Paul McCartney Announces Album, Releases Single “Days We Left Behind”

Paul McCartney is back with new music, as the legendary Beatles co-founder dropped “Days We Left Behind” on Thursday, the lead single for his newly announced upcoming 18th studio album The Boys of Dungeon Lane.

The Boys of Dungeon Lane marks the singer’s first album in over five years, following 2020’s McCartney III. A press release for the album and single describes the music as an introspective look back for McCartney regarding his childhood in Liverpool and his days before the Beatles had taken off as the biggest band in the world. The album will come out May 29.

In a statement, McCartney called “Days We Left Behind” “a memory song for me.”

“The album title, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, comes from a lyric in this track,” McCartney said. “I was thinking just that, about the days I left behind and I do often wonder if I’m just writing about the past but then I think how can you write about anything else? It’s just a lot of memories of Liverpool. It involves a bit in the middle about John and Forthlin Road which is the street I used to live in. Dungeon Lane is near there. I used to live in a place called Speke which is quite working class. We didn’t have much at all but it didn’t matter because all the people were great and you didn’t notice you didn’t have much.”

Per the release, the album is five years in the making, coming after McCartney spoke with producer Andrew Watt over tea. McCartney was fiddling around on a guitar and played a chord he didn’t recognize, and after figuring it out, Watt suggested recording it, which gave way to the album’s lead track “As You Lie There.” He recorded the album between his touring schedule over the ensuing years between L.A. and Sussex.

McCartney announced the album one day before the superstar will play a pair of intimate shows at the Fonda Theatre in L.A. on Friday and Saturday, his first shows of 2026 after concluding his Got Back tour in Chicago last year. McCartney’s Morgan Neville-directed Man on the Run documentary about his post-Beatles music life released in February.