Sean Ono Lennon Talks New Song with James McCartney and Zak Starkey

Photo: Bahram Foroughi

Sean Ono Lennon has been working on a new song with James McCartney and Zak Starkey, sons of Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, respectively. In a new interview with CBS News, Lennon acknowledged the trio’s collective creative pursuit, the offers they have received to perform live and the overarching kinship that serves as the foundation for their second-generation musical relationship. 

When asked about a live union with McCartney and Starkey, the son of Yoko and John said: “I think people ask for that a lot, but I do think that would be ridiculous. But you know, the reason Zak and James and I made a song together is not because we’re trying to redo The Beatles, it’s just because we like each other.”

He continues his response, rejecting expectations placed on the shoulders of the greatest pop band’s grown sons and the organic bond that makes for their brotherhood: “We’re not gonna do it because of some expectation or to, like, fulfill anyone’s expectation of what we should do. It has to be natural.” 

Notably, Lennon and McCartney–the current-day writing partnership between the sons of the Beatles–previously delivered a single in 2024. Titled “Primrose Hill,” McCartney introduced the number via social media, adding it was a co-write with “my good friend” Lennon. He suggested the potential for more music, writing, “With the release of this song it feels like we’re really getting the ball rolling and I am so excited to continue to share music with you.” Listen to 2024’s “Primrose Hill” and read more here.

In June, the trio previewed their track “Rip Off.”  Clocking in at two minutes and 15 seconds, the song preview presented a sense of musical experimentation that can be sonically linked to their fathers’ own late-60s outputs in association with their time in India by co-opting the use of chanting, dominated by lyrics that touch on the time, “Time is gonna fuck you up/ Time is gonna get ya/ Time is got ya…” Read our previous coverage.