More than five years since his last solo release, Paul McCartney is stepping back into deeply personal territory. The former The Beatles songwriter has announced his 18th solo studio album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, arriving May 29 via MPL/Capitol Records, alongside the release of its lead single, “Days We Left Behind.”
Where much of McCartney’s catalog has long blurred the line between character and confession, The Boys of Dungeon Lane leans fully inward. The album is framed as his most introspective work to date, revisiting his childhood in post-war Liverpool and the formative years spent alongside John Lennon and George Harrison before the cultural upheaval of Beatlemania.
“Days We Left Behind,” a stripped-back and reflective centerpiece, anchors the project both emotionally and thematically. The song’s title lyric gives the album its name, referencing Dungeon Lane, a place McCartney still associates with a pre-fame world of “smoky bars and cheap guitars.” In a statement, McCartney described the track as “very much a memory song,” shaped by vivid recollections of growing up in Liverpool, including time spent on Forthlin Road and in the working-class neighborhood of Speke.
The album’s origins date back roughly five years, when McCartney first connected with producer Andrew Watt. What began as a casual session led to the creation of “As You Lie There,” the album’s opening track, sparked by an unfamiliar chord progression McCartney stumbled into and refined in real time. From there, the project unfolded gradually, recorded between tour dates in Los Angeles and Sussex with no external deadlines.
That open-ended process allowed McCartney to revisit a familiar creative approach, performing the majority of instruments himself in a way that echoes his 1970 debut, McCartney. The result is a record that spans his full musical vocabulary, from Wings-era rock to Beatles-style harmonies, while maintaining a throughline of melody-driven storytelling and understated intimacy.
Beyond its historical framing, The Boys of Dungeon Lane also features a set of newly written love songs, grounding the album in both memory and present-day reflection. It’s a portrait of an artist whose influence is nearly impossible to separate from modern popular music, now turning to examine the quieter, lesser-known moments that came before everything changed.
For listeners, the album offers something rare: a chance to hear McCartney not as myth, but as memory.
The Boys of Dungeon Lane arrives May 29. “Days We Left Behind” is out now.
Tracklist:
- 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
