Upcoming Paul McCartney biography reveals he planned to write alien musical
No band has been researched and written about more extensively than The Beatles, or a musician whose career has been more picked over than Paul McCartney, but an upcoming biography of the star contains a new revelation regarding failed plans for a musical about aliens.
The McCartney Legacy: Volume 2: 1974 – 80, due for release on December 10th, reveals that, in the early 1970s, the musician was planning to create a musical in which five aliens descend to Earth and transform into clones of the members of Wings.
Titled Five and Five and One, the concept for the musical was surprisingly detailed. As the authors of The McCartney Legacy, Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair told The Guardian, the musician had written a bizarre 400-word treatment and planned to collaborate with one of the world’s most respected science fiction authors.
“Paul’s treatment reads like something Paul and (his then-wife and Wings bandmate) Linda cooked up while they were smoking something particularly potent,” Sinclair said. The musical was meant to be a vehicle for McCartney’s own music, but it hit a stumbling block when the former Beatle tried to collaborate with sci-fi novelist Isaac Asimov, whose books, including the Foundations series, were groundbreaking entries in the genre that still reverberate.
The collaboration got off to a promising start when the author converted McCartney’s 400-word treatment into a 1,800-word version, but the musician did not like what he read. The author, true to his reputation, had turned a rather simplistic alien-based McCartney vehicle into a high-concept science fiction epic in which the aliens arrive from a dying planet and, communicating only through thought waves, learn to unlock human emotion through music.
McCartney then abandoned the project. On the cover page of his 1,800-word treatment, Asimov scrawled, “Nothing ever came of this because McCartney couldn’t recognise good stuff.”
“What’s interesting is seeing what McCartney’s original idea was and how a science-fiction master like Asimov would try to improve it,” Kozinn said, “[A]nd the fact that McCartney turned it down…We’re talking about Asimov, for God’s sake!”
Along with this juicy new tidbit about McCartney’s creative plans in the early ‘70s, The McCartney Legacy: Volume 2: 1974 – 80, covers the musician’s post-Beatles career. The authors spoke with four former members of Wings, along with producers and recording engineers. It’s the second of five planned volumes on the life and career of the musician, with the first, The McCartney Legacy, Volume I: 1969-1973, having been released in 2022.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Music Newsletter
All the latest music news from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.