Paul McCartney has marked his return with details of new album ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’, sharing the nostalgic lead single ‘Days We Left Behind’.
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The Beatles icon will release his first album since 2020’s acclaimed ‘McCartney III‘ on Friday May 29 (pre-order here), and it will see McCartney reveal memories that he’s never shared before from his formative years in Liverpool as a young man and an artist entering the world of music.
Described as his “most introspective album to date”, ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ is said to find McCartney “in a candid, vulnerable and deeply reflective mood, writing with rare openness about his childhood in post-war Liverpool, the resilience of his parents, and early adventures shared with George Harrison and John Lennon long before the world had ever heard of Beatlemania”. Having been teased this week by his brother and named after an area they’d knock about in their youth, the record promises “extraordinary honesty” to tell “the story before THE story”.
The first taster of McCartney’s 19th solo album comes with the tender and stripped-back single ‘Days We Left Behind’ that takes him back to his pre-fame days of “smoky bars and cheap guitars” in Liverpool.
“This is very much a memory song for me,” said McCartney. “The album title, ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane’, comes from a lyric in this track. I was thinking just that, about the days I left behind and I do often wonder if I’m just writing about the past but then I think how can you write about anything else?”
He continued: “It’s just a lot of memories of Liverpool. It involves a bit in the middle about John and Forthlin Road which is the street I used to live in. Dungeon Lane is near there. I used to live in a place called Speke which is quite working class. We didn’t have much at all but it didn’t matter because all the people were great and you didn’t notice you didn’t have much.”
The album came about from a cup of tea with producer Andrew Watt [Post Malone, Ozzy Osbourne, Elton John] in 2021, when McCartney was playing a guitar and strummed a chord he didn’t recognise. He soon formed a three-chord sequence before Watt pushed them to record the song, which became the album’s opening track ‘As You Lie There’.
In the spirit of his legendary 1970 debut solo album ‘McCartney’, the legend would go on to play the majority of the instruments himself – with the album credited entirely to himself. A press release reveals the album’s diversity, offering “Wings style rock, Beatles style harmonies, McCartney style grooves, understated intimacy, melody driven storytelling, character songs – the common thread being Paul”.
‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ tracklist is:
‘As You Lie There’
‘Lost Horizon’
‘Days We Left Behind’
‘Ripples in a Pond’
‘Mountain Top’
‘Down South’
‘We Two’
‘Come Inside’
‘Never Know’
‘Home to Us’
‘Life Can Be Hard’
‘First Star of the Night’
‘Salesman Saint’
‘Momma Gets By’
McCartney has recently been celebrating his post-Beatles life and time with Wings, publishing the book The Story Of A Band On The Run last year ahead of an anthology collection album and the acclaimed documentary Man On The Run – which NME described as painting him as ” goofy and a little corny, but always endearingly himself”.
Last year saw The Beatles’ ‘Anthology’ celebrated with a new book, expanded album and the legendary documentary series expanded to nine episodes. Filming continues on Sam Mendes’ four Beatles biopics, starring Paul Mescal as McCartney, Joseph Quinn as George Harrison, Harris Dickinson as John Lennon and Barry Keoghan as Ringo Starr and set for release in 2028.