Tag Archives: Book

New Lennon/Plastic Ono Band Zoetrope, and More Dark Horse

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There’s been a further development in the green vinyl ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ 7″ single release announced a few weeks back…..

It all seems timed to coincide with the release of a new children’s book, which in turn is adapted from the Academy Award winning animated short film of the same name that Sean Ono Lennon was involved in…….

Anyways, on the official John Lennon store site they’ve just announced a very special 12″ Zoetrope disc featuring the songs ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over) (Ultimate Mix)’ and ‘Listen, The Snow Is Falling (Ultimate Mix)’ on side one, and on side two ‘War Pigeon/A Game Of Chess/A Sudden Interruption/Then Peace’, from the soundtrack to the War Is Over! animated film, composed by Thomas Newman (who has done everything from The Shawshank Redemption to Finding Nemo, two Bond films Skyfall and Spectre, to 1917 and Elemental). Suffice it to say he is up there with the best! This is the first time soundtrack music from War Is Over! has been available on a physical format.

The 12” Zoetrope picture disc is designed by Drew Tetz using still frames from the film, and features (on the front outer title sticker) an illustration by Max Narciso from the children’s book adaptation.

The disc is 180g and cut at 45rpm, and comes in a PVC clear sleeve with a title sticker featuring the credits.

It looks very cool and is set to become a definite collectors item.

Meanwhile, the team at Dark Horse Records has announced yet another pre-Christmas release. This is in addition to the three titles announced for Black Friday Record Store Day.

It’s another Yusuf/Cat Stevens back-catalogue title Tell ‘Em I’m Gone, and it will be on yellow vinyl:

The album was produced by Rick Rubin and sees Yusuf exploring some of his bluesier influences, tapping into musical traditions that have informed his own work. Fans of Cat Stevens will know that Leadbelly has always been one of his favourite artists and alongside the album’s original compositions Tell ‘Em I’m Gone contains covers of songs dear to him such as Edgar Winter’s ‘Dying To Live’, Luther Dixon/Al Smith’s ‘Big Boss Man’, and a bluesy reworking of the Jimmie Davies/Charles Mitchell song ‘You Are My Sunshine’. Interesting stuff. The album is available for pre-sale now and is released on December 5.


Wings Book – Super Deluxe Edition Announced

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Liveright Books has just announced a special numbered, limited edition of Wings: The Story of a Band On The Run, signed by Paul McCartney. There will be 175 copies available for the US market, and 175 copies for the UK market.

These limited signed edition books are packaged in a deluxe cloth case featuring screen printing, including a 24-page full-colour bound-in booklet of Wings-era album and singles cover artwork (front and back). They also include an exclusive colour vinyl 1 LP (with unique labels) of the forthcoming Wings: The Definitive Collection release. There’s also a special enamel pin and a blue and white embroidered patch.

Each copy will be numbered and signed by Paul McCartney.

On sale from November 25, they’re available now for pre-order (if you can find one). The limited edition has a RRP of £2500 or US$4,000.

This is a lot of money, but they will sell out and become genuine collector’s items for sure.

As has become usual with these limited McCartney book releases various retailers undertake a variety of promotional activities to entice you to secure a copy – and they probably only get one copy each. This bookshop is asking you to enter a competition just to win the right to BUY the only copy they have for sale!

Check out this link for a full list of all US participating bookseller locations.

In Britain it’s the same. For example, the big Waterstones chain there is offering a chance to win the limited edition version in a prize draw. The competition is open to all customers who order the standard hardback online from them.

Meanwhile, here in Australia this record store has this super deluxe edition for sale at an incredible AUD$24,999.00. That’s around US$16,315.00, or £12,397.00 British Pounds, or €14,094.00 Euros. Blimey!

Liveright also published special deluxe editions of McCartney’s two previous books, 1964: Eyes of the Storm; and The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present.

McCartney ‘The Lyrics’ – How Many Translations?

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While looking around the web shopping for Paul McCartney’s fabulous new book The Lyrics, we stumbled across a couple of different translations, and it got us wondering how many countries were getting versions of the book in their own language?

There are of course two main English editions. The two most common of these are the US edition in the green outer box:

And there’s the UK edition – which has exactly the same content as the US, but externally is quite different in design:

Also worthy of mention is a third English language version of the book: the Limited Edition. This one is actually signed by Sir Paul. There have reportedly been just 175 copies made available worldwide, though as one reader points out there have been two different signed books with the number #95 sold on eBay. Each had a different publishing logo, raising doubt on the accuracy of “175 worldwide”. Maybe it is 175 in the US, and 175 in the UK. Either way, it comes in a distinctive bright orange box with blue lettering. The design inside is quite unique too – including the two volumes inside which are also in that distinctive orange binding:

Then we get onto the translations, and those we’ve been able to uncover (to date) all seem to have the same outer box and book binding as the US green version above.

