Ian MacDonald

• 1. A Borrowed Name

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  Ian MacDonald, the English music critic, was born Ian MacCormick and wrote under a name that was not quite his own. Behind the pseudonym stood a man who studied at Cambridge, edited for a music weekly, wrote song lyrics, and even played bagpipes on a record. He died in 2003 at the age of 54. In the years between, he produced writing that sharply divided its readers. How did a Cambridge dropout become one of the most argued-over voices on the Beatles and on a Russian composer? What did his method borrow from outside music? And what happened to the books he never finished?

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• 2. Cambridge And NME

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  Ian MacDonald was born in London on the 3rd of October 1948. He studied at Dulwich College, then went briefly to King's College, Cambridge. He first read English, then switched to archaeology and anthropology. After a year he dropped out. While there, he was distantly acquainted with the singer-songwriter Nick Drake. Between 1972 and 1975, MacDonald worked as assistant editor at NME, a music paper. In those same years, his attention was also drawn to writing words for a band rather than only about them.

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• 3. Lyrics And Bagpipes

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  Quiet Sun was the band that brought MacDonald into the studio. It included his brother Bill MacCormick and Phil Manzanera, who would later play guitar in Roxy Music. MacDonald worked with them as a lyricist. The collaboration resumed in the late 1970s, when he supplied the lyrics for the album Listen Now. He also contributed to the records themselves. On Quiet Sun's Mainstream in 1975, he sang backing vocals. On Manzanera's Diamond Head the same year, he played bagpipes, and on Listen Now in 1977 he sang. Later, Brian Eno helped him produce Sub Rosa, an album of his own songs. It came out on Manzanera's label. Before that, a different kind of project would put his name in front of a far larger audience.

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• 4. Anatomy Of The Beatles

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  In 1994, MacDonald published Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties. Rather than telling the band's life story, he took each recording in turn. He examined its themes and the sources of inspiration behind it. His method borrowed techniques from art historians. Researching the book, he was allowed access to the original Beatles master tapes. The analysis is detailed, but it is also often subjective and critical. Paul McCartney has said he was dissatisfied with the book's accuracy. The volume also contains an essay called "Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade". It looks at the social and cultural changes of the 1960s and what followed from them. In 2002, a separate book gathered his entries on the Beatles' chart-topping singles. It had a new, shorter introduction and covered only the songs on the album 1.

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• 5. Shostakovich On Screen

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  Four years before the Beatles book, MacDonald had published The New Shostakovich in 1990. It set the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich's works in their political and social setting. To do so, it leaned heavily on Solomon Volkov's Testimony. MacDonald also insisted on devising a cinematic scenario for every major piece. That choice polarised opinion sharply. In 2006, the British pianist Raymond Clarke undertook a heavily revised and updated version. It also folded in some of MacDonald's later writings, and it was meant to address some of the issues raised by the original.

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• 6. Final Years

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  Revolution in the Head did more than make MacDonald's name. Its success pushed him back into popular music writing, and he began contributing to Classic CD, Mojo and Uncut. In July 2003, only weeks before his death, a collection of those pieces appeared under the title The People's Music. He was also at work on two further books. One was Birds, Beasts & Fishes: A Guide to Animal Lore and Symbolism. The other was about David Bowie. Neither has been published. On the 20th of August 2003, MacDonald died by suicide at his home in Wotton-under-Edge, after a lengthy period of clinical depression. He was 54. His friend Phil Manzanera paid tribute with a track called "Wish You Well", on his 2004 album 6PM.

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