics there were that went into the garbage.
None of the previously ignored words were published by the Beatles.
They are inherited by strong defenders of their brand, and I doubt we will see any words other than those endorsed by the surviving members of the band. But Beatles fans will explain, verbatim, "Tell me who this is?" to get any key to unraveling the past of this amazing band.
