“Get back… Get back… Get back to where you once belonged.”
Nostalgia is an intoxicating emotion, and yearning for the past can often feel like remembering a place and time when things were seemingly simpler, better, more beautiful.
This form of sentimentality is central to Paul McCartney’s twentieth solo album, ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ – a reference to the route from Liverpool to the Speke shoreline, the area where McCartney spent his childhood.
It is released in a year when we’ve already had Ringo Starr’s latest solo album, ‘Long Long Road’, and fans have a new Rolling Stones album to look forward to this summer. Nostalgia runs deep in 2026, it would seem. But fair warning: harking back and potentially romanticising eras can be perilous, something the Greek origins of the word warns us – nóstos (returning home) and álgos (suffering).
So, is ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ a pleasant look back for the 83-year-old music legend, or a more painful homecoming?
Thankfully, it’s the former. For the most part.
The reflective mindset at the heart of McCartney’s new album is already evident in the song titles: ‘Lost Horizon’, ‘Ripples In A Pond’, ‘Home To Us’; ‘Life Can Be Hard’ and lead single ‘Days We Left Behind’. The latter is a highlight, a beautifully written and gentle ode to pre-Fab Four days. It doesn’t see the songwriter attempt a contemporary sound but rather find strength in simply remaining true to his roots. The song features introspective lyrics like “Looking back at white and black / Reminders of my past / Smoky bars and cheap guitars / But nothing built to last” and “Nothing stays the same / No one needs to cry / Nothing can reclaim / The days we left behind”.
Other nostalgic highlights include the excellent opener ‘As You Lie There’, which has McCartney reminiscing on a schoolboy crush and includes some Wings-era deliveries; the catchy and unapologetically romantic ‘We Two’; and standout album closers ‘Salesman Saint’ and ‘Momma Gets By’. Both songs honour his parents, the former being a guitar and brass-led salute to WWII resilience, while the latter is a ballad tribute to his mother, featuring swelling strings and the lovely chorus “She loves him / She loves him with all her heart and soul”.
Impressively, recollection doesn’t always rhyme with gentle acoustics here, as there are significantly rockier moments to contrast with the balladry. The trippy ‘Mountain Top’ – seemingly about shrooming in Glastonbury – is a delight, while the propulsive ‘Come Inside’ shows Macca still has some stadium-rousing swagger left in him.
The only pitfall is that as the album progresses, several tracks land in the unremarkable category. They remain charming, but songs like ‘Down South’, a tale about Paul and George Harrison going on a road trip, as well as ‘First Star of the Night’, needed more memorable tunes to match the emotions. As for the slighty-too-cheesy Paul and Ringo duet ‘Home To Us’, it’s a shame that their reunion sounds so familiar.
That said, familiarity may be the point. ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ is a very comforting listen. Whether that’s because we consciously or unconsciously yearn for reassurance in troubled times could be one explanation; but it can’t be denied that the octogenarian has not lost his knack for a stellar pop hook, and his sepia-tinted vulnerability is poignant. Many tracks feel like gentle confessionals which offer wisdom that shouldn’t be discarded just because they may initially sound trite. As Macca sings on bluesy ‘Lost Horizon’, “You gotta live for now / Make every moment count”.
‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ may not be a late-period masterpiece, but McCartney achieves what he sets out to do: unabashedly embrace the past, take a trip down its long and winding road, and delight in remembrance. All without toppling into maudlin territory.
Granted, several melodies don’t always rise to the occasion, but the album is comfortably McCartney’s best solo effort since 2005’s ‘Chaos And Creation In The Backyard’. And since dwelling on the past is something that’s done in the present, ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ reminds us that we’re still very lucky to have him. After all, a trip down memory lane doesn’t necessarily lead to suffering. It can remind you where you’ve been and what has led you to the present moment. All that’s left is the need to live for now.
Paul McCartney’s ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ is out now.