Blackbird Singing : Poems and Lyrics 1965-1999 - Softcover

McCartney, Paul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571209920 ISBN 13: 9780571209927

Publisher: Faber & Faber Poetry, 2002

Synopsis

Book by McCartney, Paul

About this title

Review:

It is nearly impossible to scan any of Paul McCartney's lyrics without hearing the Beatles' music in the background, dictating rhythm, pace, and mood. But as Blackbird Singing demonstrates, the effort is worth making. This first collection brings together early and late poems, along with some of Sir Paul's greatest hits (including the words to "Yesterday," "Lady Madonna," "Penny Lane," and "Hey Jude.") In his introduction, editor and fellow Liverpudlian Adrian Mitchell urges readers to "wash out the name and the fame" and examine what's on the page. If you can do this, you're in for a pleasant surprise.

True, some of the lyrics appear trite on paper--"Heart of the Country" and "Mull of Kintyre" are notable offenders. Even "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" seems naked and frail without the rousing brass section. But McCartney's deeper vulnerability comes to the surface in "Dinner Tickets," a poem about his childhood. And "Standing Stone" recounts a gutsy fable about a man using the power of imagination to fend off the enemy: he erects a standing stone, "a weathered finger to the sky" and learns to be "at peace with peace." "Irish Language" boasts a rare streak of irony as the narrator admires the way "those Irish chappies" swill the language around in their mouths and dribble it through their fingers. The song ends with a beautifully timed punch line: "The Beatles were a bunch of Micks." Blackbird Singing closes with poems dedicated to the author's late wife that are tender, sparse, and startlingly honest. --Cherry Smyth

About the Author:

Paul McCartney was born in Liverpool on 18 June 1942. He was raised in the city and educated at the Liverpool Institute, where he did better at English Literature than he did at formal music lessons. First with and then without John Lennon, Paul McCartney has written some of the best-known words of the twentieth century. A Freeman of the City of Liverpool and Lead Patron of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, Paul McCartney is a Fellow of the Royal College of Music and a Fellow of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters. In 1996 he was knighted by HM the Queen for his services to music.

About this edition

• Publisher: Faber & Faber Poetry
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0571209920
• ISBN 13: 9780571209927
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192