Following up on 1991's Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio, the Standing Stone project was composed out of a long poem McCartney authored to describe the way Celtic man might have wondered about the origins of life and the mystery of existence. McCartney composed the work as a commission from Richard Lyttleton, the then president of EMI Classics, to celebrate EMI's centenary. Unlike Liverpool Oratorio, the project was not an operatic performance of a story, but an instrumental one, though employing the use of a choir.
For the first time in his career, McCartney used a personal computer and software to help compose. The work was recorded by the 80 piece London Symphony Orchestra, a 120-member choir, and conducted by Lawrence Foster at EMI's Abbey Road Studios. Standing Stone was engineered by John Kurlander and mixed and edited at Hog Hill Mill Studios, McCartney's private studio in Sussex, England.
It was released on compact disc which included a 48-page booklet. The booklet reprinted in full McCartney's original poem that inspired the project, an essay by Andrew Stewart, and reproductions of two paintings by Paul from 1994 named Standing Stone Story and Standing Stone Story II.
The cover is one of the many photos taken by Linda McCartney during late 1969/early 1970. McCartney.
This project was her husband's last release before Linda died of breast cancer in 1998.