Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery

List Price: $100.00 Details

Save: $44.75 (45%)

FREE Returns

FREE delivery Friday, October 6. Order within 1 hr 54 mins

Select delivery location

In Stock

$$55.25 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details

Payment

Secure transaction

Payment

Secure transaction

We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more

Ships from

Amazon.com

Ships from

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Sold by

Amazon.com

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

Returns

Eligible for Return, Refund or Replacement within 30 days of receipt

This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.

Read full return policy

Details

Add a gift receipt for easy returns

$3.99 delivery October 10 - 16. Details

Or fastest delivery October 5 - 11. Details

Select delivery location

Used: Very Good | Details

Sold by HPB Inc.

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

The Lyrics TrailerMerchant Video

Image Unavailable

Image not available for
Color:

To view this video download Flash Player

VIDEO

Follow the Author

Paul McCartney

The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present Hardcover – November 2, 2021

by Paul McCartney (Author), Paul Muldoon (Editor)

4.9 5,544 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$52.49

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$55.25

$46.50

$44.00

Kindle
$52.49 Read with Our Free App
Hardcover
$55.25

30 Used from $44.00 29 New from $46.50 3 Collectible from $116.62

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$55.25","priceAmount":55.25,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"55","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"25","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"%2FLYK6uDVGUkJIHa5imYaTp83%2B54fKCY6BsjwNAUjc0T5CP%2F7a54sdiH%2BVDZRbkSgt8qYgMUFJ6kVxm4kKzKtuZy4I%2BfSlZDHy7hG8V5CKq75qh42yLGh3trGjZ3czisD4F%2FFvGEyPXF0nn56VUTd6w%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$47.28","priceAmount":47.28,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"47","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"28","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"%2FLYK6uDVGUkJIHa5imYaTp83%2B54fKCY6FkVibIGC1273a5LYhUYrL6XLO3Yv5BWdp5ojXTfTmuQoEYSQB2pHe5yCIxktsRiw0UrlsEjKo8LAZ%2FuP19RKJJq9DsjT649mb0Gxh%2BIWTiyQpRUXwHT%2BgCjtuqWttnel96BzccL3%2FYp8ArCgM0q%2BJg%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A Washington Post Notable Book
Excerpted in The New Yorker

A work of unparalleled candor and splendorous beauty, The Lyrics celebrates the creative life and the musical genius of Paul McCartney through 154 of his most meaningful songs.

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.

165 images

Print length

960 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Norton
Publication date

November 2, 2021
Dimensions

8.5 x 3.1 x 10.8 inches
ISBN-10

163149256X
ISBN-13

978-1631492563
See all details

Frequently bought together

$55.25

Get it as soon as Friday, Oct 6

In Stock

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

+

$45.49

Get it as soon as Thursday, Oct 5

In Stock

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

+

Paul McCartney: The Stories Behind the Classic Songs

$23.95

Get it as soon as Thursday, Oct 5

In Stock

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.

Total price:

To see our price, add these items to your cart.

Try again!

Details

Added to Cart

Choose items to buy together.

Paul McCartney
768
Hardcover
17 offers from $41.49
Mike Evans
360
Hardcover
66 offers from $7.88
John Lennon
370
Hardcover
27 offers from $4.40
Hunter Davies
1,658
Paperback
76 offers from $3.08
Allan Kozinn
335
Hardcover
64 offers from $11.37
Paul McCartney
3,541
Hardcover
125 offers from $0.93

From the Publisher

paul mccartney, classic rock, music, memoir

Editorial Reviews

Review

"To read over the words to these 154 songs is to be impressed not merely with McCartney’s productivity but with the fertility of his imagination and the potency of his offhand, unfussy style.... The Lyrics makes clear that McCartney has written on a high level long past his Beatles years, and even the weakest lyrics in the books have a character all their own: a feeling of giddy playfulness and unguarded experimentation. They’re a joy to read because they exude the joy their maker took in their making.... Over and over, McCartney shows how deeply he is steeped in literary history and how much his output as a songwriter has in common with the works of the likes of Dickens and Shakespeare."
― David Hajdu, New York Times Book Review

"The Lyrics is a triumph. It is hugely readable, devoid of rock cliché, and full of fresh stories and opinions that even devoted fans won’t have encountered before. The pictures of McCartney and of handwritten lyrics, many of them never previously published, are worth the entry ticket on their own and the quality of the boxed product makes it a tactile pleasure and fun to possess.... The Lyrics is McCartney at his best."
― David Finklestein, The Times (UK)

