Review: 'Paul McCartney: The Stories Behind the Songs'

Mike Evans's new book probably should have been called Paul McCartney: The Stories Behind Some Songs. With the title Paul McCartney: The Stories Behind the Songs, I assumed the book would go through the entirety of McCartney's substantial post-Beatles body of work, explaining the inspiration behind well-documented hits like "Silly Love Songs" and obscurities like "Monkberry Moon Delight". Instead Evans mainly focuses on the hits, first providing a very swift and general overview of a given album before zooming in on one or two of the more popular songs contained therein (as well as some stand-alone singles, such as "Another Day" or "Wonderful Christmastime"). 

I guess digging deep into songs McCartney usually admits were inspired by nothing more than a decent-sounding yet nonsensical rhyme might not have been too edifying. Evans might not have been the guy to do it either since he is so awed by McCartney's talent. A fair yet critical sort is the ideal chronicler of a catalog that is way better than many critics would have you believe but pretty rich in toss-offs too. Look, I enjoy "Magneto and Titanium Man" as much as anyone, but I'd hardly describe its slight comic-book lyric as "rock solid storytelling" as Evans does. On the odd occasion the author seems to criticize a song, he rarely owns that criticism, prefacing it with phrases like "Some critics believe..." Granted, this book is not called Paul McCartney: Picking Apart the Songs either, but since Evans does offer some personal judgments, his fairly one-track view of McCartney's Wings and solo work is worth noting.