Dear Sir or Madam: Paul McCartney memoir due out in November

Paul McCartney is finally ready to write his memoirs, and will use music, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, to help guide him.

"The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present" will be released Nov. 2, according to a joint announcement on Feb. 24 from the British publisher Allen Lane and from Liveright in the United States.

McCartney, 78, will trace his life through 154 songs, from his teens and early partnership with fellow Beatle John Lennon to his solo work over the past half century. Irish poet Paul Muldoon is editing and will contribute an introduction.

"More often than I can count, I've been asked if I would write an autobiography, but the time has never been right," McCartney said in a statement.

"The one thing I've always managed to do, whether at home or on the road, is to write new songs. I know that some people, when they get to a certain age, like to go to a diary to recall day-to-day events from the past, but I have no such notebooks. What I do have are my songs, hundreds of them, which I've learned serve much the same purpose. And these songs span my entire life."

Financial terms for "The Lyrics," which has a list price of $100, were not disclosed. Publishers have long sought a McCartney memoir, even though he has spoken often about the past and has participated in such projects as Barry Miles' biography "Paul McCartney: Many Years From Now," and the 1990s documentary and book "The Beatles Anthology." The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards has been equally open about himself, but his 2010 memoir "Life" still sold millions of copies.

No Beatle has written a standard, full-fledged account of his life. Lennon published two works of stories, poems and drawings and was considered the most gifted with words, but he was murdered in...