"Reading The Lyrics is like standing in a master chef’s kitchen as he prepares a dish, adding a dash of this and a spoonful of that and talking to us so winningly.... The Lyrics is able to cram in much more ― show posters, set lists, handwritten notes, group photos both staged and casual.... There’s nothing like listening to Macca (as McCartney was known in his Liverpool days) talk about the rise of a band composed largely of working-class teens who changed the world forever.... Almost 60 years later, it’s still an amazing story.... Muldoon interviewed him for hours and coaxed out these charming commentaries."
― David Kirby, Washington Post

"Careening from decade to decade, and invoking John Lennon on the regular, it is likely the closest thing to a memoir McCartney will ever publish, with lyric sheets and a hefty number of unseen personal photos of his family and The Beatles."
― Kim Willis, USA Today

"Indeed, The Lyrics easily represents the finest collection of illustrations associated with McCartney's life and work. And it's beautifully rendered, to boot. Drop-dead gorgeous as books go, The Lyrics rivals the finest art imprints."
― Kenneth Womack, Salon

"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."
― John Walsh, Sunday Times

"An unparalleled look at [McCartney's] creativity process... The breadth of his influences is astonishing."
― Jordan Runtagh, People

About the Author

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.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Norton (November 2, 2021)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 960 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 163149256X
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1631492563
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.6 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 3.1 x 10.8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #21,000 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6 in The Beatles
- #27 in Rock Music (Books)
- #35 in Rock Band Biographies

Customer Reviews:
4.9 5,544 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

Important information

To report an issue with this product, click here.

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Paul McCartney

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Since writing his first song at the age of 14, Paul McCartney’s career has been impossibly prolific and singularly influential. In the 1960s, Paul changed the world forever with The Beatles. He didn’t stop there, and has continued to push boundaries, as a solo artist, with Wings, and collaborating with numerous world-renowned artists. He has received 18 Grammys, and in 1996 was knighted by H.M. The Queen for his services to music.

Paul is a dedicated philanthropist, passionately advocating for many causes including animal rights and environmental issues. He's also a very proud grandfather.

Customer reviews

4.9 out of 5

5,544 global ratings

5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all photos

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

William D Berne

Is the the same Paul McCartney I was already introduced to?

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2023

Verified Purchase

Paul, once again. The same Paul in the other book I purchased at the same time. 'How the Beatles Knew'. Paul, effervescent, friendly, searching and busy discovering himself through song. And how did he do it? Well, according to one authority, he moved in with the Ashers and experimented with mind altering drugs. LSD was legal at the time, Paul saw it as an opportunity to discover himself through the mind-altered state. So he did, and this book, 'The Lyrics', show what it is that Paul discovered while consuming various amounts of the psychedelic drug LSD.

While in the mind altered state he discovered himself, deeply searching his self, his measure, his truth to become the lyricist of the CENTURY. All the while, while doing that, exclaiming GREAT claim to the psychedelic drug LSD. Want proof of his success? Buy the book, 'The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present' and you will find out for yourself.

I am sure, very sure that such CREATIVE issue as Paul produced will ever appear again. Look at those gifts as special and unique and not likely to repeated. After all you need certain conditions to create one. A Paul, LSD and the Ashers. I find it unlikely that all three conditions will ever again appear. So like it or not. You want to enjoy the success, the greatness in life, liberty and music. Now's you chance. Why don't you do what I did. Purchase both books: 'How the Beatles Knew' and 'The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present'. You will get a more complete story. Between both, it is not only a great education, it's an enlightenment.

Helpful

Angier Man

The Lyrics of Paul McCartney

Reviewed in the United States on August 24, 2023

Verified Purchase

For so many years I’ve wondered about Paul’s music. Some of words to his music really make you think. Much of it has deeper meaning. It great to find out what was on his mind when he wrote it. For many years, so many only guessed what it meant. I’m happy Paul clarified what his music is all about before he dies. He and a very few others changed music forever.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Paul McCartney: THE LYRICS.

A giant, informative index of songs

Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2023

Verified Purchase

Love it! Got another one for my dad’s upcoming birthday - A huge Beatles fan. But book is two volumes, each song listed from A-K, then L-Z. There’s tons of pictures, plus a few pages of stories which are centered around each song. A great collectible for Paul fans!

Reviewed in the United States on August 10, 2023

Verified Purchase

If you’re into the Beatles or into just Paul McCartney, this is a great book to have in your Beatles library. He goes over the ideas for the songs and it’s really cool to read about some of the more obscure songs also. What can I say , he is Paul McCartney!

Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2023

Verified Purchase

this is a must have for any Beatles fan

Helpful

Luis Saavedra

What I think of The Lyrics

Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2023

Verified Purchase

A Great Buy, if you're a serious Beatles & Macca fan and would like to learn how all that wonderful music came about.

