Customer Reviews

Paul McCartney: A Life

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Hardcover,340 pages of text,not including title page,contents,notes,etc. The paper stock and type face make this an easy to read book. There are eight pages of black and white photographs,which include THE BEATLES in Germany and elsewhere,WINGS,and even a shot of McCartney and Heather Mills showing their mutual affection for each other.

Yes,this is yet another biography of Paul McCartney. However,this book,thanks to author Peter Ames Carlin,takes the reader in a slightly different direction. This author was able to weave and juxtapose McCartney's life,with his human foibles,into his music making to a degree that hasn't been done previously. The author interviewed a number of McCartney's friends,associates,and bandmates,throughout McCartney's (now) long life,and has collected his findings into a crisp,clean,well written book.

Starting with McCartney's early life,which has been written about extensively (yet somewhat academically),we begin to catch a glimmer of how McCartney,the person,came to view both work and music (which eventually became one and the same),and life (especially with his late wife Linda),giving room especially to his later years when he was a "solo" (sans BEATLES) artist. This approach is both very refreshing and makes for rewarding reading. The writing style is crisp and on target. Along the way there are insights into the human side of McCartney and his view of the world,business and music-making. The author's writing style is fresh and invigorating-this isn't just another dull rehash of facts we've all read before. This book gives insight into why McCartney still matters to many listeners today. While there are no real startling observations,the reader will come away with a newer,perhaps better understanding of Paul McCartney the man,and the musician-and how the man and the music are inseparable.

There's been so much written about this band I really thought this guy would labor to bring his post beatle career to life. And I certainly thought--because the beatle's recording engineer wrote a great book a couple of years back, Geoff Emerick, "Here, There, and Everywhere"--I certainly thought because of important revelations in that book that this guy would go to some lengths to give McCartney his real due, which is that from Rubber Soul through Mystery Tour he was basically the Beatles arranger/producer and George Martin just dropped in occasionally to see if Paul needed anything.

You see, the thing a lot of people don't really consciously register about the Beatles is that--well,of course they had the fantastic song writing team. The Beatles had two songwriting geniuses, people who say it was just one or the other are ridiculous because if they'd only had one they would have looked much more like the Beach Boys, who had one. The Beatles had two, which is why we're still talking about them.

But they had something else, too. If you'll indulge me a short anecdote to illustrate.

In about 1982 I was lying alone in my apartment in the dark listening to a radio interview with Nelson Riddle, the music arranger who was a legend in the music business--he worked with nat king cole, with Frank Sinatra (for crying out loud), etc. At the end of the interview they asked him if there were any MUSIC ARRANGING GENIUSES working in the music business at that moment. He had a one-word answer: "Wings."

My point is that not only did the fabs have the writing team, they had a genius arranger/producer in paul McCartney. I remember arguing this years ago to a professional songwriter from Nashville and he interrupted me to say, "You're arguing the obvious--no one in the music business would deny that--"

I expected this point to be made and illustrated in this book but it wasn't. Just the same old crap: "Paul didn't pay the musicians enough. He argued with John. Linda had a baby." I expected more. This has all been done and done and done.

He did mention Lennon's "Come Together" was just a chuck berry style rocker until paul got hold of it, slowed it way down, invented the bass lick, invented the "shoom" sound on the mic, invented the drum part and wrote the electric piano solo which he then taught to Lennon. Listen, there were a LOT of songs lennon brought in that went like that. Geoff Emerick said McCartney regularly had a huge impact on Lennon songs but rarely did it work the other way around. Next time you listen to a lennon song like "Sexy Sadie" or "Cry Baby" from the White Album ask yourself how much those un-be-lievable arrangements contribute. Those are truly great songs but just listen to the artistry of those freaking arrangements--how the different instruments compliment each other like a little symphony, how they work together to express unified musical ideas. Then listen to Band on the Run and then listen to any solo lennon album and tell me who you think took that Beatle sound with them when they went their separate ways.

I also really appreciated him pointing out something I'd known quite a while--that McCartney basically taught john and george how to play guitar, he even had to teach lennon how to tune one.

I was also fascinated that mcCartney even as almost a child would not just play you a song but "give a performance" and when he played for boy scouts at camp, even if it was an audience of two hundred, it didn't phase him.

As a songwriter he was not really any better than Lennon but in every other category he dwarfed everyone around him. He was in many ways the heart and soul of the Beatles. I've long said his big mistake was that if he wanted to be the pretty one he damn sure shouldn't have been the most talented one. That's really what so many people had against him back in that era, he couldn't be the main one cause he was so obviously the pretty boy. Well, he was the main one. Maybe not fair but true.

