Wings

Compelling ... a portal into a more eccentric age of pop, a fable about the tension between celebrity and creativity , and a story with elements of Spinal Tap and Wacky Races ... it tells the story of one of the most successful bands of the 1970s – and one of the strangest. Under McCartney’s contrarian, impulsive, endlessly generative leadership, it blended imperial rock grandeur with a homemade ethos and a certain stoned nonchalance

Compelling ... a portal into a more eccentric age of pop, a fable about the tension between celebrity and creativity , and a story with elements of Spinal Tap and Wacky Races ... it tells the story of one of the most successful bands of the 1970s – and one of the strangest. Under McCartney’s contrarian, impulsive, endlessly generative leadership, it blended imperial rock grandeur with a homemade ethos and a certain stoned nonchalance

Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run is the astonishing , unruly story of how [Paul McCartney found] a way to exist alongside his inescapable past. Structured as an oral history .... interleaved with rich archive material [and] elegantly annotated with timelines and discographies ... this book skilfully patchworks together testimony from all the Beatles, McCartney’s family, friends and bandmates, and external sources ... demanding re-evaluation, fostering revelation . [It] is ... the story of a man who climbed every mountain, then set out to do it all over again.

An exhaustive, forensic and fascinating inside story of the band who achieved the impossible

A weighty new oral history … crammed with fascinating details and amusing observations

What is there left to know about Paul McCartney in 2025? Actually, quite a bit. . . .There is still much to be excavated from what is the most examined life in pop music history, especially when it comes from the horse’s mouth. . . . Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run is a smooth, frictionless ride across the arc of McCartney’s ’70s career, when he continued to mint more hits, and secured a lock on a massive career that is presently in its 55th year

A must-read for fans of The Beatles in general and their solo careers in specific. And the story of Wings is a doozy, to put it mildly. . . . Wings: The Story of a Band on the Ru n takes readers on an inspiring journey from the rudimentary efforts behind Wings' Wild Life in 1971 through the apex of arena rock in the mid-1970s and beyond ... A powerful rejoinder to the band’s critics

Wings: The Story of a Band on the Ru n details the group's adventures, from unannounced guerrilla gigs at UK universities (admission 50p) to a knifepoint mugging in Nigeria ... [it] reiterates their excellence . The Fab Four were an impossibly hard act to follow, but McCartney’s second act began an artistic rebirth that still resonates today

There’s more Macca in this oral history of Wings ... [an] engrossing testimony about his post-Beatles renaissance

Paul McCartney (Author)
Born in Liverpool in 1942, Paul McCartney was raised in the city and educated at the Liverpool Institute. Since writing his first song at 14, McCartney has dreamed and dared to be different. He lives in England.

Ted Widmer (External Editor)
Ted Widmer is a historian, writer, librarian, and musician who writes about American history in The New York Times , The New Yorker , The Washington Post , and other venues. He has taught at Harvard, Brown, and Washington College. In 2022 he was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship.