The Beatles legend shares a rare glimpse into his memories of youth with fans – and the Mirror
Sir Paul McCartney‘s album The Boys of Dungeon Lane sees him sharing rare and revealing glimpses into his memories of youth. In-between playing his LP at Abbey Road at a special event, a few dozen fans and The Mirror were treated to Paul’s thoughts, ideas and his inspirations for the songs.
Here is a track-by-track guide with a description and a flavour of what the Beatles legend said…
As You Lie There
The first track of the album came about almost by accident when McCartney met producer Andrew Watt to discuss working together and was explaining how he sometimes plays “any old chord” and then tries to work up a song.
The meeting was meant to be for a cup of tea but McCartney says “I stayed a couple more days and we finished up this song.” The track is a love song inspired by a girl in his childhood neighbourhood called Jasmine who he loved from afar. “I was at that age where it was ‘if only’.”
Lost Horizon This was a lost song found by the late Eddie Klein when he was going through cassettes and transferring them to DAT. He asked Paul about the song and he had forgotten he wrote it.
He joked if it wasn’t for Eddie “dat could have been dat” but they resurrected the song and reproduced it in a similar mid-tempo vein. “We didn’t need to do much else,” Paul says modestly of the upbeat song with lyrics talking of shared memories bringing people closer together.
Days We Left Behind This was the first single off the album, released back in March. Paul says it is about him playing as a kid on the Mersey Shore as well as bird watching.
“I like this one, well I like all of them,” Paul said before playing it, making it clear it’s one of his favourites on the album. This song is one on the album where Paul allows his voice to sound natural and even imperfect at times and it is all the better for this.
Ripples in a Pond An upbeat love song written for his wife of 15 years, Nancy. It talks of them making ripples on a pond and “see how far it goes”. Quite a drum heavy and poppy sound, which was requested by Paul on this track so it would “make him sound like Justin Bieber”.
Mountain Top This sound was written after Paul returned from Glastonbury. “It’s a bit trippy,” says Paul and he is right as the lyrics mention magic mushrooms “speaking to you” and there are lots of tape loops and a sound different to the rest of the album.
Down South A song about hitchhiking with George and then later with John too. Paul recalls: “I think I must have the idea, it wouldn’t have been John. We used to start off in Chester as that is where lots of the lorries went south from.”
Another one with nostalgic lyrics talking about how the friends went on adventures “before we learned to twist and shout”. Just Paul and an acoustic guitar on this stripped back track.
We Two The Beatles used to use a Studer four-track tape machine to make songs but were limited in how many different instruments you could use. But Paul explains you could “bounce down tracks to free them up”. Using a technique called “bouncing down,” you could quickly mix two tracks down to one to free up tracks. As an experiment Paul went back to his youth to use a four track again and the result was We Two. Paul thinks the machine helps the song sound “very full”.
Come Inside Paul was a man of few words on this one. “It’s basically a rocker, not much more to say except it’s terrific,” he recalled. Enough said.
Never Know This one was made in Los Angeles and Paul says he wanted to write something with “a dreamy LA sound”. Features heavy guitar riffs and woodwind instruments.
Home to Us The duet with Ringo will be highly anticipated and it almost never happened. Ringo was left “miffed” when he put some drums down for producer Watt and moaned to Paul. Luckily it was a miscommunication and Paul used the drums to create a song and sent it to Ringo to sing on too. The result is a deeply nostalgic song which will delight Beatles fans and seemed to mean a lot to Paul too.
Life Can Be Hard In Covid lockdown Nancy Shevell’s niece had a baby and the toddler began to show interest in Paul’s guitar as he played a series of chords. “I got the baby to do it,” he explained. The baby’s helping hands inspired Paul to turn the chords into a song. Despite the title Paul says it is “upbeat about the future”.
First Star of the Night Fans have the Costa Rican weather to thank for this one. Paul had planned a day by the pool “but it rained like tropical rain, so I had my guitar and thought I could write a song”. An uplifting acoustic song about the first star being special. The start of the song features a clip from Paul’s phone when he recorded the demo.
Salesman Saint The track about his beloved mum and dad. Paul reflects they had it very tough when he was born “but carried on” and this is his thank you song to them for everything they did for him. Ends with a musical arrangement from around that time recorded at Abbey Road.
Momma Gets By
“George said I was good at making up characters and I do that a lot,” says Paul. This song had him thinking about “raising a family” with a struggling mum and dad who is “a bit of a waster”.
A piano ballad that builds with strings and an orchestra before the conclusion of the album.
- The Boys of Dungeon Lane is released on May 29 via MPL/Capitol Records.
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