Edited and introduced by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, The Lyrics is the definitive literary and visual record of one of the greatest songwriters of all time. Spanning sixty-four years--from his early days in Liverpool, through the historic decade of The Beatles, to Wings and his solo career--Paul McCartney's The Lyrics revolutionized the way artists write about music. This handsomely designed volume pairs the definitive texts of over 160 songs with first-person commentaries on McCartney's life, revealing the diverse circumstances in which songs were written; how they ultimately came to be; and the remarkable, yet often delightfully ordinary, people and places that inspired them.            624 pages pb