'I'll give you it as I
remember it... a sequence of things that did all happen within a period. So, it's my
recollection of then...
'Along the way I'd like to register the fact that John was great, he was absolutely
wonderful and I did love him, lest it be seen that I'm trying now to do my own kind of
revisionism. He was fabulous, but really all I'm saying is that I have my side of the
affair as well, which sometimes gets ignored, hence my agreeing to be a part of this
book.'
---Paul McCartney
BARRY MILES (known as Miles) has known Paul McCartney for many years. A co-founder of
Intemational Times in the sixties, he set up, with Paul's help, the Indica
Bookshop/Gallery where John and Yoko met in 1966. He subsequently ran Zapple, the spoken
word label of Apple Records. His previous books include a highly praised biography of
Allen Ginsberg, and he is currently engaged on books about Jack Kerouac and the Beat Hotel
in Paris.
It is a history from the inside of one of the greatest song-writing partnerships of the century. It is the private life of a man made public property - a Beatle - by the age of twenty-one. It is the trajectory of the most popular pop group in history, from beginnings to break-up. It is the story of the sixties by the man at the centre of the storm. It is music, drugs, women, money, madness, the Maharishi, art, love, peace and bitterness, from beginning to end. It is the story as never told before.
At its centre, of course, is Paul McCartney's relationship with John Lennon - as friend, collaborator, as part of 'Lennon/McCartney - two young guys from Liverpool who went on to change the world - and finally as bitter rivals in a struggle for the soul and the business control of the Beatles.
McCartney recalls the genesis of every song he and
Lennon wrote together and talks in fascinating detail about how they worked and who was
responsible for which line, which melody.
There have been countless words written - and more than a few sung - about Paul McCartney.
Many Years From Now is the book that, at last, sets the record straight