Here is the German:

And the Dutch language edition:

Next up is the Spanish:

And close by (in terms of geography) there is the Portuguese:

There is a French language edition too, and it seems to come with an outer box re-design as well:

The Italian translation has only just been released (9 November). There aren’t any great images of how it is packaged yet – but we’ve asked one of the translators and can confirm that this is the cover:

As you can see, like the French edition, the Italians have gone for a white outer box. The translation has been done by Franco Zanetti and Luca Parasi, who is author of the highly regarded Paul McCartney reference book Recording Sessions (1969-2013).

A further confirmation that this is the way the Italian edition is presented are the images in this advertisement that the publishers, Rizzoli Libri, was running on Amazon:

And finally, two unexpected translations – one in Finnish:

And the other in Swedish (thanks to reader Ole for sending this one in). Interesting that the front covers of the two books inside appear to have the images and super-imposed lyrics used for the rear covers of the books in the rest of the world:

Is that all? Do you know of any others?

Let us know using the ‘Leave a Reply’ link below if you have any updates and we’ll publish them here.

Listen to McCartney Read from “The Lyrics”

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If you’re keen on hearing Paul McCartney actually reading from his new book The Lyrics, then you’ll be interested to learn that BBC Sounds in the UK has produced a short audio series called Paul McCartney: Inside the Songs.

The series features ten audio extracts from The Lyrics book, with the author himself reading aloud 10 of the entries.

Check out the Introduction here:

Then, follow the links here to listen to all ten episodes. They include songs like ‘All My Loving’, ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Got to Get You into My Life’, right up to ‘Pretty Boys’ from last year’s McCartney III album.

The Lyrics spans McCartney’s career writing popular music from 1956 to the present. In it he talks about his life and song-writing through the prism of 154 key lyrics.

Host of Inside the Songs, John Wilson, also interviewed Paul McCartney extensively for an episode of the BBC series This Cultural Life. You can hear that interview in full here (or just click on the image below):

Inspiration for McCartney’s ‘The Kiss of Venus’

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Speaking of books, here’s the little one that Paul McCartney referenced as part of the inspiration for his song ‘The Kiss of Venus’, found on the recently-released McCartney III.

“I had a cool little book Jools Holland’s wife had given me, kind of an astrology book, all about the planets and the movements and the fantastic synchronicity of it all. A fascinating book, actually, when the planets go through all the little things, if you look at a graph, as it were, of them all, it like makes a lotus. It’s trippy. There was some great little phrases – “the kiss of Venus” was one of them. So I was loving that book and I was making up a song about that, but that was an instance of forcing myself to write. And I felt good after it. I thought, ‘Yeah that’s a pretty good little song.’ I haven’t had time to record it, but I will.”

It is indeed a lovely little paperback by John Martineau called A Little Book of Coincidence in the Solar System, which examines geometry and harmony in the universe and yes, there is a chapter entitled The Kiss of Venus.

Martineau is the publisher and editor of the award-winning Wooden Books pocket liberal arts series, which has been translated into 20 languages worldwide.

The “kiss” of Venus with the Earth occurs every 584 days and, over an eight year period (exactly!), that movement of the heavenly body as it moves around the Earth draws a beautiful geometric pattern.

Meanwhile, the song features Paul on vocals and guitar, and there’s a neat little harpsichord solo included as well:

A demo “phone” version of ‘The Kiss of Venus’ is one of the four bonus tracks on the Japanese CD edition of McCartney III. It’s can also be found as a single bonus track (Track 12) on one of the four “budget” CD versions of the album released in the UK and in the US:

I wonder if we’ll learn anything more about the origins of ‘The Kiss of Venus’ in McCartney’s forthcoming The Lyrics book?

McCartney – ‘The Lyrics’ Book

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Does this 78 year-old ever stop?

The latest content announced from the ever-prolific Paul McCartney is to be a comprehensive, two-volume book examining the lyrics to 154 of his songs dating back to 1956 and progressing to the present day. And it really looks like is going to be something special.

Simply called The Lyrics, the 960 pages will feature never-before seen photographs, letters, drafts, and more.

The Lyrics is edited by the Irish Pulitzer Prize–winning author and poet Paul Muldoon, who also penned the introduction. It is based on conversations with McCartney about his songs and his songwriting craft, conducted over a five year period.

“These commentaries are as close to an autobiography as we may ever come,” Muldoon said in press materials. “His insights into his own artistic process confirm a notion at which we had but guessed—that Paul McCartney is a major literary figure who draws upon, and extends, the long tradition of poetry in English.”

Rather than a traditional autobiography, the book will cover the inspiration behind the lyrics and McCartney’s reflections on them. It won’t be in chronological order, but alphabetical.

The book itself is two hardcover volumes that slide into an outer slipcase. The volumes will not be available separately and each one is 480 pages in length. The outer slipcase of the UK edition features the same photograph, taken by Paul’s brother Mike, that was used as the cover to McCartney’s 2005 album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.The US edition appears to have a different, plain green outer slipcase, and a different spine:

The Lyrics will be published on November 2.

See also The Lyrics: Special Edition; Paul McCartney reading from The Lyrics; and The Lyrics: How Many Translations?