Editing Ian MacDonald (section)

==Education and career==
Ian MacDonald was born in London on 3 October 1948. He studied at [[Dulwich College]] before briefly attending [[King's College, Cambridge]], at first to study English, then archaeology and anthropology.<ref name="GObit">{{Cite web|last=Williams|first=Richard|date=8 September 2003|title=Obituary: Ian MacDonald|url=http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/sep/08/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries|access-date=2021-08-24|website=The Guardian|language=en}}</ref> He dropped out after a year; while at Cambridge, he was distantly acquainted with the singer-songwriter [[Nick Drake]].<ref>{{cite news |last1=Macdonald |first1=Ian |title=Exiled from Heaven |url=http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/exiled1.html |access-date=24 August 2021 |work=[[Mojo (magazine)|Mojo]] |issue=74 |publisher=[[Emap]] |date=January 2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150330030149/http://www.algonet.se/~iguana/DRAKE/exiled1.html |archive-date=30 March 2015}}</ref>

From 1972 to 1975 he served as assistant editor at ''[[NME]]''. MacDonald began a songwriting collaboration as a lyricist with the band [[Quiet Sun]], which included his brother [[Bill MacCormick]] and future [[Roxy Music]] guitarist [[Phil Manzanera]]. The collaboration resumed in the late 1970s, with MacDonald providing lyrics for the album ''Listen Now''. Later, [[Brian Eno]] assisted MacDonald in producing ''Sub Rosa'', an album of his songs released on Manzanera's label.

In his 1994 ''[[Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties]]'', MacDonald carefully anatomised each recording by [[the Beatles]], examining the broad themes and sources of inspiration. The book contains detailed song-by-song analysis, but is often subjective and critical. [[Paul McCartney]] has stated his dissatisfaction with its accuracy.<ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Vozick-Levinson|first=Simon|date=2014-07-17|title=Paul McCartney: The Long and Winding Q&A|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/paul-mccartney-the-long-and-winding-qa-242714/|access-date=2021-08-24|magazine=Rolling Stone|language=en-US|quote=... but these books that are written about the meaning of songs, like Revolution in the Head – I read through that. It’s a kind of toilet book, a good book to just dip into. And I’ll come across, “McCartney wrote that in answer to Lennon’s acerbic this,” and I go, “Well, that’s not true.” But it’s going down as history. That is already known as a very highly respected tome, and I say, “Yeah, well, okay.” This is a fact of my life. These facts are going down as some sort of musical history about the Beatles. There are millions of them, and I know for a fact that a lot of them are incorrect.}}</ref> Access to the original Beatles master tapes was allowed during research. The book also includes his essay "Fabled Foursome, Disappearing Decade", an analysis of the social and cultural changes of the 1960s and their after-effects. The entries about the Beatles' singles that topped the singles chart were released in a separate book in 2002. The edit featured a new, shorter introduction and featured only the essays on the songs on the Beatles' chart-topping album, ''[[1 (The Beatles album)|1]]''.

His ''The New Shostakovich'' (1990) attempted to put the works of the Russian composer in their political and social context, leaning heavily on [[Solomon Volkov]]'s ''[[Testimony (Volkov book)|Testimony]]''. MacDonald's insistence on creating a cinematic scenario for every major piece polarised opinion sharply. In 2006 a heavily revised and updated version undertaken by the British pianist Raymond Clarke, also incorporating some of MacDonald's later writings, addressed some of these issues.<ref>Louis Blois. '[https://dschjournal.com/book-reviews-26 The New Shostakovich, by Ian MacDonald. New edition]', in ''DSCH Journal'', Book Reviews 26</ref>

The success of ''Revolution in the Head'' motivated MacDonald to resume popular music writing, and he began contributing to Classic CD, ''[[Mojo (magazine)|Mojo]]'' and ''[[UNCUT (magazine)|Uncut]]'' music magazines. ''The People's Music'', an anthology of these writings, was published in July 2003 just weeks before his death. He had been working on a book titled ''Birds, Beasts & Fishes: A Guide to Animal Lore and Symbolism'', and another about [[David Bowie]]. Neither has been published.