Paul McCartney has confirmed his 27th studio album, and the title recalls days of old. The Boys of Dungeon Lane references a winding road several miles from his childhood home that delivered the young bird-watching McCartney to the banks of the Mersey River.
The new Andrew Watt-produced LP is due on May 29; preordering is already underway. McCartney also released the resonant advance single “Days We Left Behind,” which you can hear below.
“This is very much a memory song for me,” he said in an official statement. “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?”
Paul McCartney’s Earlier References to Dungeon Lane
The “boys of Dungeon Lane” were first mentioned during a verse from “In Liverpool,” one of some 25 demos under consideration for 1993’s Off the Ground. Producer Julian Mendelsohn passed on “In Liverpool,” which included the line: “Walking with the boys of Dungeon Lane, aimlessly towards a cast-iron shore.”
McCartney returned to the song – and Dungeon Lane – during 2008’s Liverpool Sound concert at Anfield Stadium. “This is where my love of the country came from,” he said in Barry Miles’ biography Many Years From Now. “I was always able to take my bike and in five minutes I’d be in quite deep countryside.”
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McCartney’s most recent album dates back almost six years to 2020’s international Top 5 hit McCartney III. He was set to play a pair of intimate shows in late March at the Fonda Theatre in Los Angeles.
theboysofdungeonlane.com
How Paul McCartney Hinted at ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane’
McCartney’s brother Mike offered early confirmation of the LP’s title, adding that his graphic artist son Josh – Paul McCartney’s nephew – handled the album design.
By then, a website was already up and running at theboysofdungeonlane.com. Teaser posters with “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” and “L24” had also popped up. (L24 is the postcode for Speke, the London suburb where McCartney lived as a youngster that’s also home to the title roadway.)
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Both Mike McCartney’s social post and a commemorative page for McCartney’s former Wings bandmate Jimmy McCulloch included images of the posters. The website was registered back in November.
In all, McCartney has released 19 rock and pop solo albums, with the others credited either to Wings or to both McCartney and his late first wife Linda McCartney. Tellingly, Dungeon Lane now runs to Liverpool John Lennon Airport. George Harrison‘s childhood home was also near the facility.
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Gallery Credit: Nick DeRiso
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