«The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present» Пола Маккартни стала «Книгой года» по версии британской сети Waterstones, сообщает The Bookseller.
По словам сэра Пола, победа для него — большая честь. «Я очень рад такой реакции на The Lyrics. Поистине потрясающе то, что такой выбор сделали сами эксперты по книготорговле», — сказал Маккартни.
По данным Nielsen BookScan, в Великобритании продали 23 818 копий книги в твердой обложке.
Сегодня ко мне пришел этот роскошно изданый двухтомный опус на толтой мелованой бумаге (весит тонну)... к каждой песне, кроме самой текстовки и объяснений Пола о ее смысле, обстоятельствах ее создания и другой подоплеке, лежащей в ее основе, прилагаются также изображения листка, на которой она была написана (так называемый автограф песни), фотографии Пола и других Битлзов, имеющие отношение к данной песне... добротные такие тома... по поводу самых интересных комментариев Пола напишу позже
Вот как Пол пишет об истории создания With little help from my friends... эдакий тон непринужденной беседы...никаких усилий не требующий ни от самого Пола, ни от тех, кто это читает... small talk...в этом тоне написана вся книга ... вообще, Пол должен быть приятным собеседником...очень легко себе представить, как это было бы беседовать с ним... мне даже несколько раз снились такие сны, в которых мы беседовали с Полом о каких-то интересных вещах типа абстрактного искусства... "Poking a little fun at Ringo was actually a lot of fun.‘What would you do if I sang out of tune?’ Actually, John and I wrote this song within a vocal range that would cause no problems for Ringo, who had a style of singing different to ours. We tailored it especially for him, and I think that’s one reason why it was such a great success for him on Sgt. Pepper. The song was performed very much in the style of the Sgt. Pepper album as a whole - the style of a live show in which the song is sung by a certain ‘Billy Shears’. Forthose old enough to remember, Billy Shears was the name of the person who supposedly replaced me in The Beatles when I’d ‘died’ after a road accident in 1966. That was a crazy rumour that had been doing the rounds. Now Billy Shears showed up, large as life, in the guise of Ringo Starr! So, this song is Ringo’s intro as a character in this operetta. ‘Lend me your ears’ - well, you know where that’s from. The Bard’s four hundredth birthday had fallen in April 1964, and there’d been a production of Julius Caesar on television that year. It was still fresh in our minds. John and I were able to include one or two little private jokes here: ‘I get high with a little help from my friends’. Normally, we didn’t write while we were actually high. There was only one song where that happened. It was called ‘The Word’, but 1 didn’t think it was that good. I’m not even sure we wrote it while stoned. Though we probably got stoned after it. And then when Joe Cocker did this song one year later, he took it to places nobody had imagined. 1 used to know a guy, Denny Cordell, who was a friend from late-night parties who would sit around and play records, and he’d heard the song. So he rang me up and said, ‘I’ve done this song of yours, Ringo’s song, with Joe Cocker, and I think it’s really good. Can 1 play it to you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, sure,’so he came round. I think this was in the Apple Studio at 3 Savile Row. And wow, 1 mean I knew he was going to cover it, but 1 didn’t know he would do this radical arrangement of slowing it down, because ours had been quite jaunty. Later it became something of a subversive song in the US because Spiro Agnew, vice president of the US at the time, tried to ban it, claiming it encouraged drug use. It was made even more famous by John Belushi as Joe Cocker. He did it slapstick and fell down. It was very funny. The line I liked best in it was, ‘What do you see when you turn out the light?’ I was imagining turning out the light when you’re in bed, under the covers. You’re talking about your genitals; that’s what it is. Everyone does that: touching themselves when the light goes out. But I couldn’t say, ‘What do you see when you turn out the light? Your dick.’ It just doesn’t scan."
Прочем порядка полутора десятка "отчетов" автора о написании песен...ловлю себя на мысли, что он мог бы переписать эту книгу еще десяток раз, каждый раз возникали бы новые воспоминания и новые ассоциации.. не все, наверное, помнят, но лет 25 тому назад, Маккартни написал Many Years From Now аналогичного содержания... надо будет сопоставить в чем он повторяется и где расходятся его воспоминания... я эту книгу прочел именно тогда и поэтому не все хорошо помню... в любом случае...свободный полет мысли... беседа с Полем Маккартни... критическое осмысление есть,но лучшая быть может книга в этом отношении это The Revolution in the Head Яна МакДональда