The bottom line is if you've read more than one other book about Mr. McCartney you are probably going to find this a fairly entertaining rehash. The definitive book about him waits to be written. (Actually the one by Geoff Emerick was far superior to this because he had so much new to add and I appreciate it).

Lastly, I just read this book sitting on a plane and couldn't believe he gave a song-by-song description of the album Abbey Road. Is there anyone above the age of twelve in North America who hasn't heard Abbey Road? Do we really need to read a description of something even my seventeen year old daughter knows backwards and forwards? This sounds bitchy but it really struck me as almost filler. Tell me something I DON'T know, please. Thankyou for your attention.

P.S. I've been a fan of theirs since the first downbeat on ed sullivan and I NEVER liked paul more than john or john more than paul--i was always a total fan of both and totally in awe of their band. I even loved george and ringo.

This little masterwork is a great introduction to and portrait of "the cute Beatle". In the book, the image of McCartney veers between hardworking genius driven by a desire for fame and fortune and slacking bon vivant given to superficial efforts and some fairly predictable human weaknesses. The ample notes section at the back reveals that Carlin has done his homework. As someone who has read a fair share of Beatles' history, I found the book tells old tales well, mines some new territory (particularly in the area of Paul's business sense), and does real justice to the Paul vs. John debate. While clearly somewhat enamored of his subject, Carlin isn't afraid to call McCartney for slip ups on or off the stage. Best of all, Carlin has built off his previous success with the Brian Wilson biography by writing with great style about music. The specific chords, lyrics and riffs you've heard your whole life are put instantly into context under Carlin's hand. The descriptions of various concerts and studio sessions give you a real sense of being there.

Carlin's biography seeks to debunk the well-worn argument, first aired in Phillip Norman's "Shout" in 1981, that John Lennon was the guiding intellectual force and true talent behind the Beatles. In this retelling, McCartney comes off as the group's impresario. Combining an innate musical genius with an insatisable will, McCartney takes Lennon's rather ragtag little skiffle group and gradually shapes them into the cultural powerhouse that they would become. Although Carlin is careful to insist on Lennon and McCartney's creative partnership, his discussion of it is hackneyed and cliched-ridden. Lennon, in Carlin's view, was quite undisciplined while McCartney was the one who first and consistently kept his ear tuned to the avant-garde and other musical innovations.

The book is most effective when discussing the reasons for McCartney's driven persona: the experience of his mother's loss (at 14, he was four years younger than Lennon was at his mother's death) and the trauma he experienced over the Beatles' break-up, Lennon's murder, and the death of his wife, Linda. McCartney's best music, in Carlin's view, emerges from his deeply-felt need to find solace and comfort in the midst of tragedy: "take a sad song and make it better," "let it be."

Although generally sympathetic, Carlin does underline how McCartney's increasingly martinet approach in the studio helped to sow the bad feelings that led to the group's break-up. More interestingly, he argues that this helps to explain his post-Beatles band Wings's continually shifting line-up and the frequently hard feelings he provokes in former associates. I wish that Carlin had devoted more time to the post-Beatles years - a far less well known history than the by-now liturgical recitation of the Beatles' career - and I think by trying to give McCartney his (over-)due, he diminishes Lennon's contributions to the band overmuch. Nonetheless, this is an entertaining read that tries hard to grapple with an icon who's been much maligned, much loved but not very well understood.

This book is pretty Anti-Paul if you ask me. The author paints McCartney in a pretty bad light through much of it and it seems to really get a lot of input from former associates of Paul's, some of them with an obvious axe to grind. As an example, first Wings guitarist- Henry McCullough (sp).

According to the author, Henry really hated the fact that McCartney wanted Henry to play things the same each time in the studio by the numbers, but Henry wanted to improvise more. This might be the case, but if you're recording and the music is written by a writer with Paul's reputation, the writer has a right to get what he wants out of the recorded performance. It's HIS vision, not Henry's that's being realized. Also, ANYONE that's listened to the early bootlegs of Wings college shows knows that Henry was not great at improvisation, at least with those early shows. There were times when you could tell that alcohol was the 6th Wings member and Henry's solos would go extremely out of key and out of the pocket. To listen to "Henry's Blues" from those boots is an exercise in patience. As an author, it's good to note that this bugged Henry. But man, listen to the performances and maybe you can see where Paul was coming from by wanting Henry to stick to the format. Of COURSE he'd want things to be the same. Bless Henry, he's a great player for sure, but during that period, things were not tight and Paul, as a band leader had the job of reigning it in. Seems that rather than just take Henry's word on it, the author might've wanted to research what was coming out of Henry's amp at the time.

