Paul McCartney is a master of fakeouts. The first feint for his new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, came when he released “Days We Left Behind” as the first single. This very tender and heartbreaking ballad allows for the possibility that the entire LP could be a collection of acoustic throwbacks. The second bluff is when you pick up the record, put it on, and realize that the opening track, “As You Lie There,” has exactly the same soft, nostalgic fingerpicking vibe. But that’s only for the first 55 seconds. At that point, a loud drum fill is announced, a growling electric guitar begins, and McCartney’s trademark old-fashioned howl arrives just in time for a pretty intense chorus.
Then we’ll know for sure that Dungeon Lane, which opens on May 29th, is clearly not anyone’s idea. old man No matter what the albums, the calendars say about his early years. (Next month, he’ll be able to sing “When I’m 84.”) He’s determined to keep it fresh, lively, even intense, but not by pretending he’s young. In fact, the promise of an “acoustic throwback” offered by the first single was half true. It’s just that you can scratch off “acoustic” as a complete modifier. On at least half of these 14 songs, McCartney takes an unapologetically nostalgic look at the ever-present past. But he does most of it in a deeply commercial, glamorous, rock style. Wings records from the 1970s. McCartney acts ageless, but he defies it. I think that’s the good thing about both.
The best albums are debatable, but here are some that most people agree on. “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” is arguably the best album ever recorded and released by the octogenarian rock star. Now, that may come across as a subtle compliment but a terrible thing. Because, how many serious, qualified entries have there been? But the fact that there isn’t much competition for that title yet doesn’t detract from its accomplishment. There’s plenty of other praise to be had, including the fact that this might be McCartney’s best album of the 21st century. Every Muckahhead has a favorite from his later works. My favorite so far has been 2007’s ‘Memory Almost Full,’ partly because it resembles this album in its mix of ruminative thoughts and crunchy sounds. (If I had imagined my mental RAM was low when I made that record 19 years ago, imagine how I would feel now.)
But this album is more of a celebration of memories, with plenty of present-day happiness as well. It’s as if reminiscences about his Liverpool boyhood and modern mush notes to his wife, Nancy Chevell, occupy side-by-side places on his personal timeline. He seems excited to jump between the 1950s and 2020s in these lyrics, but neither era brings him closer to melancholy. Anyway, McCartney’s hilarious time-travelling is in good company this time. Assisting him in this powerful reminiscence is classic rock’s greatest modern cheerleader, Andrew Watt, who co-produced all the songs and co-wrote about half of them. Watt, who favors superstar collaborators, ranges in age from 35 to 70, but his level of enthusiasm for heroes is higher than that of 35- to 17-year-olds. There may be some generational gaps between the two of you, but you couldn’t think of a better person to be your intentionally ageless partner.
Dungeon Lane is a very diverse pack, with each song having a different style, and the tracks often changing from moment to moment. This album, full of songs about childhood, thrives on songwriting and arrangements that evoke this sense of endless playfulness. This album contains some of the most significant changes you’ll find between locksmith jobs, not for showy effect, but because that’s the way McCartney rolls and writes. The first track “As You Lie There” is the one with the most extreme dynamics, in the tradition of previous “unseen” tracks.that-Opening songs like “Band on the Run” are also planned.
However, the little surprises in the song don’t end there. If you like the sound of McCartney manipulating the gearshift knob, you’ll be thrilled by the way “Mountain Top,” a goofy ode to girls indulging in a healthy dose of psychedelia at music festivals, abruptly switches from Beatles-esque harpsichord and loops to a two-beat rocker in the final moments. (Although the song is credited, it ends with Chevelle muttering something unintelligible. Maybe she says “cranberry sauce”? No, it doesn’t.)
And the album’s most audacious conceit, “Salesman Saint,” pays homage to the struggles of McCartney’s parents (Jim a salesman and Mary, you know, a saint) in Liverpool during World War II, before McCartney was even born. Halfway through, this hitherto modest number is overlaid with a “ballroom” style swing orchestra that is out of time signature with the underlying track below. It’s an oddly weird feeling, and it’s satisfying. Suffice it to say, no one can accuse him of getting lazy when, well into his 80s, he can still envision turning that far to the left. “Salesman Saint” is one of three songs compiled at the end of the album, with string and woodwind arrangements by Ben Foster and Giles Martin. These two are two of the few outsiders allowed into the closed world of Watt and McCartney. If you’re a hardcore fan, you’ll appreciate this intrusion. Whenever the clarinet appears, there’s something about it that just feels right to be in Macca’s world.
