Out now by noted author Luca Perasi is Paul McCartney: Music Is Ideas. The Stories Behind The Songs (Vol. 1), according to The Daily Beatle. Perasi received raves for his 2013 tome Paul McCartney: Recording Sessions (1969-2013). A Journey Through Paul McCartney’s Songs After The Beatles, and served as one of the two official Italian translators of Macca’s 2021 book The Lyrics. In 2022 collaborated with MPL on the label copy for the former-Beatle‘s The 7-Inch Singles Box. Fans can expect the second volume of Music Is Ideas in 2024.

According to the new book’s press release:

This book can be best described as the “musical biography” of the most important song composer ever . . Volume 1 tells the stories behind Paul McCartney’s songs released between 1970 and 1989. The book consists of 346 song sheets — including songs written by other composers as well as 50 unreleased tracks — each providing detailed information of musicians and recording dates, including anecdotes, contemporary interviews together with exclusive interviews with key personnel by the author.

It’s enriched with over 1,000 footnotes and with dozens of illustrations and photographs. Albums, tours and other events provide a background to the stories behind the songs. . . The phrase ‘Music is ideas’ is taken from the (1986) song ‘Talk More Talk’ and aims to provide a guide for the reader on a journey into the astonishing creativity of McCartney, an artist who has elevated the pop song to an art-form.”

During a recent Instagram Live chat, Paul McCartney said, if at all possible, it’s always best to finish your song in one sitting: “As you’re writing a song and you’ll get an idea and then the short of melody — if you’re lucky — the, kind of, melody and the words, kind of suggest themselves. I always love that; a line that I don’t have to work on — (sings) ‘Hear me women and wives/hear me husbands and lovers’ — I go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s good. That fits!’ I kind of have to think it comes from another place. I always feel a little bit daft saying that — ‘Oh, magical, all that. . .’ But. . . How else are you gonna explain? There is some sort of force.” (:31 OC. . . sort of force

Although Luca Perasi has many favorites in the McCartney catalogue — including the 2005 critically acclaimed Chaos And Creation In The Backyard — when pressed for his absolute favorite album, he actually picked McCartney’s second post-Beatles release from 1971: “For me, the best one, the most significant for me is Ram. He’s got an energy, that I think, was a fantastic one. I consider it the best of Paul. There are a couple of songs that maybe are weak, but Paul was getting out of the Beatles and it was his first album recorded after the Beatles, so he has all this energy, all this rage inside; and so, I think it shines.”