Since joining the Quarrymen in 1957, Paul McCartney has rarely been idle. He shakes timeless love songs from his sleeve with the ease of others catching air. He plays rock and roll with a raw sexual energy and aggression rarely found outside prison. The Queen of England thinks he's wonderful, but even the most ardent avant-garde fans admit that his music can be strange. He's tried almost every genre, from nursery rhymes to classical, and his stylistic range is probably rivaled only by Picasso. If the greatness of entertainment is in giving people what they want, and the greatness of art is in giving us what we never knew we wanted, then the greatness of Paul McCartney is in doing both.
Paul Du Noyer is a music journalist who has written about and for McCartney. The book is based on interviews between the two over a period of 35 years, and contains many of McCartney's own honest thoughts, alongside Du Noyer's observations and research.