Helpful

Victoria Paredes

Wow! Great set of books.

Reviewed in the United States on August 12, 2023

Verified Purchase

Nice and heavy two sets of books - lovely pictures and fascinating back stories to songs I grew up with and love.

Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2023

Verified Purchase

It’s one of the best gifts

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English

Robert ‘Bob’ Macespera

Many pictures; not that many lyrics

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2021

Verified Purchase

There was an initial surprise when we knew the title for these books: "The Lyrics". McCartney is a composer, a master in creating melodies, and one of the best there's been at that; but focusing in his lyrics seemed like an odd move. Then there's the "completeness" of it: the "the" in the title; the pompous subtitle "1956 to the present". The author's message was clear: this is about me not as a "mere" composer of pop ballads, but as something more serious: a "writer". It is also going to be something big, definite, major, over the top (McCartney tends to do that): this is the final book for all the many McCartney followers out there; look no more, this is it - almost 1,000 pages, it'll be all here. And then the books were published, so at long last we were able to buy the set. And how good is it?

For starters the books set is big, and very, very heavy. Everything in it is grand: the format, the book case, the photos, the glossy pages. And then there're the lyrics and McCartney's elaboration on those, taking surprisingly little space (roughly a bit less than one fifth of all the pages). So the excessive format works, to these eyes, against the very core idea of "the lyrics": we expected personal comments on how Paul McCartney grew and developed into one of the most important and talented musicians of the XX century. Yet he has wrapped his thoughts, almost buried those, in hundreds of photographs and a grandiose set of two books, as if afraid of presenting his bare comments or that mere words wouldn't do it. We expected words about "The Lyrics", and instead we got a mammoth album of larger than life photographs with some texts here and there. And this does not work, because we get full-pages photos of cars (and dogs and guitars and places and people and houses and pieces of clothing) that gave name or merely inspired some of Paul's songs or are vaguely related to him at some point in his life - is that all necessary? The same can be said of the reproduction of hand-written lyrics. One or two of those look good and can complement well a book - dozens of pages of them (as there are in "The Lyrics") is, beyond a curiosity, an excess that eventually adds up nothing to the set of books - much on the contrary, in the end it gets boring and seems more a page-filler.

Since the mid-2000s several musicians of McCartney's generation and stature have written their autobiographies: Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Elton John, to name just a few well-known names. These books are all very good, sober and very well written documents of the golden era of rock music, and Dylan's and Springsteen's memoirs are exceptionally well written. Each and every one of those memoirs is a joy to read and all of them became deserved best-sellers. Yet McCartney seems to have tried to outdo them all by going bigger, as if a conventional autobiography was below him or as he needed more space to tell his story.

The inclusion of many Wings songs doesn't help either - there are more songs of McCartney with Wings and solo than with the Beatles, and this reduces the book's quality. It’s magnificent to read what took Paul to write ‘Yesterday’ or where he got the inspiration for "I Will", "Hey Jude" or "For No One". But, do we need to know what inspired him to compose minor songs post-1970, such as "Check my Machine", his instrumental, and rather poor, song of "McCartney II"? (And by the way, a song whose lyrics are a mere repetition of the song’s title). Does the inane and justly forgotten "Magneto and the Titanium Man" deserve six pages in the book - or in any book at all? And same can be said of his comments on the late Linda. Paul McCartney has always considered her as an important member of his own band, Wings, and she wasn't, at least in anything related to music. The late Mrs McCartney was, according to testimonies of all who knew her, a charming and lovely lady. Fair enough. But she was not a musician, even if she was keen to be photographed at keyboards (which she couldn't play). In "The Lyrics" McCartney refers often to her as a worthy musician, which she wasn’t, and he even writes that Linda was a "pioneer female singer" and that she was very good at "clapping and doing harmonies" - lines obviously written by the devoted husband, not by the musician. And these comments, and the inclusion of minor songs allegedly co-written by Linda ("Cook of the House") diminish considerably the quality of the book.

In the end, we're left with just a handful of good texts and some original pictures, but only a few of each of those, and this does not seem to be enough to justify the cost or the expectation of the books-set. So after reading the books back-to-back we're indeed missing something we hoped to get: the story of the Beatles through their work. And this could be found in the best book ever written on the Beatles songs (lyrics and music) and of their evolution along the glorious sixties, as well in popular music. This book is still, by and large, "Revolution in the Head", by Ian MacDonald. This is an outstandingly well researched, unbiased and pitch-perfect analysis of the career of the band whose music is one of the peaks of contemporary art through a chronological analysis of each song the Beatles recorded. With "The Lyrics" we expected the same, but even better, because it’s written by one of the leaders and the main composer of the band from Liverpool. And we didn't get it. Far from it.

