Paul McCartney revisits his Wings era with new, official book

Almost a quarter of a century after the book WINGSPAN: Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run (which was a companion to the Wingspan compilation) Paul McCartney will once again revisit the story of Wings (“the band The Beatles could have been”, in the words of Alan Partridge) with a new 500+ page book called WINGS: The Story of a Band on the Run (hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it).

The WINGSPAN book was edited by Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn, but he no longer holds a place in the Fabs inner circle and the new book is edited by historian Ted Widmer, its text drawn from dozens of hours of interviews with McCartney and “numerous key players” in the band’s orbit. Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run is organised around “nine wings albums”, which implies they are including 1971’s Ram (technically by Paul and Linda McCartney) and the live album Wings Over America, since there’s only seven Wings studio albums.

Between 2010 and 2018 Paul McCartney reissued seven of these nine albums, as part of his Archive Collection, with only London Town and Back to the Egg remaining (much to the chagrin of fans). The books that have come with the deluxe editions (were the deluxe editions in many cases) have of course covered the story of those albums in a fair amount of detail. It will be interesting to see how much text (if any) from those is repeated in this new book.

WINGS: The Story of a Band on the Run will feature more than 100 black-and-white and colour photographs, “many never seen before” and is positioned as “part of a larger reexamination and appreciation of the group and their catalogue” which includes the One Hand Clapping album (and theatrical release), the 50th anniversary reissue of Band on the Run and a forthcoming documentary on Paul McCartney’s solo and Wings-related musical work of the 1970s from filmmaker, Morgan Neville. One suspects some audio-related project must be in the works.

WINGS: The Story of a Band on the Run will be released on 4 November 2025.

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McCartney, Paul

Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run

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