PAUL MCCARTNEY - The Boys Of Dungeon Lane

Preceded by the intimate, almost understated charm of the single “Days We Left Behind”, the new album by Paul McCartney is not the long-heralded final masterpiece of an artist approaching his eighty-fourth birthday. Anyone hoping for a noir-tinged, solemn farewell should think again, because “The Boys Of Dungeon Lane” is one hundred percent pure McCartney, warts and all.

The new album by the former Beatle (its title lifted from a still-unreleased 1991 demo called “In Liverpool”) is the not-quite-secret diary of a boy grappling with youthful ambitions and dreams, but also with his own fragility - a fragility made palpable by a voice now lacking in the mid-to-upper register, yet still as evocative and unique as ever.

For an artist who has spent recent years piecing together fragments and memories, these fourteen new songs are just more pieces of a puzzle that makes no claim to thematic completeness. Though bound by a common thread, the tracks on “The Boys Of Dungeon Lane” don't follow concept-album logic, and the only truly melancholy, moving moments are found in the aforementioned “Days We Left Behind” and in the closing track “Momma Gets By” (a poetic remembrance of his mother) - a song that reshapes the harmonic grace of “Lady Madonna” with an aching touch and a string arrangement that borders on perfection.

McCartney found the perfect partner in crime in producer Andrew Watt (already a fixture at the court of Rolling Stones and Elton John), skilled at blending canonical sounds with ultra-technological trickery without warping the project's traditional framework, where once again Paul's instrumental versatility shines through — a musician who's never been afraid to play one man band.

Last but not least there are, of course, the songs, yet another confirmation of McCartney's authority as a composer: a string of chords and choruses shaped with that deceptive simplicity that has always been one of the trademarks of the fab four lads from Liverpool. A track like "We Two" not only dishes out chord changes with impressive fluidity, but confirms that only Paul can imitate Paul. The same can be said of two other little gems, "Ripples In A Pond" and the extraordinary "Come Inside" (already a classic, as far as I'm concerned), both dedicated to two important women in his life (the first to his current wife Nancy Shevell, the second to Linda Eastman) — yet there's no forced or mawkish sentimentality framing either song: the pop exuberance of the first and the rock'n'roll energy of the second are brimming with positivity and joie de vivre, the very same joy that marked both relationships.

Brilliant and even unpredictable, Paul McCartney avoids celebrating the past in mournful or overly saccharine tones. What comes through is the English musician's deep gratitude for a life lived to the fullest. The songs form a fragmentary collage of memories, some shared with his friend Ringo Starr, a special guest on the breezy, carefree "Home To Us", others entrusted to memory and to two travelling companions no longer with us. In the deliberately raw, acoustic-tinged rock'n'roll of "Down South", Paul recalls the many car rides with George Harrison, while in the aforementioned "Days We Left Behind", the memory turns to the house on Forthlin Road, where Paul and John wrote the Beatles' earliest songs.

"The Boys Of Dungeon Lane" is a frank, vibrant record. Producer Andrew Watt's choice not to modernize the sound but rather to render it knowingly classic and timeless is one of the album's winning moves. Paul steers clear of the prophetic posturing that grips so many veteran rock stars, fearlessly flaunting that same grace and frivolity he shared with Wings, traits that have often drawn fierce criticism toward the ex-Beatle ("Never Know").

That Paul McCartney deserves a place apart in the history of modern music grows ever more obvious. Not only does "As You Lie There" show the English musician can go toe-to-toe with newer generations, combining bold instrumental choices, a post-rock melodic phrasing, and unshakeable pop verve, but at the same time it shatters the ambitions of today's pop singer-songwriters with a ballad, "First Star Of The Night", that reinvents the term folk-noir, opening the door to that faint light at the end of the dark that many call hope.

"The Boys Of Dungeon Lane" perfectly achieves its goal: reviving the carefree spirit and magic of the pre-Beatles era. These songs make room for dreams and ambitions, for the energy of rock'n'roll ("Lost Horizon"), but also for psychedelic rapture ("Mountain Top"), all pulled together with class and undeniable talent ("Salesman Saint").

At the risk of indulging in the kind of glib shorthand favored by armchair critics, Paul McCartney's latest album is one of the most enjoyable of the Liverpool musician's already long career, a potential crossover between the underrated "Red Rose Speedway" and the excellent "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard". There's even room for the naysayers, the ones who, on hearing the sly dixieland-pop of "Life Can Be Hard", are ready to wrinkle their noses like Yoko Ono's grandmother — though the track is just another delightful page in an extraordinary yet unpretentious record.

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31/05/2026