Paul McCartney: The Lyrics

Lovely exhibition at the British Library of handwritten lyrics by Paul McCartney from his personal archive.

The show marked the launch of the massive book on the lyrics and each sheet was shown with commentaries written by McCartney alongside some rarely seen photographs. I was interested to see him acknowledging the role of his father’s Liverpool wit and way with words which you can see feed into his work.

It was wonderful to see George Martin’s  score for Yesterday signed by Paul, John Lennon and Mozart! My favourite lyric here was “Here There and Everywhere” written in two colours of ink and giving a sense of it growing. Looking at “Changing my life with a wave of the hand” is so simple it feels unwritten.

Closed 13 March 2022

 

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