There were similar quotes from Dave Spinoza. Hey Dave, it's Paul's music, he's paying for the studio, and the musicians. He SHOULD be able to say "Yo Dave, please play it like this. I know what I'm after.". The author just makes it sound like Paul was a dictator just to be a jerk. Hardly. The guy is a musical genius and if Paul says "Hey, don't play here" then don't. Why does this make McCartney a bad guy?

Same with Elvis Costello. Paul didn't want the stuff he wrote with Elvis to be roughly recorded. Paul, at that time wasn't into that. So what? Elvis Costello is gonna argue Paul MF McCartney? SERIOUS?

There are also a lot of errors in it and things that were repeated in other, less-than-accurate books on McCartney. As an example, The Beatles did NOT helicopter into Shea stadium or out of it. If you've seen the Shea film, you know this. If you've read other books on them, you also know this. Small point, but there are a lot of these kinds of things in the book that the author would pass on as facts that simply are not.

Most of the book is about "Beatle Paul" even though that was only a period of about 12 years (8 years after The Beatles "made it" in 62 and a few years prior). The Wings stuff is a very tiny portion of the book as is the after-Wings stuff. Granted, it could be argued that people don't want to read about those years (wrong) but still, it should've been more balanced time-wise. The Wings years were pretty good years for McCartney and that should be acknowledged. While the other 3 Beatles did what they were doing, Paul made a complete new career for himself and the guy was way successful at it. The fact that he's 68 and still going strong is a testament to that.

The author wastes no time in putting down a lot of McCartney's work too and seems to really get on him because he is a guy that likes to try anything. So what if he paints. I'm sure Paul doesn't think he's the next Davinci, yet the author would have you believe that Paul sees himself in a similar light.

The facts are that McCartney was always a driven guy. He tried a ton of new things and branched out into things the other guys didn't do. Why is that a bad thing? As an example, the Liverpool Oratorio. Okay, so Paul tried his hand at classical composing and did an adequate job. Yet the author seems to hang things on the fact that it did so well simply out of Paul's name recognition. That could be true I suppose, but to print that as fact seems pretty biased. It was a successful endeavor for him. So much so, that he did another one after it.

Just seemed like the author just really wanted to put McCartney's work down, without really going into it too much. One thing that I did notice that the author kind of pointed out- each time Paul lost someone key in his life, he WOULD do things that were great very soon afterward. I hadn't noticed that before and that was a bit of a revelation.

Take this from the book:
"Paul preferred to portray himself walking in light, bathed in the devotion of the fans who paid premium rates to see his face, to hear his voice, to feel the spirit of the music that had defined or even changed their lives. This is what Paul felt as he traveled the world..."

How the heck does the author know WHAT McCartney preferred?? Paul was certainly not interviewed for the book.

If you liked the books by Albert Goldman and Geoffrey Giuliano- you'll probably like this one as well. For me, it seemed pretty biased.

Hey Beatles fans, Macca fans, and yes, you diehard Lennon fans, this is an important, well-written book worth picking up. Concise, perceptive, thought-provoking and at times quite funny, Peter Carlin gives us an excellent read as well as intimate insight into one of our most beloved cultural icons.

Some things that impressed me most:

- I didn't expect to learn anything new from the Beatles era (especially after reading Bob Spitz's book as well as Tim Riley's), but by recasting so many events through Paul's eyes, a significant dimension has been added. I think that's a remarkable feat, especially considering how much has already been written about that time.

- Without trying to draw conclusions where none really could be drawn, this book illuminates Paul's contradictions without simplifying or over-analyzing them. He is a complex man, and probably still is a mystery to himself at times. His life 'arc' is more complicated than John's, and not just because he's still alive and making music. Paul was raised to work hard, keep his chin up, and put the bad stuff behind him (admittedly, this not always the best long-term approach). Peter Carlin does a great job of threading Paul's father's lessons throughout the book to remind us what propels him forward, as well as what impulses sometimes hold him back.

- As always, this book keeps it focused on the music. Where other Beatles-related bios can get bogged down in endless pages about the bickering, fighting, and petty B.S., this tale primarily focused on how these relate (when/if at all) to the songs we know and love. I think Paul would approve of that.

I ate this book like a Boston cream pie. We've been staring in the rear view mirror so long at the Beatles we've almost completely lost the past, replaced now by a boundless present, the soft blur of time knocking the edges off the Beatles and the Rolling Stones alike. Close your eyes (and I'll kiss you), if you're at least 55 years old, and remember what it felt like to hear the Beatles for the first time!

