The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present

New Born in Liverpool in 1942, Paul McCartney was raised in the city and educated at the Liverpool Institute Since writing his first song at fourteen, McCartney has dreamed and dared to be different He lives in England

Paul Muldoon is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of fourteen full-length collections of poetry, including Howdie-Skelp

From his early Liverpool days, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his long solo career, The Lyrics pairs the definitive texts of 154 Paul McCartney songs with first-person commentaries on his life and music Spanning two alphabetically arranged volumes, these commentaries reveal how the songs came to be and the people who inspired them: his devoted parents, Mary and Jim; his songwriting partner, John Lennon; his "Golden Earth Girl," Linda Eastman; his wife, Nancy McCartney; and even Queen Elizabeth, among many others Here are the origins of "Let It Be," "Lovely Rita," "Yesterday," and "Mull of Kintyre," as well as McCartney's literary influences, including Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll, and Alan Durband, his high-school English teacher

With images from McCartney's personal archives?handwritten texts, paintings, and photographs, hundreds previously unseen?The Lyrics, spanning sixty-four years, becomes the definitive literary and visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time