Sir Paul McCartney has revealed that one of his new songs was inspired by people enduring hardship, and admitted that even he sometimes has to battle feelings of depression. The 83-year-old Beatles legend is set to release his first album in nearly five years, titled The Boys of Dungeon Lane, later this month. Among the 14 tracks is the song Life Can Be Hard, which was written during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reflecting on Hardship
Reflecting on the struggles faced by people in Britain both during the pandemic and currently, McCartney said: “There's a lot of hardship for many people - some people might have a health issue, a financial issue, whatever. Everyone's got something, but we've got to beat our way through those hardships.” He described the song as being about crawling out of a crisis or falling back in love with the world.
Speaking to Mojo magazine, he added: “It beats the alternative, you know? The alternative is your life turns sour, and I don’t want that to happen. I don't want to get depressed, so I fight it and think, Come on, you've got a lot of good stuff going on. Concentrate on that. It's not always easy - in fact, it's never easy.”
New Album and Collaborations
Another track on the album is Come To Us, which was released as a single last week and features a duet between McCartney and fellow Beatle Ringo Starr. The song is a love letter to growing up in Liverpool. However, McCartney insists that the Fab Four did not all come from the same background. He explained: “Ringo was the one who came from most nothing in the Beatles. John was the poshest, and me and George were sort of in the middle from Speke, but Ringo was from the Dingle, and that was well hard!”
McCartney credits his family roots with keeping him grounded, describing them as “a loving family” and “very smart working class people.”
Production and Musical Style
The upcoming album was produced by Andrew Watt, who has also worked with the Rolling Stones on their new album due out later this summer. McCartney noted that while working with the Stones has a distinct sound, his approach was different: “If you're working with the Stones, they've got the Stones sound. It's kind of the opposite with me - we're trying not to do that. The way we approached this album was, We've done that before. Let's do it different.”
Watt gave McCartney free rein to experiment, resulting in a variety of songs using tape loops, synthesisers, drum machines, as well as acoustic tracks and pop songs. Watt said: “There's albums I make where I'm writing every single song, leading the way. And there are albums I make where I'm just following. You follow Paul McCartney wherever he wants to go. The idea of him being him was very important to me.”
Apart from the strings and orchestration, much of which was recorded at Abbey Road, McCartney played all the instruments on the album, including drums, except on Home To Us where Ringo Starr plays. This has drawn comparisons to his 1970 solo debut album McCartney, where he also played all instruments. US music magazine Billboard called the LP “delightfully Beatle-esque in parts” in terms of melodies and instrumentation.
Future Plans and Creative Process
Despite the nostalgic nature of the album and his age, McCartney hinted that this may not be his last release. He referenced having many ideas still to be turned into full songs. Referring to the track First Star Of The Night, he told guests at an Abbey Road event how the song was first recorded on his iPhone: “I put it down on my phone. It’s terrible though cos you put lots of things down but you never finish it. Well this one I did! My phone has got thousands of little ideas, one of Steve’s (McCartney’s engineer) jobs is going through my phone to see if there is anything good or if it is a load of you know what.”
He added: “I don’t work, I play, it’s my hobby. I do it anyway.”
The Boys of Dungeon Lane is released by Paul McCartney on May 29 via MPL/Capitol Records. The full interview with Paul appears in the June issue of Mojo, out now.
