Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now

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Paul McCartney:
Many Years from Now
LC Class
ML410.M115 M55 1997

Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now is a 1997

Secker & Warburg
.

Background and content

McCartney and Miles began working on the project shortly after McCartney's 1989–90 world tour.[1] According to Miles, the "core" of the book resulted from 35 taped interviews held between 1991 and 1996.[2]

So I'll give you it as I remember it, but I do admit, my thing does move around, jumps around a lot. But the nice thing is, we don't have to be too faithful, because that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a sequence of things that did all happen within a period. So it's my recollection of then …[2]

– Paul McCartney

Irked at the reverence afforded

the Beatles' break-up in 1970.[8]

According to author

Beatles Anthology project.[10] The publication was further delayed due to his wife Linda McCartney's deteriorating condition after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in late 1995.[11]

Publication

Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now was first published in the United Kingdom on 2 October 1997 by

Secker & Warburg.[12] McCartney promoted it on 12 October during an interview with Michael Parkinson on the BBC Radio 2 show Parkinson's Sunday Supplement.[13]

The book became a bestseller.[14] Its popularity came at the end of a year of considerable professional success for McCartney, following his knighthood in January and the favourable response afforded his album Flaming Pie.[15]

Reception

Contemporary perspectives

Many Years from Now attracted criticism from some readers for its focus on songwriting credits and McCartney's attribution of percentages to determine the extent of his and Lennon's respective authorship of a Lennon–McCartney composition.

Mozart.[18][19]

The book was the apotheosis of the theme that McCartney had introduced a full decade earlier: he was the original avant-garde Beatle. Here was all the evidence to prove the point, but presented in such a defensive way that it begged criticism from those who felt that he ought to let history run its course and the facts speak for themselves.[9]

Rob Blackhurst of The Independent saw the memoir as part of McCartney's "full-scale attempt at historical revisionism"; he identified "sanctimonious justifications and sideswipes at Lennon" throughout the text, which, he said, portrayed McCartney as "a man extremely sensitive to criticism". Blackhurst regretted that Miles "exacerbates this distasteful trait in his subject by inserting his own mindless jibes" and found the tone both contrary to the "warmth and great personal integrity" McCartney displayed when discussing family, and unnecessary, given that the former Beatle had already won a newfound respect from contemporary listeners in the 1990s.[20]

According to author and music critic

Yesterday", came from Rolling Stone contributing editor Mim Udovitch, who wrote: "[He] makes you want to sit down and write him a letter saying, 'Dear Sir Paul: Anybody who really knows recognizes that without your superb musicianship, the Beatles could not have been. You are fully a co-genius with the late John Lennon. Now please relax.'"[21]

Conversely, Beatles biographer

Revolution in the Head.[22][nb 1]

Reviewing for

Amazon.com, Entertainment Weekly critic Tim Appelo wrote: "This book is even better than A Hard Day's Write: The Stories Behind Every Beatles' Song and Revolution in the Head. Here is the last word on the Beatles, inevitably slanted toward McCartney but generally more convincing than Lennon's own recollections."[24] Writing in People magazine, Peter Ames Carlin described it as "A must-read for anyone interested in the Beatles, the '60s, for that matter, modern culture itself."[24]

Retrospective assessment

Among more recent assessments, Rolling Stone placed the book seventh on its 2012 list of "The 25 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time". The magazine's editors noted the controversy caused by some of McCartney's recollections and added: "But on the page, as well as in song, his voice overflows with wit and affection. And he did less to fuck up his good luck than any rock star who ever existed, which might be why his memories make such marvelous company."[16] In his overview of the most popular Beatles books, for Rough Guides, Chris Ingham writes: "McCartney virtually apologises before he starts – 'lest it be seen that I'm now trying to do my own kind of revisionism' – and then proceeds with 600 pages of what should have been called My Own Kind of Revisionism."[25] Ingham concedes that the text contains "fascinating detail" but he finds the adoption of songwriting percentages "faintly embarrassing" and "desperate", and similarly bemoans McCartney's "'I was the cool one really' justifications".[26] In a 2012 article titled "The best books on the Beatles", for The Guardian, John Harris described Many Years from Now as "a transparent response to the posthumous Lennon industry" and he said that due to McCartney's "voluminous input", the book was "more like a memoir, and a brittle one at that" rather than a biography.[27]

New Zealand Herald critic Graham Reid describes Many Years from Now as "a fascinating, if skewed and somewhat frustrating book" with minimal acknowledgement of Harrison and with Starr "again the invisible man". Reid laments the scarcity of information regarding McCartney's post-Beatles career and concludes of the book: "At its worst, it feels disingenuous and uncharitable, and yes, revisionist. But at its most enlightening – the songwriting, details of his London life – this is an unexpectedly revealing account of the most interesting years in a most interesting life."[8]

Notes

  1. ^ In turn, Miles lists Revolution in the Head as one of the three "key books" he used as source material for Many Years from Now, and recognises its "many valuable insights" into the Beatles' music.[23]

References

  1. ^ Sounes, pp. 419, 428.
  2. ^ a b Miles, p. xiii.
  3. ^ Doggett, p. 291.
  4. ^ Ingham, p. 112.
  5. ^ Doggett, pp. 291–92, 325.
  6. Salon. Archived from the original
    on 2012-04-21. Retrieved 10 January 2016.
  7. ^ a b Sounes, p. 419.
  8. ^
    Elsewhere
    , 4 March 2008 (retrieved 5 January 2016).
  9. ^ a b c Doggett, pp. 325–26.
  10. ^ Sounes, pp. 452–53.
  11. ^ Doggett, pp. 322, 325.
  12. ^ Badman, p. 576.
  13. ^ Badman, p. 577.
  14. ^ "Miles", Rock's Backpages (retrieved 5 January 2016).
  15. ^ Doggett, pp. 324–25.
  16. ^ a b Rob Sheffield, "Paul McCartney: 'Many Years From Now' (1997) – The 25 Greatest Rock Memoirs of All Time", Rolling Stone, 13 August 2012 (retrieved 5 January 2016).
  17. ^ Badman, p. 585.
  18. ^ Doggett, p. 325.
  19. ^ Badman, pp. 585–86.
  20. ^ Rob Blackhurst, "Book Review: Many Years From Now (1997)", barrymiles.co.uk (retrieved 5 January 2016).
  21. ^ Riley, p. 391.
  22. ^ MacDonald, pp. xi–xii.
  23. ^ Miles, p. 621.
  24. ^
    Amazon
    (retrieved 8 January 2016).
  25. ^ Ingham, p. 283.
  26. ^ Ingham, pp. 112, 283.
  27. ^ Harris, John (26 September 2012). "The best books on the Beatles". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2016-04-23. Retrieved 15 May 2018.
  28. ^ Doggett, pp. 325, 326.

Sources

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