The Pop Corporation

Nothing should surprise us when it comes to Paul McCartney’s creativity. The man has been making LPs bursting with ideas and songs that switch pace halfway through, making you wonder just how much weed he was smoking at any given time. Sometimes, it’s a playful spirit, sometimes, you can actively hear his attention span being dragged all over the place in a fug of smoke.

It’s great!

With that, writers of a new book called ‘The McCartney Legacy: Volume 2: 1974-80’ have unearthed some treatments for a musical he was cooking up, which was about aliens and featured Isaac Asimov. What a life he’s had! He’ll have forgotten things that would have been pivotal moments in anyone else’s life!

The book is out tomorrow, and the writers Allan Kozinn and Adrian Sinclair stumbled across these documents and the musical was going to be called ‘Five And Five And One’, and would feature new songs from Macca. The show would have featured invading, shapeshifting aliens, who would obviously transform into the members of Wings.

“A ‘flying saucer’ lands. Out of it get five creatures. They transmute before your very eyes into ‘us’,” says the original words by Sir Paul. “They are here to take over Earth by taking America by storm and they proceed to do this supergroup style. Meanwhile – back in the sticks of Britain – lives the original group, whose personalities are being used by the aliens…”

Back in ’74, McCartney flew to see science fiction legend Isaac Asimov in New York, who wrote his own treatment, changing the aliens into “energy-beings” travelling from a dying planet, with the intention of occupying “rather than clone” the members of Wings, while also “being incapable of understanding human emotions such as love.”

Wild. These alien beings would communicate via “thought waves” and being affected by music, and that “they must use the musical key to unlock human emotion.” The ’70s, man. They were silly, frivolous times, and we’re 100% here for it. Adrian Sinclair says: “They’ve just been sitting there – Paul’s treatment reads like something Paul and Linda cooked up while they were smoking something particularly potent.”

You wonder if McCartney had any props built for the musical, which were repurposed for use with the ‘Back To The Egg’ cover and promo bits? It’s not like Macca was shy of a few bob, but this is just another feather in his bow where you can’t help but admire his daft inquisitiveness and zest for fucking around and finding out.