Paul McCartney on memories, radio and his nostalgic new album

In his Soho Square office Paul McCartney revisits the sounds that bedded his ear. The Boys of Dungeon Lane, his 18th solo album, collects rare glimpses into memory — skylarks, train whistles, the hiss of a bus — yet the record is not a syrupy exercise in nostalgia but an adventurous, youthfully energetic take on guitar music.

He wanders through small, precise recollections: an imagined memory of his birth, running indoors at infant school, family singalongs and the radio that fed his imagination. Radio brought him classical names that “bore into your brain”, rock’n’roll moments such as hearing Ray Charles, and strange plays like Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Cocu, influences he later folded into songs including Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.

Many tracks chart a landscape he shared with John Lennon and George Harrison. Penny Lane stood as a kind of answer to Strawberry Fields, and songs such as Down South recall hitchhiking on the Chester Road.

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