'Things people write often do refer to the past, but it’s hard to just refer to tomorrow.’
So Paul McCartney explained to Mojo magazine. ‘We don’t know what’s gonna happen then. But the past is even just talking about yesterday. It’s full of stuff. It’s a rich place to mine for ideas.’
The Boys Of Dungeon Lane (its title taken from a road in Liverpool where Paul would enjoy birdwatching as a child) finds the 83-year-old in fine reflective mood, and a number of the songs here find him singing about his formative years, and the people (his parents, brother and the other Beatles among them) with whom he grew into the man the whole world feels it knows.
It’s been six years since his last album of new studio material, McCartney III – the longest break in his career, for which we can forgive him. But as with other albums in this latter period of his extraordinary career, while his voice may not have the clarity it once did, his songwriting, his knack for characters, melody and wonderful arrangements, and his joie de vivre ooze from the grooves.
Here, we take a trip back through Paul’s memory lane on his 18th solo studio album – and unlock the secrets behind the songs. Plus, we've picked our favourite three tracks (*) for good measure.
1. As You Lie There
There’s something about the opening track of The Boys Of Dungeon Lane that brings to mind ‘Band On The Run’, the kaleidoscopic 1973 album from McCartney's post-Beatles outfit Wings). Both album openers start in mellow mode before bursting through dynamics-busting changes with explosive drums, screaming vocals and the swaggering sense that we’re in for an interesting ride.
The song reflects on a teenage moment that has remained in the backyard of Macca's mind for around 70 years, as he explained at the listening party for The Boys Of Dungeon Lane: ‘Up in one of the windows, there was a girl I fancied called Jasmine. But I didn’t know how to approach her, I never spoke to her.
'That’s what the song is about: imagining Jasmine lying there. The joke was, she did show up later that year and knocked on the door. I was indisposed – I was on the toilet – so I missed Jasmine! How romantic is that?’
2. Lost Horizon
On an album that spends so much time reflecting on the past, it’s apt to have a song celebrating – and immersed in – the sounds that accompanied days gone by. Here, Paul sings of the call of a train whistle, the purring of a car engine, laughter from a children’s playground – these sonic snapshots that he uses as vehicles to take him back to that lost horizon: his own past.
The song dates back further than most here, with its origins being apparently in a demo tape from the early 2000s, rediscovered by Paul’s late engineer Eddie Klein. As Paul told the BBC, ‘It was his job to archive all my old tapes and he said, “This one's good, you should listen to it.” If Eddie liked it, I knew it was good.
'So we played it, and it was very complete. Sometimes, if you were working to a cassette, you'll have half the lyrics, maybe a little suggestion for the chorus – but this [song] was all there. So we copied exactly what was on that cassette, with a little extra guitar.’
3. Days We Left Behind*
With instrumentation that brings to mind Johnny Cash’s extraordinary 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around, the lead single rightly received rave reviews as Paul sounds like what he is – a man in his 80s reflecting on the childhood that seems so near and yet so far.
‘Looking back at white and black reminders of the past’ – Paul is flicking through old photographs, but there’s more in the phrasing than might be obvious. His photographer brother Mike’s 1986 book of pictures from the late 50s and early 60s was called Mike Mac’s White And Blacks. Even Paul’s old family photos are public property.
It’s interesting then that again, as on ‘Early Days’ from New (2013), Paul sings about how nobody can take away his memories. It’s a fantastic song, full of evocative memories. Paul’s now-fragile voice betrays a vulnerability that is rarely heard in his vast catalogue.
4. Ripples in a Pond
A love song to his wife Nancy, ‘Ripples In A Pond’ is perhaps the most upbeat and pop of all the songs on The Boys Of Dungeon Lane (and features a splendid instrumental interlude towards the end). The last line ‘Sometimes I get a feeling you’re so good for me I must be blessed’ is left hanging, somehow emphasising the sincerity of the song.
In some ways, it’s one of the more slight songs on the album, yet its power is in how obviously Paul means it. And, as he sang on ‘Silly Love Songs’ (1976), what’s wrong with that?
5. Mountain Top
Using tape loops and psychedelic effects that see Paul revisiting peak Beatles days, ‘Mountain Top’ is written from the perspective of a woman experiencing the festival vibe to the full at Glastonbury or Coachella.
Paul’s processed voice becomes otherworldly, and the freak-out section towards the end is great fun. And listen out for Paul’s wife Nancy, who appears at the end – a nod to when first wife Linda appeared on Wings records, perhaps?
6. Down South
Another one of Paul’s reflections on being a teenager, ‘Down South’ tells the story of his and George Harrison’s hitchhiking trips from Liverpool during the school summer holidays. It’s such an affectionate letter to a long-departed, dear friend – ‘It was a good way to get to know you/before we learned to twist and shout.’ The song tells the story of taking a lift on a lorry, ‘A fine way to work it all out’.