Carlin comes as close as any writer to setting the scene in sparing but often powerful and poignant prose the wonder and thrill of hearing I want to Hold Your Hand for the first time, and reconstructing the Humpty-Dumpty roly-poly grail of rock and roll history - what actually happened with the Four - that can never be put back together again, at least from Paul's perspective, and he does it without Paul's input, apparently.

Two books in two years, Norman's John Lennon: THE Life in 2008, and Carlin's Paul McCartney: A Life this year, couldn't be more different and yet they oddly achieve the same goal, one kicking over rock after rock like a spell-binding CSI episode, and the other in a song of its own, as told around a campfire. Both are very well written and very worth reading for those who want to remember or for those who never knew.

As Peter Ames Carlin makes perfectly clear in his book, Paul McCartney: A life, I was responsible for the Beatle's breakup long ago in the hell-war-wonder years of 1970. Really. Yes, ME and a billion others just like me who couldn't dig up the manners to just say, "Hey, Boys, thanks for the ride. Thanks for everything on the long and winding road," and then just got on with life. It was just so beyond possible that these four-in-one ended badly in the very messy 1970. Together they would rock my universe from Meet the Beatles in 1964 ever after (right down to singing every song from every album to my young wife as we lay on our bed in our rented former gas station shortly after we married in Santa Fe). It was a long night, saying goodbye to England (where I traveled often after Tolkien's magic and Lennon-McCartney's mojo) and to the Beatles and hello to my new life. Plus I can't sing. But I can sing Beatles' lyrics, maybe better than Paul or Ringo who can't seem to remember all the words anymore.

A few years ago I took Audrey to one of those Plastic Beatles shows where that magic happens when you suddenly realize it doesn't matter that the band not only isn't the Beatles but weren't even born when the Beatles cut their last record, and the songs and music just carry you back and it's 1964 all over again and everyone is singing so loud and even the little kids know the songs.

I had just finished Norman's monumental work , and I was excited to see Carlin's book come out right on Norman's heels, and even hoping someone would do the same for George and Ringo before the decade is out. But I was also suspicious because I was never at ease about who was who in the band, and how it all worked, and who screwed it up (because, CLEARLY, I was NOT ready for the Beatles to end it, so someone screwed it up). I suspected Yoko and Linda of course, but I really deep down felt one of the four was to blame. Turns out they all were, Paul least of all. I knew I was wrong and I even suspected I was wrong for the same reasons - I was growing and moving on and so were the four guys who formed a band and had a laugh that turned into a tour through the Looking Glass that never ends.

Carlin, not the first to do so, weaves the tale once again in compelling prose, a storyteller really, a late night in the flickering darkness remembering what actually happened, at least as far as anyone can recall through the haze of almost 40 years. The acrid smell of hash and mota is gone, the fear/desire of LSD long forgotten, and the story weaves on, a tapestry of beautiful minds and remarkable human beings growing up together from children to adults and then stepping out into their own wide open spaces, nothing out of the ordinary, really, except for how unbelievably extraordinary it all was.

Carlin's book is well worth the 24 hours pretty much non-stop it takes to read the 340 pages plus notes, if only to see the past less darkly, to remember things worth remembering, and to bury things best forgotten. In the end, it mattered that the Beatles did what they did, "world-bending" music/ideas/glory that informed the rest of time, our time. At least three generations and now four have risen in the glow of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, or were there, the kids knowing the Beatles chops as well as their great grands did, and modern music to this day branches from the Beatles tree in the sense that they grew a new musical bean stalk in the sky with diamonds that freed generations of musicians and fans to do whatever they pleased, and whatever moved them and us (Paul had the idea to do what Dave Matthews and Creed and doing now, showing their "live" concerts in theaters for short runs and big money).

Carlin makes the case that McCartney was the "mother" in a dysfunctional and otherworldly talented family in which John was the "ne're do well father," George the rebellious older child fighting for a place at the table, and Ringo the youngest with his "model airplane" just doing what the family did. Of course it's impossible to accept any book about the life of one Beatle without the counterpoint view of the other Beatles, but Carlin includes just enough of the other three to help us keep them in some perspective. In that sense this is a very good bio of the Beatles, which may increase our understanding in time as more people who were "there" (fans and readers included) have time to reflect and tell the kids and the prescient how it really was.

Paul's driving desire to grow and develop, personally, professionally, and with his band, and his short fall from grace after the breakup, is balanced by his growth as a human being, a rather plain, often brilliant, often gracious man who loves his family and does his best to carry on after hitting heights not attained before or since by any group of musicians, probably not by human beings. It is no surprise that he was never again as good alone as he and Lennon and Harrison and Starr were together. None of them could be. None of us could be.

