In the spring of 1970, not only the cheerful, optimistic sixties were in the past, but also the band, which had embodied their spirit most emphatically.
The strife in which the Beatles broke up culminated in a contest in which one of the four competed against himself.
Just three weeks before the swan album “Let It Be” was finally released on May 8th after a miserably long lead-time, Paul McCartney released his first solo record - and, as if by the way, revealed the long-kept secret of the end of the Beatles to the world in a little PR text.
Jörg Thomann
Editor in the "Life" section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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For the end of November 2021, after several postponements, the premiere of Peter Jackson's three-part film “The Beatles: Get Back” has been announced at Disney +, which is based on the film material shot while working on “Let It Be” - and is now just three Weeks earlier, Paul McCartney's autobiographical picture and text volume "Lyrics" was published.
Should history actually repeat itself, then neither as a tragedy nor as a farce, but as an expression of a hype that never really ends with the Beatles.
Presumably, the two new releases will be mutually beneficial, even if McCartney's mighty “Lyrics” brick and the large-format book accompanying the film are likely to get tight on many a gift table.
Three hours of work for a world hit
The title “Lyrics” can confidently be rated as the understatement of the year.
The most successful pop musician of our time doesn't just print lyrics here, but tells his life based on his songs.
McCartney spoke over 154 songs, composed between 1956 and 2020, with the poet Paul Muldoon, who with a few helpers also took over the selection and later converted the conversation passages into short stories.
The texts are framed by photos from family and musician life, by memorabilia or manuscripts that show McCartney as the creator of original doodles.
McCartney speaks of his art with self-confident modesty.
"If I'm lucky with the songs, they just come out of the blue," he says.
“It's less than composing it;
they just happen. ”And then sometimes in a dream, as in the famous story of how“ Yesterday ”came about.
If heaven didn't send anything down, McCartney had to do it himself, in the early Beatles' days mostly with John Lennon: after around three hours, a world hit was ready.
Not necessarily the liveliest evening
The secret of successful songwriting is to paint a picture, says McCartney: "Actually, the vignette is my tool." In most of his compositions there is "a simple trick because I am not very knowledgeable".
And if you ask him how he does all this, he says on the occasion of the Wings song “Hi, Hi, Hi”, then he replies: “Sex and drugs” - “which, strictly speaking, is not exactly the truth, but at least approximately".