Wings

The Story of a Band on the Run

Paul McCartney, Ted Widmer

$79.99

Hardback

Forthcoming
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English

Allen Lane
04 November 2025

Music; Rock & Pop music; Biography: arts & entertainment

'We made what seemed like an impossible dream come true' Paul McCartney

This is the story, in their own words, of a band that came to define a generation. Wings- The Story of a Band on the Run tells the madcap history of Paul McCartney and his newly formed band, from their humble beginnings in the early 1970s to their dissolution barely a decade later. Drawn from over 500,000 words of interviews with McCartney, family and band members, and other key participants, Wings recounts the musical odyssey taken by a man searching for his identity in the aftermath of The Beatles' breakup. Soon joined by his wife - American photographer Linda McCartney - on keyboard and vocals, drummer Denny Seiwell and guitarist Denny Laine, McCartney sowed the seeds for a new band that would provide the soundtrack to the decade.

Organised chronologically around McCartney, RAM and nine Wings albums, the narrative begins when a twenty-seven-year-old superstar, rumoured to be dead, fled with his new wife to a remote sheep farm in Scotland amid a sea of legal and personal rows. Being there gave McCartney time to create and was where this new band emerged. Wings then follows the group as they play unannounced shows at university halls, tour in a sheared-off double-decker bus with their children, survive a robbery on the streets of Nigeria, and eventually perform blockbuster stadium shows on their world tour, all while producing some of the most enduring music of the time.

With extraordinary recollections collected by Oscar-winning director Morgan Neville and edited into a genre-defining oral history by Ted Widmer, Wings transports the reader to the grit and glamour of the 1970s. Introduced with a heartfelt foreword by McCartney, Wings- The Story of a Band on the Run contains 150 black-and-white and colour photographs, many previously unseen, as well as timelines, a gigography and a full discography, in an art form all its own.

By: Paul McCartney
Edited by: Ted Widmer
Imprint: Allen Lane
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 155mm, Spine: 40mm
Weight: 750g
ISBN: 9780241758571
ISBN 10: 0241758572
Pages: 528
Publication Date: 04 November 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

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.