What did we expect? Simple. If Paul would have only written something similar to MacDonalds' book: a musical journey through the songs, showing his initiations and shockingly fast development as a composer; if he would have only published, say, 300 pages thickly packed with insights, revelations and facts on his inspiration and brilliant musical career; if he would have supported the text with just a handful of well selected and never-seen pictures to illustrate specific parts of the tale; if the song's lyrics would have been presented chronologically, for the reader to see the composer's outstanding evolution; if McCartney wouldn't have tried so much to appear as "an author" by citing and almost comparing himself to giant contemporaries like Bertrand Russell or Harold Pinter; if Paul would have chosen for the book mostly Beatles songs, bookending those with a dozen pieces of his solo career, and relying heavily for these perhaps in his quite touching reflections on loss, friendship and growing old of the songs he composed for “Egypt Station" and "McCartney III". That would have been the wonderful, priceless, unique book we eagerly waited for months.

But Paul McCartney hasn't lived up to the expectation created with the announcement of the publishing of “The Lyrics”. He is one of the best composers of the last 100 years, without a doubt. But, because he fell one by one for the mistakes above noted, the book neither works as a personal memoir nor as a review of 50 years of composing and success nor as an insight into the rock scene of the last six decades nor, in the end, as anything in particular. Unfortunately, this set of books ended up being something closer to a bloated artifact, a showy, repetitive and unnecessarily enormous photo album with elongated captions; it’s an odd, unbalanced and in the end rather disappointing way to share a brilliant composer’s inspiration with the world.

138 people found this helpful

Guilherme Monteiro

Falar o quê? Paul McCartney.

Reviewed in Brazil on September 9, 2023

Verified Purchase

Item obviamente obrigatório na biblioteca dos beatlemaníacos mais dedicados, mas, justamente por isso, talvez as informações fiquem um pouco no que já é conhecido, e, embora editorialmente se trate de um trabalho muito bonito, senti que poderia ter havido mais fotos inéditas e fac-símiles de mais documentos que pudessem ser de interesse ao pesquisador. Mas de todo jeito um belo livro, que vai fazer a alegria de uma sala de visita ou de uma estante em um lugar por onde os amigos passem. Excelente companhia para uma tarde chuvosa ao som dos álbuns do Paul dos anos 80.

One person found this helpful

Translate review to English

Vass Sándor

Thanks!

Reviewed in Germany on August 1, 2023

Verified Purchase

Nice books!

Ms. J. Goodman

Great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2023

Verified Purchase

Partner loved it!

Quiverbow

In his own write

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 2, 2021

Verified Purchase

Sir James Paul McCartney, CH MBE, the greatest living songwriter, admits to never having kept diaries, which isn’t strictly true, as there are photos of brief entries, but he does have a rather extensive catalogue of songs (and I’m sure someone else will count how many he has written or co-authored). Stretching to nearly 900 pages, he has now decided the time is right to tell us how 154 of those tunes from his vast treasure trove came about.

Begun in August 2015 but not fully worked on until 2019, it’s presented in alphabetical order across two hardback volumes inside a slip case, each volume has it’s own dust jacket, but you can take those off and have two different covers. Inside you’ll find a plethora of photos (of which only a handful will have be seen by us), handwritten lyrics, mouth watering acetates and various other bits and pieces. Oh, and the songs and explanations how they came to be. Each one is four, six or eight pages, though ‘Yesterday’ is afforded ten, and the whole thing will keep you going for a while.

But don’t think all the pages are taken up with text, as some have a page devoted to a photo of a record or something like a handbill; ‘In Spite Of All The Danger’ being an example of having both sides of the acetate spread over two pages. But at least you can see all of it. Those songs that are in these volumes range from ‘I Lost My Little Girl’ from 1956 through to a trio of selections from ‘McCartney III’. Now, Beatles devotees will know about songs such as ‘Too Bad About Sorrows’ and other tunes he wrote back in the late 50s and [very] early 60s, but what about ‘Tell Me Who He Is’? A mere eight lines long, it was discovered hidden away in a notebook and is alleged to be an unrecorded Beatles song. (Well, that’s what MPL is claiming and who are we to doubt that?)

Expensive? Some might say it is but that’s for you to decide. Remember, anything Beatle related tends to carry a premium, though I can’t see many casual buyers forking out nearly £50 for this; it’s aimed at McCartney aficionados. And most of us will lap it up. It's a shame he didn't include everything he's written but maybe that task would have been too big. The resulting book certainly would have been.

I wonder if Marjorie ever received a response from Paul for her fan letter on page 188?

37 people found this helpful

See more reviews

Image Unavailable

Follow the Author