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Paul McCartney wants to tell you a story. Have a seat, and listen as he paints the scene in soft-spoken words: “I used to walk past your house,” he begins, his voice a little hoarser these days but no less tender. “Every night, I’d look up at your window. The light was on. I saw your silhouette on the blind.…” It’s a bittersweet memory from long ago, something like the Beatles’ “No Reply,” but with all the resentment replaced by gentler feelings. “Do I ever cross your mind as you lie there?” he asks that ancient crush. Then the band kicks in — actually, it’s mostly just Sir Paul himself, playing at least nine instruments — and there it is: All these years later, there are still few greater pleasures in pop music than hearing this one guy rock out.
“As You Lie There” is the first song on The Boys of Dungeon Lane, McCartney’s first studio album in six years, and it sets the tone for this warm, nostalgic late-career masterpiece. There are several songs about his early years in Liverpool, including a good-old-days duet with his buddy Ringo Starr; the album’s title references a street in the neighborhood where both he and George Harrison grew up. Overall, there’s the sense of a legend looking back on a life well spent. This isn’t necessarily a new theme for McCartney, who’s been singing about what he once called his ever-present past for years now. But the autumnal vibe is more pronounced than ever, and there’s an unusual poignance to songs like “Days We Left Behind,” where he shuffles through some old black-and-white photos and finds only “smoky bars and cheap guitars/But nothing built to last.” It’s one of the most moving acoustic ballads in a canon that’s far from short on them, a “Yesterday” with six more decades of experience behind the quiet sadness.
That’s not to say that this album is a downer, by any means. McCartney’s life force remains undimmed throughout these 14 tracks, and the joy he finds in making music comes through in every chord change. On “Mountain Top,” the eternally youthful 83-year-old recalls a pleasant hike amid magic mushrooms and butterflies, with harpsichord, bongos, and tape loops adding to the trippy atmosphere.“Come Inside” is a free-wheeling, hand-clapping rocker reminiscent of 1993’s Off the Ground. “Never Know” grooves and swings in ways that recall Wings circa 1979’s Back to the Egg. “Life Can Be Hard” and “Ripples in a Pond” are romantic tributes to the woman in his life, reminders that love isn’t silly at all.
All of these songs benefit from simple, elegant arrangements where McCartney plays nearly everything himself — his second album in a row in this style, after 2020’s one-man-band triumph McCartney III. Co-producer Andrew Watt, who’s become this decade’s chief classic-rock whisperer through his work with the Stones and Ozzy Osbourne, adds synths and guitars here and there. Mostly, though, he’s smart enough to get out of the way and let one of the most naturally gifted musicians in history do his thing. It’s a refreshing contrast to 2010s efforts like New and Egypt Station, where McCartney brought in multiple pop-oriented collaborators with varying results. He seems to have learned that what we really want from a new solo album at this stage in his career is more McCartney.
The Boys of Dungeon Lane closes with a pair of thematically linked songs about parenthood under difficult circumstances. “Salesman Saint” evokes his real-life father and mother, Jim and Mary, and their choice to start a family in wartime England: “They couldn’t take anymore, but they had to carry on,” he sings. “So they learned to carry on, with laughter and a song.” Even more impressive is “Momma Gets By,” where he imagines a couple whose life might look like misery to an outsider, but who love each other all the same. She’s a working mom, perhaps an acquaintance of the women he wrote about in “Lady Madonna” and “Another Day”; her husband is too busy getting high to lend a hand. “Even though he’s complicated, she takes it in her stride,” McCartney sings. “What are his silly faults compared to what she feels inside?” His voice strains slightly to reach the high note. Then a woodwind part comes in, light and airy, and with it an overwhelming feeling of grace.