Building off his bestselling book, ‘The Lyrics,’ the Pushkin and iHeartPodcasts production will arrive this summer
Paul McCartney will reveal the stories behind some of his best-known songs, from his work in the Beatles and Wings through his solo career, on a new podcast, McCartney: A Life in Lyrics. Each episode will find him focusing on a single song — including “Eleanor Rigby,” “Let It Be,” and “Live and Let Die,” among others in the first season — in discussion with poet Paul Muldoon, who wrote the foreword to McCartney’s bestselling book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present.
All 12 of the first season’s episodes will be available to stream at once with a Pushkin+ membership when it premieres on Sept. 20. Otherwise, fans can start listening to the first episode via iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify, and other podcast platforms that day. A new episode will come out every week.
“I wanted to become a person who wrote songs and wanted to be someone whose life was in music,” McCartney says in a trailer for the podcast. In the clip, Muldoon explains how, over several years of picking apart McCartney’s words with McCartney himself, they realized that the book, The Lyrics, could double as an autobiography since some of the songs drew from themes that dated back to the songwriter’s childhood. “It was like going back to an old snapshot album, looking back on work I haven’t thought much about for quite a few years,” McCartney says.
In addition to the songs above, Season One of the podcast will feature episodes about “Back in the USSR,” “When Winter Comes,” “Penny Lane,” “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” “Here Today,” “Magical Mystery Tour,” “Jenny Wren,” “Too Many People,” and “Helter Skelter.” Season Two will come out in February and will focus on 12 more songs.
“When we listened back to the tapes, we realized there was something very special happening in these conversations,” Muldoon said in the podcast’s prologue. “It was McCartney unfiltered.”
In addition to the podcast, McCartney will fulfill his dream of being a paperback writer this fall when The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present arrives in softcover. The book will include bonus commentary that didn’t make it into the original edition about “Bluebird,” “Day Tripper,” “English Tea,” “Every Night,” “Hello Goodbye,” “Magical Mystery Tour,” and “Step Inside Love.” The paperback arrives Nov. 7.