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Introducing: McCartney A Life in Lyrics · Ridiculous History

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: I wanted to become a person who wrote songs and
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: wanted to be someone who's life was in music.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I'm Paul muldoon and you're listening to McCartney a life
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: in lyrics. I'm a poet, a lover of the lyric,
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: poem and the song lyric. And over the past several
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: years I've been fortunate to spend time with one of
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  Speaker 2: the greatest songwriters of our era.
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  Speaker 3: And will you look at me? It's happened. I'm going
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  Speaker 3: on to it.
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  Speaker 1: I'm actually a performer? Am I actually a songwriter?
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  Speaker 3: My god?
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Well have that crypt on me?
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  Speaker 2: That is sir Paul McCartney. Together we worked on the
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  Speaker 2: Lyrics nineteen fifty six to the Present, which looked at
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  Speaker 2: more than one hundred and fifty tracks from McCartney's songbook.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Letter.
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  Speaker 4: You can't really talk about music because it's music. It's
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: purposely not talking. It's playing it sounds, you know, So.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: It's quite nice, it's quite liberating. Things slip out like
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: they would in a session with a psychiatrist.
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  Speaker 2: It took us a long time to get through the
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  Speaker 2: songs we included in the book, and we recorded many
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: hours of conversations, drawing our details from McCartney's memory and
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: hidden meanings from the music. Well, the book on me,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: this smart my head was in the world.
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  Speaker 1: It was like going back to an old snapshot album,
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  Speaker 1: looking back on work I hadn't thought much about for
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  Speaker 1: quite a few years.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: For most of the conversations, we were sitting across from
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  Speaker 2: each other, looking at print outs of.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: The lyrics behind the shelter in the middle of around
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  Speaker 4: in the selling poppies from Funnily enough, a lot of
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  Speaker 4: Americans thought she was selling puppies.
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  Speaker 1: I say, puppies. There's another interesting image, a tray full
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  Speaker 1: of puppies, And now she's segn poppies. I now she
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  Speaker 1: feels as interesting to play she is. Anyway, that's very
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: sort of sixties did gez Well.
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  Speaker 2: We never thought anyone would hear these tips, most of
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: which were captured on small recording devices placed on the
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  Speaker 2: table in front of us, or occasionally we recorded over
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: video chat. You might hear the clinking of teacups, doorbell chimes,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: or us chatting over lunch. We were just logging the stories,
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: preparing for the book and getting to know one another.
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  Speaker 1: And at the top of the page, I've written another
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  Speaker 1: Leonard McCartney original, Yes, so.
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  Speaker 3: You already had a sense even though you were what sixteen,
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  Speaker 3: you had a sense of your being a teen and
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  Speaker 3: that you will have a future.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it was more a sort of wish
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  Speaker 1: than a sense. It was more this thing, if you
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  Speaker 1: visualize it, it might come true.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: When we listened back to the tips, we realized there
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  Speaker 2: was something very special happening in these conversations. They were,
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  Speaker 2: in a sense, an oral history of popular music.
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  Speaker 1: And sometimes when I'm singing, I'll be for to get
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: that little voice.
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  Speaker 2: Oh it was McCartney unfiltered.
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  Speaker 1: It helps me reach a place that's just yes.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: Many times over the years, Paul McCartney has been asked
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: to write his autobiography. It's a request he's always denied,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: never feeling it to be the right time. But as
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  Speaker 2: we ventured out on this journey, line by line, it
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  Speaker 2: became clear how much of McCartney's biography is indeed embedded
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  Speaker 2: in the lyrics.
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  Speaker 1: Has this Liverpool sprung from its people?
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  Speaker 2: I have the people sprung from Liverpool, going all the
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  Speaker 2: way back to his childhood in Liverpool.
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  Speaker 1: He is so sorry. Uncle Clouds work with my dad
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  Speaker 1: in cotton firm and they would get pissed. A lot
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: of the uncles were referred to piss artists.
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  Speaker 2: They drink a bit.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, Cloud would stand on the table and recite
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  Speaker 1: the Bible, you know, keep everyone straight in the way
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  Speaker 1: of the light.
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  Speaker 2: Even if the lyrics aren't strictly autobiographical, every song in
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  Speaker 2: McCartney's repertoire is tied to vivid memories, his initial inspiration,
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  Speaker 2: his writing process, his performances. Hey hey ha ha ha hey.
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  Speaker 2: And then there were the meanings that snuck their way
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  Speaker 2: into the lyrics, the strange echoes and insights of which
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  Speaker 2: mccam he wasn't aware when he put pen to paper,
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  Speaker 2: but has since come to recognize in his own work.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Yesterday, all my trouble seems so far. I mean, the
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  Speaker 1: fact that I dreamed the song yesterday leads me to
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  Speaker 1: believe that it's not just quite as cot and dried
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  Speaker 1: as we think it is. And so I say, you know,
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  Speaker 1: you just throw some words in a bowl and then
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  Speaker 1: pull them out. They will achieve some sort of resonance.
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  Speaker 2: Throughout our talks we also realized how much we held
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  Speaker 2: in common. We both lived our childhoods in black and
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  Speaker 2: white and watched the world change into technicolor yourself in
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  Speaker 2: a Bone.
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  Speaker 1: On a River. Boy, were you lucky to grow up
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  Speaker 1: in that with that transition from black and white to color?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, but you were an active for some of that.
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  Speaker 2: That's one of the reasons why it did go to
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  Speaker 2: the color was because of you.
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  Speaker 1: It's true. I mean, obviously I see how it happened
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  Speaker 1: to me, not realizing that in me expressing how it
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  Speaker 1: happened to me, I was making it happen.
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  Speaker 2: We went song by song, but as you will hear
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  Speaker 2: our conversations often spread from the songs themselves. As McCartney
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  Speaker 2: reflected on the lyrics that tell the story of his life.
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  Speaker 4: I'm at and grab my hat because it's an experiment,
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  Speaker 4: an ongoing experiment.
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  Speaker 1: As you follow the trail of breadcruns, you're surprised, often
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  Speaker 1: to find yourself in the next line.
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  Speaker 2: This is McCartney, a life in lyrics, a masterclass, a memoir,
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  Speaker 2: and an improvised journey with one of the most iconic
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  Speaker 2: figures in popular music.