McCartney: A Life in Lyrics

I was so overwhelmed with excitement to find out about this podcast, and I continued to be overwhelmed with excitement as I listened to Paul McCartney explain his songs. He’s vulnerable and open and so kind to share these stories. It enriches my Beatles and McCartney music listening even more. So lucky to have a gem of a musician like him in the world. Glad this author made this into a podcast as well as the book! Which I also purchased after hearing these episodes.

I’m very glad this came back for a second season. I find the shortness of the episodes nice. McCartney tells only as much as he feels he needs to and doesn’t waffle on. I also appreciate McCartney’s willingness to politely push back when Muldoon tries to offer an interpretation that isn’t right. Sometimes, it seems like Muldoon is trying to make things more profound than they were, and I like that McCartney’s not afraid to admit the lyrics are what they are and nothing more sometimes. Some episodes seem a bit scattered, sometimes jumping across songs. I don’t mind that, but it sometimes feels like they could have gotten plenty out of just the song named in the title of the episode. Sometimes, too, there’s the odd decision to play only the same few bars from the song over and over, which could leave one who never heard the song to believe that’s the only good part of the song. That’s pretty hard to figure out when McCartney’s songs have plenty of substance to play more than the same snippet. But these are minor gripes, and I don’t even know they’re gripes. The show is very enjoyable, and it’s a delight to hear Paul - so clever, talented, and down-to-earth - tell stories about his amazing and fascinating life and unparalleled craft. Additional: I see a lot of people commenting on the eating sounds in the season two episodes. I actually like them because it makes it seem more like a casual conversation happening between friends. But the ads are excessive and obnoxious.

I just loved every episode of season one of the McCartney podcast. I am expecting, equally, to enjoy season, two just as much, if not more! My only critique, complaint is that in some of the episodes it sounds either as if Paul has cotton in his mouth, lol, or is talking while eating. I understand the reasoning for that, and understand that originally these were not intended to be podcasts, but rather background information for publications or a publication. Still, since I am an American, I have difficulty sometimes understanding an English accent. When you couple that with someone who is speaking with food in their mouth, it makes it a little bit more difficult. I had to listen to some sentences and phrases more than a few times to understand what was being said. But again, that is my absolute only criticism. Everything else was phenomenal!

Amazing chats about process and meaning. No speculating about context because the artist is right there.

I don’t mind commercials in podcasts. I get it. But when the podcast is really one non stop continuous ad with a smattering of content, I lose interest in even the most interesting podcasts. Would give it 5 stars with 30 percent fewer ads. So my rating is for the entire podcast which includes ads.

There is about five minutes of worthwhile content in each 30+ minute episode. If you fast forward through the repetitive clips and ads you'll hear one or two interesting things. And yes, Paul's eating/chewing is very unprofessional and annoying but I suppose he's at the point where he can do whatever he likes.