Musically, it could hardly be simpler – just a strummed acoustic guitar, with a gentle electric lead joining it as the song develops – a fitting accompaniment for the two guitar-loving friends.
7. We Two
Paul and producer Andrew Watt decided they wanted to use a bunch of old recording kit that Paul had salvaged from Abbey Road studios and record using the same process forced upon the fledgling Beatles due to the four-track limitations of the time. They wrote ‘We Two’ together for the purpose of recording in that fashion and were both especially taken by the snare sound they got.
A deceptively simple, mid-tempo love song, as soon as the chorus hits, we’re reminded again of McCartney’s innate ability to pluck a gorgeous melodic phrase seemingly at will and drop it in to lift a song a few notches.
8. Come Inside
Opening with a guitar riff from the ages and a classic McCartney bass roll, ‘Come Inside’ is a typical late-period Macca rocker, on which Paul plays bass, drums, guitars, various keyboards, recorder and tape loops. Probably the weakest song on the album, 'Come Inside' treads the same ground as ‘Everybody Out There’ from New.
9. Never Know
At the listening party that launched the album, Paul spoke of how ‘Never Know’ came about. ‘I was out in California. I’ve always loved that Laurel Canyon vibe of the 70s. I was playing guitar trying to get that vibe. This is me trying to do that.’
And while it seems to have since migrated some distance from Laurel Canyon in the process of writing and recording, the playful backing vocals show Paul’s continued love of The Beach Boys’ California sound. A delightful recorder interlude leads to an enjoyable outro that evokes the spirit of the sixties – more looking back with love.
10. Home To Us
The first ever duet-proper between Paul and Ringo Starr is an affectionate visit to the Liverpool of their childhood, growing up out of the end of the Second World War, with hardships that left them with very little, but it was good enough.
As Paul told the BBC, ‘Things were pretty good, actually. My uncles and aunties and my parents were so relieved that Hitler wasn't sending these bombers anymore – so it was piano, it was music, it was jokes. It didn't matter that you weren't that well off. They made it okay.’
While working on the track, Paul went to see Oasis and decided that he wanted the intensity of their overbearing guitars on ‘Home To Us’ and the influence can be heard – it’s not a million miles away from the Manchester band’s ‘Round Are Way’ (1995). Chrissie Hynde and Sharleen Spiteri join in the rousing chorus of ‘The world around us wasn't safe, the place was falling down/But that was my hometown’.
11. Life Can Be Hard
Taking its origins from the time of the Covid-19 pandemic when Paul and Nancy were in lockdown with Nancy’s niece and family, including a newborn baby. It was during this time, noodling with a guitar and playing with the baby that the line ‘Life can be hard’ came out.
‘I thought, Oh god, that’s going to be a downer,’ he told Mojo magazine. ‘But I went, wait a minute, ‘Life can be hard/but that’s when we start to put it together again’.’ He took that potentially tricky start and flipped it to give the song a positive message. ‘It beats the alternative, you know? The alternative is your life turns sour, and I don’t want that to happen.
'I don’t want to get depressed, so I fight it and think, Come on, you’ve got a lot of good stuff going on. Concentrate on that. It’s not always easy – in fact, it’s never easy.’
12. First Star of the Night
The sound of a downpour in Costa Rica opens a song written in the Central American tropical paradise on a break while touring. This song of hope talks about the comfort found in seeing the first star of the night revealing its light. Paul’s bass here is a highlight, as his trademark melodic style dances around an otherwise simple yet lush arrangement that is adorned by Beach Boys-esque background vocals. A real simple delight.
13. Salesman Saint*
Undoubtedly one of the highlights of The Boys From Dungeon Lane is this hymn to his parents – Jim, a cotton salesman, and Mary, the saintly midwife Paul would see cycling off into the snow of a Liverpool winter’s night to deliver a baby. Setting the song at the end of the war, Paul sings of their resilience – ‘They couldn’t take anymore, but they had to carry on’.
As ‘Salesman Saint’ moves through different passages, the music changes as though backgrounds in the movie of their lives as they survived on hot tea and cigarettes. Trumpets and later massed muted horns that bring Glenn Miller to hark back to Jim’s own band that played around the Liverpool jazz clubs. It’s a wonderful piece with one of the finest arrangements in Paul’s 20th century catalogue.
14. Momma Gets By*
A piano ballad that evolves through lush orchestration into the sort of character song at which McCartney excels, ‘Momma Gets By’ is written from the perspective of the son of a couple where the mother dotes on her wastrel of a husband. It’s an unexpected angle, but laced with high doses of affection, the song plays out like a kitchen-sink drama. ‘It’s a little story I always had in my mind, like ‘Porgy and Bess’,’ he told Variety.
Pics Getty Images. Top pic: Paul in a school photo, 1955
