Paul McCartney revisits childhood memories on new album The Boys of Dungeon Lane

In his office overlooking Soho Square in London, Paul McCartney sits on a small sofa and talks about the earliest sounds he can remember. The room smells of resin. A green glass candle sits on the windowsill, and plane trees stand outside in the afternoon light.

McCartney bought the building in 1974. It houses his publishing company and other businesses. On another floor, staff look at prints of photographs taken by his late wife Linda. An assistant orders bagels. Someone moves a trolley of glasses in the lift.

The conversation turns to the sounds that formed the background of his life. The new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, draws on those details: skylarks, train whistles, the noise of a bus stopping. The record is not a nostalgic exercise. It is an energetic guitar album.

McCartney says he has a feeling he can remember being born, though he calls the memory dubious. He recalls white tiles, chrome instruments and the sound of forceps. He moves on to other early memories: running indoors at infant school, standing on a grass verge on Western Avenue in Speke at age 10, listening to girls talk, hearing family singalongs and the punchline of an uncle’s joke.

He remembers the first time he heard the word “ubiquitous.” He says these memories would mean little to anyone else.

McCartney notes that almost nothing in his life is treated as private. Thousands of books have been written about the Beatles. There are podcasts, fan forums and Peter Jackson’s documentary Get Back. Two screen projects are in production: Sam Mendes’ planned films and a BBC series about the band’s time in Hamburg.

He says he did not set out to revisit the past in a conscious way. The title refers to a birdwatching spot near the house on Ardwick Road where his family moved in 1950. The house had an indoor toilet, an upright piano and a radio. His mother worked as a midwife and his father as a cotton salesman.

Radio played a large part in his childhood. He heard classical pieces, radio plays and, later, rock’n’roll. He recalls hearing Ray Charles on the BBC Light Programme and, in 1963, hearing Love Me Do on the radio while driving past the Grafton in Liverpool.

He and John Lennon wrote songs that drew on the same Liverpool streets. Penny Lane was one of them. After Lennon’s death in 1980, McCartney says, the conversation between the two songwriters ended. He still thinks about what Lennon would have made of a lyric or a place name.

The new album includes a song called Down South about hitchhiking with Lennon and George Harrison. McCartney says he misses both men. He also worked with producer Andrew Watt, who encouraged him to keep specific place names in the lyrics.

Watt prepared left-handed guitars for the sessions. One chord McCartney played became the start of the opening track, As You Lie There. The album also features a duet with Ringo Starr and appearances by Chrissie Hynde and Sharleen Spiteri.

McCartney says he is puzzled by much of the present age, including politics and technology. He says he rejects website cookies and told Apple’s Tim Cook he does not want software updates on his phone. He still believes most people share similar values and that humanity will get through difficult times.