The Boys of Dungeon Lane

The Roast

“Paul McCartney is 83 years old and still releasing albums, which is either inspiring or a cry for help, depending on how you feel about billionaires with home studios. The Boys of Dungeon Lane is his twentieth solo record, produced with Andrew Watt, the industry's official handler of legacy acts, and it does exactly what you expect: it looks backward, fondly, for 47 minutes. The title points at a lane in Liverpool where little Paul once wandered, and the songs follow suit, all hedgerows and dead friends and days we left behind, which is also literally the name of the lead single, because subtlety retired before he did. The Watt production is tasteful to a fault, every drum polished, every croak in that famous voice lit like a museum piece. And the voice does croak now, let's be honest, though the melodies it carries remain annoyingly effortless, the kind of thing he sneezes out while lesser writers sweat blood for a chorus. The cynic in me notes that nostalgia about a Liverpool boyhood is the single safest commercial move a Beatle can make, a victory lap with the route pre-approved. The critic in me notes that the lap is run beautifully. It went to number one in the UK because of course it did. Gravity also still works.”

The Bright Side

Here is the thing nobody wants to admit about late McCartney: the melodic gift never left. Days We Left Behind has a chord turn in its bridge that most songwriters would trade a limb for, and the softer ballads wear his 83 years like good leather, cracked in the right places. Andrew Watt resists the urge to embalm him in stadium gloss, and the reflective tone feels earned rather than focus-grouped. Critics called it one of the strongest records of his later career, and for once the consensus is not just politeness toward a legend. This is a man writing about his own childhood with the calm of someone who knows exactly how the story ends, and that calm is genuinely moving.

Hardest Sneer

“It is a lovely victory lap, but let's not pretend the stadium wasn't already on its feet before he sang a note. Paul McCartney could release 47 minutes of kettle noises and still hit number one, and somewhere deep down, he knows it.”

Issues (3)