Fab : An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney by Howard Sounes

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... Film maker David Puttnam asks whether there may be a fundamental shortcoming in Paul as an artist.

• I feel about Paul the way I feel about Ridley Scott; both men of immense, immense, immense talent who on their death bed are likely to look back on their career with some satisfaction, but with some dissatisfaction, in that I'm not sure either of them - Ridley and Paul, both very wealthy and everything - I'm not sure either of them have absolutely delivered what was in them.

Lord Puttnam believes that in the years since the Beatles, Paul has not been able to summon the crucial extra effort - he quantifies this as an additional 15% - required to transform good work into something exceptional.

• Was it that it was too hard, was it that it was too challenging? Or was it that he was a reasonably contented guy and he didn't think it was worth putting himself through that amount of pain? But the difference between good and great is that last 15%, and the really great artists aren't artists who have one bright, brilliant moment in their lives.

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He could as well have been talking about great traders. More about the book (+related video) from Amazon here.

My Rating : 4/5