I realized that though I felt the buzz of Paul's work in the background, and though a few worthy things broke out here and there, I can't really tell you too much about what he did in the years after 1970, until the Concert for George in 2003, at least, or maybe the middle 90s when he woke up and started playing what we dang well wanted to hear, which was not Wings.

The truth is Sir Paul has carried on with his share of ups and downs, living the best way he can, knowing that at the age of 20-27 or so, he landed on the Moon, or maybe much deeper space, in places no humans had ever been before, and that nothing he could possibly do after that would ever be as magical or as important. An early astronaut who stepped famously on the moon dust in 1969 advised those who do something similar, if that's possible, to remember where they are on the stage when the lights go out, because you have to find your way off the stage alone, such being the nature of fame. Paul felt the lights go out, just as they all did, and just as they all did, he got up and carried on after awhile because "God loves a trier," as his Dad and Grandpa would say.

The lights never really went out for any of the Beatles. Ringo's time as the train conductor was fitting and even admirable. Though Carlin and others marginalize his role, the public understands that Ringo was the Rodney King of the Beatles, and, in the end, the kindly old witness who smoothes the collective frosting on the cake so everybody has a good time, oh yeah. George's wonderful self discovery and rise as a human being of great spiritual power made sense and was so inspiring. He never missed a beat on his way out the door, amassing the most credible post-Beatles repertoire (because most of his prolific output of (often Lennon-McCartney assisted) Beatles songs were never allowed out of the house until after the break. George became the servant leader of his peers through one thoughtful and prophetic move after another (and incredibly fortunate husband of the stunning Olivia, parents of the nearly perfect Dahni) beginning with his double album and Bangladesh and ending with the Traveling Wilbury's. John's brief passionate life with his family, the family he always wanted, left him a martyr forever captive in our minds, forever leaving us to wonder what might have been. Yoko more than credibly carried on and deserves far more credit for the afterword than she will ever achieve.

Paul, for good or ill (Ringo, too), is not shielded by death from our continuing gaze, thank heavens. As he grows older he grows closer to the beginning and continues to inspire us with the magic that he brought us so long ago, now again the "Golden Beatle," playing that impossibly good music, all of it, almost like old times. Carlin tells his story with grace and love and at just the right remove, and his tale is a tale worth hearing, told by a talented writer with just the right bits of intelligence, information and analysis to let us believe that we are hearing it for the very first time once again...yeah, yeah, yeah.

I checked this book out from a local public library (take THAT, recession!) and read it in about two evenings. I am a solid Beatles fan. I don't have a favorite. I've read quite a few Beatles biographies. This one was so-so. Maybe it's because I've read so many of the others that much of the early material wasn't fresh, and the latter material (1st solo album, RAM, The Wings material, etc, Linda, Heather, "Give My Regards To Broad Street" stuff seemed like a gloss. Maybe I'm being too tough on it, but my first reaction was, "reads like a puff piece." Not that he should have dug up skeletons or some such, but I expected more than a hagiography. That's my story. Your mileage may vary.

I think it is because I read John Lennon: The Life (Philip Norman) BEFORE reading this Paul book that makes me feel the way I do about the book. This biography seems very spacey to me; it doesn't go into nearly as much detail as I'd hoped (and you think it would be easier to do that since he is still alive and can give nitty gritty details himself). I feel like you're just skimming the surface of Paul's life but never getting the "full story." Although I truly admire the guy, Paul is made out to be a hero and John is clearly made out to be the pessimistic villian. George & Ringo are barely mentioned.

If you really want a detailed, well written, tell-all Beatle biography, read Philip Norman's John Lennon: The Life. The difference I see between the two authors is that Norman will literally tell EVERY detail of Lennon's life - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Never does he make him out to be a hero, a villian, or somewhere in between - he just tells you like it is. A must read! But as far as Paul McCartney: A Life, I'd skip it.

Just finished Carlin's "Paul McCartney: A Life." As a huge McCartney/Beatles fan who has read - dare I say - every major book on The Beatles and McCartney starting with Hunter Davies on up to McCartney's official "Many Years From Now" bio - I believe Carlin has done the best job of anyone in capturing the real Sir Paul. Carlin gives some great insights into McCartney's character - and a remarkably complex one it is. Make no mistake: I view Paul as the most talented writer, singer, musician and performer of our time. But although he is the ultimate living legend, he is also as human as any of us and Carlin captures the man better than anyone else has. If I had to choose one book that let's you get to know Paul McCartney this would be it.