BEATLENCYCLOPEDIA

Paul McCartney: The Biography

Hello everybody, I've just reread the book by Philip Norman called Paul McCartney: The Biography and here is my opinion about it😁.

Before the review itself, I should say that I'm not a professional in this area. If you have the book and disagree with me, I'm open to discussion.

The book is divided into 5 big parts, each of them containing shortef chapters with funny, mysterious and cogent titles ( for example Comb My Legs), and Prolog and Epilogue.

In the Prolog, author describes his first encounter with Paul McCartney as a pressman and describes his complicated relationship with the Beatle. He claims that he wasn't fair to him in his previous book Shout! (about The Beatles) and glorified John to the detriment of Paul. The same case was reportedly his book about John. Paul helped him with a few details, but the main source was Yoko. After all that (plus some really ugly articles) it was really surprising that Paul gave him a nod to this book and encouraged his friends and relatives to give him all the needed informations.

In the main part of the book, Norman quotes from many interviews, autobiographies and newspaper articles. He collaborated with enormous number of people who knew the Fab 4 in they early years, many famous names and close friends.

The parts about Paul's childhood and the Quarrymen times are really good and reveal a lot of new stuff - did you know that mum of Rory Storm used to comb his legs😂. Or that the last thing his mum Mary did before leaving was ironing Paul and Mike's clothes to be sure they won't look poor? Or that after the famous introduce by Twenty Flight Rock Paul sat to the piano and played While Lotta Shakin Goin On?

The part about the Beatles is in my opinion the biggest weakness of the book. According to the prologue, Norman glorified Lennon in the previous books and he regrets it. Now I can't help but feel that he's trying to apologise to Paul by glorifying him instead of John. He just couldn't be completely objective  (who is). There are no lies or mystifications, only the interlinear vibes. On another hand he wrote about this era many times before, so he gives us a competed story and new detailes. 

The part after The Beatles is a real masterpiece. Again enormous number of sources, he writes about every album, its reviews, every tour, every only a little important thing. He offers more points of view. In Paul's previous biography wasn't the Wings, here they have a very big space. Together with his children, Linda, Heather (he quotes from the newspapers, trials...) and finally Nancy. He analyses every Paul's cultural activity - an art exhibition, a poetry book, a film or a classical music piece (I had no clue there he wrote so many of them). No campaign is forgotten - mines or meat, the same about his projects - an art school, farm... And sometimes offers a glance into the fan theories - is Memory Almost Full and anagram for For My Soulmate LLM (Linda Louise McCartney)? I find very interesting the description of Japanese prison. Did you know which song  wanted him to sing a mafia member, who was in jail for murder? Any tips?

In epilogue he remembers the same meeting with Paul as in the beginning and describes Paul's concert in 2016.

Its a pity that there aren't many photos, the book could have been full of them, but instead of that there are just six photo pages. Whole book has around 700 pages (depending on how economical your language is) and is really well written.

So

I think the book was full of new facts (even for me, who has read many books about The Beatles), you can learn very much about his solo era. It is very actual, usually objective and very interesting.

The best Christmas present for all Paul's fans. Everything in one place and definetely worth buying!

What do you think, Paul?