Sir Paul McCartney was "shocked in a very pleasant way" by the contributions to 'McCartney III Imagined'.

The former Beatles legend released the star-studded collection, which features the likes of Idris Elba, Damon Albarn, St. Vincent and more, last week.

And the 78-year-old music icon has compared being sent the new interpretations of the tracks from his 18th solo album as like receiving "a Christmas gift" each time.

McCartney is quoted by The Sun newspaper's Bizarre column as saying: "It started by people asking me if I had any bonus tracks and I said, 'No, not really, 'McCartney III' is like a giant bonus track.'

"Then I thought it might be a nice idea to just ask some other people to remix and just reimagine them.

"It was a delight when the tracks started coming in.

"Every time it was like a Christmas gift.

"Nobody was given any strict briefs, so it was really interesting to see who did what.

"Some shocked me in a very pleasant way, because I had no feelings as to what they ought to do."

The 'Let it Be' hitmaker was particularly blown away by Dominic Fike's cover of ‘The Kiss of Venus’ .

He added: "The Dominic Fike track was really surprising, because he'd added his own lyrics.

"He went beyond it, and the video he's done is terrific.

"So I think his was the most surprising.

"Each one of them had got something very special about them."

Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon remixed the album’s opening track ‘Long Tailed Winter Bird’, whilst actor and DJ Idris put his own spin on the same song.

Queens of the Stone Age rocker Josh Homme recorded a cover of ‘Lavatory Lil’, whilst Beck features on a new version of ‘Find My Way’, and Phoebe Bridgers lends her voice to ‘Seize The Day’.‘McCartney III’ was originally released in December, and concluded a trilogy of albums, also consisting of 1970's 'McCartney' and 1980's 'McCartney II'.