{"id":940339,"date":"2026-05-05T23:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/940339\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T23:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T23:44:14","slug":"its-a-bit-emotional-paul-mccartney-plays-new-songs-to-fans-at-abbey-road-paul-mccartney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/940339\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s a bit emotional\u2019: Paul McCartney plays new songs to fans at Abbey Road | Paul McCartney"},"content":{"rendered":"

Studio Two at Abbey Road was dressed with an armchair, a guitar and a bookcase of Paul McCartney<\/a> memorabilia. Without the spotlights and cameras, it might have passed for his living room. Even so, the 50 competition-winning Beatles fans gathered to enjoy their prize \u2013 a preview listen to McCartney\u2019s new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane \u2013 were surely not expecting the man himself to walk in.<\/p>\n

Then the room hushed. One fan said keenly: \u201cHe must be here.\u201d And he was.<\/p>\n

When he entered from the control room on Tuesday afternoon, the crowd broke into cheers. \u201cHello, and welcome to Abbey Road studios,\u201d McCartney said. \u201cI\u2019m going to play the album for you and try to think of stuff to say about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crowd and McCartney listen to a track from the album. Photograph: Sonny McCartney<\/p>\n

Over 90 minutes, the world\u2019s most successful living songwriter traced his way back to the beginning, sharing memories of his youth in Liverpool, anecdotes about his friendship with John Lennon and George Harrison, and glimpses into his songwriting process.<\/p>\n

Studio Two is where most of the Beatles\u2019 recordings between 1962 and 1970 were made, from Love Me Do and Please Please Me to She Loves You, the single that launched Beatlemania. It was here, too, that songs such as A Hard Day\u2019s Night, Help, Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane took shape, and where much of Abbey Road \u2013 including Come Together \u2013 was assembled. Outside, tourists clustered on the zebra crossing immortalised on the album cover, presumably unaware of the proximity of McCartney himself.<\/p>\n

Despite his protestations, it quickly materialised that McCartney had plenty to say about his first new solo album in more than five years, due for release on 29 May.<\/p>\n

As each song played, McCartney mouthed the lyrics and mimed along to the instruments. Photograph: Sonny McCartney<\/p>\n

The album began, he explained, with a cup of tea five years ago and a meeting with producer Andrew Watt. Idly playing guitar, McCartney stumbled across a chord he didn\u2019t recognise. One note shifted, then another, until a three-chord sequence emerged. Watt suggested they record it.<\/p>\n

That sketch became the opening track, As You Lie There, which McCartney later built out himself, playing most of the instruments in the spirit of his 1970 solo debut. The song reaches back to his childhood in Liverpool and an unspoken crush on a neighbour, beginning as spoken word before evolving into a shifting melody.<\/p>\n

\u201cUp in one of the windows, there was a girl I fancied called Jasmine,\u201d he recalled. \u201cBut I didn\u2019t know how to approach her, I never spoke to her. The joke was, she did show up later that year and knocked on the door. I was indisposed \u2013 I was on the toilet \u2013 so I missed Jasmine!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018This is where we worked, always in this studio. We used to come in through the tradesmen\u2019s entrance,\u2019 McCartney said. Photograph: Sonny McCartney<\/p>\n

As each song played, McCartney mouthed the lyrics and mimed along to the instruments. The record, billed as his most personal to date, turns inward: to postwar Liverpool, his parents\u2019 resilience, and early adventures with the Beatles. Across it, he plays a wide array of instruments, moving between Wings-style rock, Beatles harmonies and his own groovy instincts.<\/p>\n

The album takes its title from Days We Left Behind, a wistful acoustic track that references Dungeon Lane, near the River Mersey, where McCartney roamed as a boy, as well as a \u201csecret code\u201d and promise made to Lennon at his childhood home on Forthlin Road: \u201cI stand by what I said, the promise that I made will never be broken.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was a lot of memories of Liverpool for me,\u201d he said, \u201cbut also any days we\u2019ve left behind. Everyone\u2019s got them \u2013 school, old mates.\u201d The song, he added, seemed to write itself. \u201cIt has memories of John in the middle, that\u2019s lovely to go back to. Someone said: \u2018What\u2019s the secret code?\u2019 I\u2019m not telling,\u201d he laughed, before adding: \u201cYou make a lot of stuff up when you write songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCartney remembered an uncomfortable experience for George Harrison when they both hitched a ride on a milk float. Photograph: Sonny McCartney<\/p>\n

He called it \u201ca bit of a favourite\u201d, about \u201cJohn, and George, and Ringo too,\u201d then glanced around the studio. \u201cIt\u2019s a little bit emotional. This is where we worked, always in this studio. We used to come in through the tradesmen\u2019s entrance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other tracks moved between the personal and the imagined. Ripples in a Pond is a buoyant love song written for his wife, Nancy Shevell. Mountaintop adopts the perspective of a young woman at Glastonbury festival, which McCartney headlined in 2022. Home to Us marks his first duet with Ringo Starr, while Life Can Be Hard was written during lockdown.<\/p>\n

On Salesman Saint, he turns to his parents. \u201cI was born in 1942, in the war,\u201d he said. \u201cI was too young to appreciate that, but my parents weren\u2019t. My dad was a fireman, putting out fires from the bombs. My mum was a nurse and midwife. But they carried on, because they had to. Like people in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Down South, one of the album\u2019s most nostalgic tracks, prompted a story about hitchhiking with Lennon and Harrison. \u201cIt was a good way to get to know you before we learned Twist & Shout,\u201d the lyrics go. On one trip, he and Harrison climbed into a milk float. \u201cThere was the driver\u2019s seat, a battery and a passenger seat. George got the battery. He had jeans with a zip on the back and it connected with the battery. Later, at a B&B, he showed me the big zip burn,\u201d McCartney said, laughing.<\/p>\n

The Boys of Dungeon Lane is McCartney\u2019s 18th solo studio album, arriving after a run of retrospective projects, from The Beatles: Get Back to last year\u2019s Wings documentary and the 2023 single Now and Then, built from a Lennon demo and taken to No 1. That song, too, lingered on memory and time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Studio Two at Abbey Road was dressed with an armchair, a guitar and a bookcase of Paul McCartney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[77,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-940339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116524631198942327","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}