LONDON—Paul McCartney takes fans down the streets of his Liverpool childhood in his first solo album in more than five years due out in May.
The title “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” comes from a lyric in the album’s first single “Days We Left Behind”, released on Thursday – “a memory song for me,” McCartney said in a statement.
“I was thinking just that, about the days I left behind and I do often wonder if I’m just writing about the past but then I think how can you write about anything else? It’s just a lot of memories of Liverpool,” the 83-year-old said.
The tracks evoke his childhood in post-war Liverpool, his parents and adventures shared with band mates George Harrison and John Lennon before the world had woken up to the Beatles, according to a statement on his website.
“It involves a bit in the middle about John and Forthlin Road which is the street I used to live in. Dungeon Lane is near there,” McCartney said about “Days We Left Behind”.
“I used to live in a place called Speke which is quite working class. We didn’t have much at all but it didn’t matter because all the people were great and you didn’t notice you didn’t have much.”
McCartney worked with producer Andrew Watt and recorded the album, which also includes new love songs, in Los Angeles and Sussex, between legs of his global tour.
“The Boys of Dungeon Lane” is McCartney’s 18th solo studio album.