Paul McCartney’s upcoming album joins a rare selection of worthy nostalgia bait from all-time greats

Contemporary meets nostalgia is a tough line to walk, yet Paul McCartney appears ready to do so on The Boys of Dungeon Lane. His first album since 2020’s McCartney III, and recorded over five years during spots of free time on the Got Back tour, promises to be of a similar ilk to Bob Dylan’s Rough and Rowdy Ways and Leonard Cohen’s You Want It Darker. There is a sense, a general feeling that cannot yet be proven, that this will be the last outing from McCartney. It took him six years to piece together these twelve songs, and he is not getting any younger. He still performs with a level of quality few contemporary musicians can reach, but there is a fundamental fact that comes with a decades-long career – there’s not much of it left. That applies to Dylan, it applied to Cohen, and it certainly hasn’t changed for McCartney. The Boys of Dungeon Lane may be an all-timer from The Beatles member, but the overhang of this, potentially, being the last work of a legend, cannot be ignored. 

Times have changed. A new generation or two after McCartney has shifted the goalposts on what pop music is. It means those still working in the studio, as Ringo Starr and Neil Young found last year, are moved by passion, rather than profit. It’s not as if they need it, but that is beyond the point. The fact they’re still working is reason enough to celebrate. Joni Mitchell and Joan Baez still operating in some capacity as musicians is a genuine thrill, and we must celebrate those latter-day moments, no matter how small or infrequent they may be to see. McCartney sounds different to how he did just five years ago on lead single Days We Left Behind. This is not a knock at the Let It Be hitmaker, whose vocal changes can be charted back to the 1990s on Tripping the Live Fantastic, but it is a stark difference. That difference is what highlights this beginning of the end, and as uncomfortable and upsetting as it may be to assess, fans must make their peace with it.  

Those who expect a McCartney vocal lead as strong as Live and Let Die are living outside of reality. What nostalgia and reflection offer is a chance to appreciate what once was, and the strength of his vocal work is now a memory, rather than a constant. Strength is different from artist to artist. For McCartney, it means evoking the acceptable emotions expected of a performer in his 80s. It would be unbecoming of McCartney to launch into some pop working with synth here and “ooh’s” there, as though he were trying to make a follow-up to Coming Up. It just wouldn’t work, and not because of his vocal range change. Days We Left Behind is as autobiographical and honest as McCartney gets. He doesn’t obscure his meaning or protect the image of himself or his friends. There is nothing for him to lose, and that is something only a few artists can achieve.  

Part of it is the financial stability, which comes from having three highly regarded discographies. The Beatles, Wings, and his solo hits (even that Kanye West and Rihanna collaboration raked in some cash for Macca) are enough to keep him afloat as he takes further risks in the studio. So far, he has provided a follow-up to the beloved McCartney II, tinkered around remastering Wings’ discography, and is now set to release The Boys of Dungeon Lane. He has taken a route of creativity also helmed by Neil Young, who has toured when he feels like it, remastered what he wants, and worked whenever inspiration strikes. This is a stark difference from how most in the industry must now work, and once we lose these all-time greats, we lose the artistic independence they worked so hard to maintain.  

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