But eclecticism creeps in. There’s a certain consistency in the way McCartney and his partners crafted this as a rock record closer to mid-period Wings than any flagrant self-homage to the Beatles. That being said, Paul does play a recorder on one track. Take what you want from there. I’m not sure if this was intentional, but I enjoyed the moment of quick a cappella harmonies that quickly segue into a Hefner-esque bass lick at the two-minute mark of the minimalist “Never Know.”
There’s one thing this potpourri doesn’t have? Bad vibes. If you’ve heard “Days We Left Behind,” you’ve already heard the entirety of this album’s sad content, but it’s just a few lines of melancholy. He shuffles around some of the repeated lyrics, thoughtfully keeping the song from becoming a complete lament for what’s been lost, but without detracting from the reality that the passage of time comes at a price. “No one can erase the days we left behind,” he sings in one version of the chorus, suggesting that the past can have a kind of permanence, but then changes “No one can erase…” to “Nothing can take back…” That’s as sad a thought as comes out of a Paul McCartney record right now. Certainly it will not remain.
But he believes in yesterday…or in a flattened circle in time. “As You Lie There” begins in a bold way that takes us inside McCartney’s adolescent mind, as he speaks and sings thoughts of his yearning for the girl he recognizes in a listening session to be Jasmine, the object of his neighborhood desire from an early age. In real life, he barely spoke to her, only dreaming of her reflected in his upstairs bedroom window when he passed by her house. Movie buffs may remember Citizen Kane and the touching little speech in which Mr. Bernstein remembers falling in love at first sight with a young woman wearing a parasol. “She didn’t look at me at all, but I don’t think a month had passed since she didn’t think about that girl,” Bernstein said. There’s something beautifully eerie and wonderful about how, at 83, Paul McCartney still looks like that Orson Welles character who still remembers the man who barely knew his name 70 years ago. (“I’m sorry, Nance,” he said apologetically to his wife at one listening party.)
What’s fascinating is that McCartney is extravagant. many These songs are filled with the emotions of youthful excitement. “Down South” is actually about her platonic crush on George Harrison, when she was just a tourist who rode buses in Liverpool and took trucks to the coast. “We talked about guitars and rock and roll/They were subjects that never got old,” he sings. “It was a good way to get to know you before we started twisting and screaming.” This solo acoustic anthem of friendship, from the cute to the quiet, is so romantic it’ll make you swoon.
Meanwhile, McCartney and Ringo Starr’s first-ever full-fledged duet, “Home to Us,” truly completes the Beatles relationship here, with a lighthearted vibe that splits the difference between power pop and the country-rock vibe that Ringo has revived on his past few albums. This collaboration is a mutual love letter to the boys, who grew up underprivileged in post-war England but with a lot of help from their school friends. At least 2 out of 4 Fab members agree that: poverty in liverpool wonderful.
If it’s dark shadows and regrets you’re looking for, you’ve come to the wrong Beatles, as usual. Now, as always, some may take McCartney’s angelic goodwill as proof that he’s not serious enough. But despite its characteristic positivity, “The Boys of Dungeon Lane” really gives lie to the foolish notion that the best composers of the last century were not deep thinkers and feelers. There’s a deeply observational quality to his songwriting, especially evident in the most nostalgic numbers here, that makes his eternal cheer feel justified.
On “Lost Horizon,” one of the best tracks here, he evokes the entire history of childhood ambient audio, from train whistles to playground noises to amusement park echoes to desk clocks. Ever since he was a child, he has been interested not only in music but also in all things auditory. While checking them, I came to the following conclusion: “That sound cheers me up… That sound drives me crazy” We know exactly what he means. Not because we grew up with the same environmental noise, but right in the middle of those phrases he unleashes a beautifully curved electric guitar lick. It will lift you up and hit you in the head too, if you let it. Even after all these years, McCartney still has an indelible urge to change days and lives with sound. He seems like a boy in that way.
#Paul #McCartney #explores #Boys #Dungeon #Lane #joyful #return #Wings #days #Album #Review