Paul McCartney says his parents played a big role in his songwriting.
He said this in a series of insights that accompany his exhibit at the British Museum in conjunction with the publication of his new book, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present.
“Thinking about songs that I’ve written at every stage of my career, I came to realize that my parents, Jim and Mary McCartney, were the original inspiration for so much that I’ve written,” he said.
“My mum was very reassuring and, like so many women often are, she was also the one who kept our family going. She kept our spirits up.”
As for his father, who was a musician, he says he was “loaded with colorful expressions, as so many Liverpool people still are today.”
“He loved to play with words, juggle them in his head, and he had loads of little sayings that were sometimes nonsensical, sometimes functional, but always rather lyrical…
“When he was shaking your hand, he would say, ‘Put it there if it weighs a ton’.”
The exhibit contains 35 previously unseen items including handwritten lyrics, family photos from his early years in Liverpool, drawings and more.
It opens Friday and runs through March 13th.
Paul McCartney on songwriting.
“I write wherever. I can write on tour. It’s really when I’ve got some time off and I’m not gonna fill it with like doing hobbies and things and I’ve just got some time to fill. So it could be at home, it can be on holiday, it can be anywhere really. It’s wherever I’ve got a piano or a guitar. You know I don’t really set myself, ‘Okay, this week I’m going to write.'”
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