Paul McCartney must have been born nostalgic. How else to explain songs like “Penny Lane,” “The Long and Winding Road,” and “Your Mother Should Know,” all wistful reveries for a mythical past, penned while McCartney was still in his 20s? So it’s only natural that the 83-year-old singer-songwriter should indulge in a wistful return to old Liverpool times on the autobiographical The Boys of Dungeon Lane, his first studio album in six years. The tired old trope that John Lennon was the experimental Beatle while McCartney made music for grannies may have long been disproved, but this is also not the McCartney of Kanye collabs and secret ambient techno albums; it’s not even the figure behind the vague hip-hop inflections of 2020’s McCartney III. Instead The Boys of Dungeon Lane gives us comfortable, whimsical Macca in excelsis—even “Mountain Top,” the album’s big psychedelic number, is as soft as a toy poodle—and, largely, it suits him.
McCartney didn’t really even have to try here. Beatles fans will flip for the very idea of songs like “Down South,” about hitchhiking with George Harrison; and “Home to Us,” a duet with Ringo Starr. Whether this is McCartney cramming his basket full of low-hanging fruit or simply leaning into his strengths will depend on your tolerance for extremely well-crafted sentimentalia.
The album has some captivating musical moments, notably the teatime psychedelia of “Mountain Top,” which ends (all too briefly) with eerie tape loops and a driving Apache beat, and “Salesman Saint,” a song about the experiences of McCartney’s parents during World War II that plays with contrasting time signatures and Big Band jazz. And the story behind “We Two” is fascinating—McCartney and producer Andrew Watt used a four-track tape machine that the Fab Four once recorded on, then bounced down the tracks for that authentic ’60s feel—even if the results are resolutely retro, most notable for the heavy Beatles snare sound. Mostly, though, Dungeon Lane’s musical palette is raucous guitar boogie, like Wings in their rockier moments, interspersed with dreamy acoustic numbers, as soft as campfire marshmallows.
What carries the album is its songwriting. McCartney may be history’s greatest writer of silly love songs and sentimental pop tunes, and if there’s nothing as toweringly evocative on The Boys of Dungeon Lane as “Penny Lane,” there’s also nothing as cloyingly lightweight as his work on 1984’s “We All Stand Together” with the Frog Chorus. “Days We Left Behind,” a maudlin tale of “smoky bars and cheap guitars,” has a first-rate chorus that seems tailor-made for McCartney’s newly fragile upper range, sung like a man whose intense reminiscing has actually left him out of breath, while “Momma Gets By” is a haunting ballad laced with drama. “Down South” initially feels disappointing in its low-key storytelling until the plaintive and ingeniously simple chorus hooks the listener with its tale of friendship forged.
Even when songs don’t connect, they are constructed with the invisible efficiency of a top-end Swiss watch. “As You Lie There” switches on a dime between strutting glam rock and acoustic whimsy, simultaneously innocent and horny in a way that brilliantly conveys the song’s tale of teenage infatuation, while “Ripples in a Pond” twitches, turns, and doubles back on the melody with the stylish confidence of a master songwriter.
Only a handful of songs fall flat. “Lost Horizon,” initially written in the early 2000s, has a satisfyingly vinegary guitar lead, but you can understand why McCartney forgot about it in the first place; “Come Inside” is like the Rolling Stones with all venom clinically removed; and the album’s nadir is “Home to Us,” which sounds like McCartney ripping off Oasis ripping off the Beatles in its clownish stomp and leaden melody. But even then, it’s kind of cute in the way that two former Beatles reminiscing about roses in the yard and burnt toast, like two elderly chums wrapped up snug by the fire, will inevitably be.
Above all, The Boys of Dungeon Lane is a perfectly professional album, a beautifully realized drip feed of nostalgia with no sharp edges or harmful aftereffects. McCartney is such a wily old pro that there was little chance of The Boys of Dungeon Lane failing on its own terms, which makes it a low-stakes kind of triumph. But an underwhelming win is still a win and, in the right kind of circumstances (caution is advised around strong alcohol, old photos, and the holiday season), The Boys of Dungeon Lane could still hit like a (silver) hammer, a reminder that nostalgia is a powerful drug, and the most obvious path can also be the best one.
