by Kevin Burton
I think writers borrow the whole Dickens thing too much. You know, best of times-worst of times. But here I think, it fits.
As a Beatles fan I am of course looking forward to “The Boys of Dungeon Lane,” PaulMcCartney’s first new solo album in six years, set for release May 29.
Are you kidding me? Can, not, wait.
I am even more eager to hear it because he says it is full of memories from his early days in Liverpool and of his now deceased fellow Beatles, John Lennon and George Harrison. That’s what the world wants to hear from McCartney.
But let’s be honest, some of the new releases from our older musical heroes have been far less than we wanted. That’s in the front, not just in the back of our minds.
“Now And Then” was billed as “the last Beatles song” when it was released in November 2023. It was stitched together from bits of a Lennon demo made on cassette tape in the 70s. The final version contains additional lyrics written by McCartney.
(And can’t you just hear Lennon saying “over my dead body will Paul add lyrics to my track?”
I remember the song as a major disappointment, and I didn’t give it much of a second hearing until now. Two years on, upon further review, it’s surely not a disaster.
But I dare say it made number 1 in Austria, Germany and Japan, and number 7 US, based on nostalgia and love for the Beatles of old, not on the quality of the song.
And “not a disaster” is the faintest of faint praise, nothing you really want to say about a Beatles release.
So here we are again, with a whole new McCartney album, and, we have the first cut.
I will wait a little before going to deep into my reactions from on “Days We Left Behind,” the song chosen for first release, to tease the album. It surely will grow on me at least a little.
The song has the promised nostalgia. But it’s musically uninteresting, ordinary even. If I wrote the song, you’d say it was a good effort from the likes of me. But for a Beatle?
Worse, in this first song McCartney violates the “show me don’t tell me” writing ethic. “See the boys of Dungeon Lane along the Mersey shore. Some of them will feel the pain but some were meant for more,” he writes in the second verse.
The first verse begins with “Looking back at white and black, reminders of my past.”
Contrast this with the Beatles brilliant “Penny Lane.” That song is full of images that take you to a place and time, without telling us these are memories or reminders of the past.
Of course part of me says it’s not fair, perhaps even absurd, to expect McCartney’s music as an 80-something to live up to the best work from the heyday of the best band in music history.
So I am glad to have two months to get ready, to wrestle with my own thoughts, think about my own reduced powers in various arenas and to enjoy the album on its own terms.
“The record’s description calls it his ‘most introspective album to date,’ with McCartney reportedly channeling previously unshared memories from his formative years in Liverpool and his time with The Beatles into its lyrics,” Britpop News writes.
“It is ‘a collection of rare and revealing glimpses into memories never-before shared, along with some newly-inspired love songs, from one of the most culturally significant figures of our time,” a press release reads.
“With ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane,’ Paul McCartney turns the lens inward, revisiting the formative years that shaped not only his life, but the very foundations of modern popular culture. In a career defined by timeless storytelling and unforgettable characters, Paul now tells the most personal story of all, his own.”
Paul doesn’t have John Lennon now. He doesn’t have Harrison or producer George Martin. He’s more than capable on his own, but how much can we expect?
Paul McCartney is alive and well. That “Paul is dead” nonsense was false in 1966, and it is false today.
But if McCartney should be so blessed as to live to see another birthday (June 18), he will be 84 years old. Not 64, the age he speculated about in “When I’m 64,” but 84. And this life does not last forever, even for one of the greatest singer/songwriters ever born.
Will this be McCartney’s last album? You would think that to be a good possibility.
Either way, here’s what I’m looking for.
I’m looking for something that puts me in the room with Lennon/McCartney while composing. Maybe something that shows the band growing together and musically in the Hamburg apprenticeship. I want to feel the pressure from Beatlemania. Are there ironies that we outsiders don’t know about?
Take me to the Cavern Club, please! Let’s hear about the early rejections from record companies.
I would like to have something that sums up the whole experience.
Whatever it is I hope he gets it all out of his system.
But of course, it’s his record, not mine.
One day I was taking tunes with a co-worker and he said “You know, when Paul McCarteny dies, when I see an obituary for Paul McCartney, that’s when I will really know that one generation has passed into another.”
That is true and speaks to McCartney’s role in the shaping of the “very foundations of modern popular culture,” as the press release mentioned.
On this new record, we need Paul McCartney to live.
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