Paul McCartney has been making music with Ringo Starr ever since the classic Beatles lineup was solidified in 1962. But they’d never actually duetted on a track until McCartney began assembling his upcoming LP The Boys Of Dungeon Lane, and the new song “Home To Us” felt like a natural place to feature Starr on vocals alongside himself.
“In writing the song I’m talking about where we came from,” McCartney told members of the press who assembled in Abbey Road on May 5 to hear a preview of the new album. “In common with a lot of people, you come from nothing, and you build yourself up. Ringo was from the Dingle, and that was well hard. He said he used to get mugged coming home because he worked. Even though it was crazy, it was home to us.”
“I made the song around that idea and sent it to Ringo,” he continued. “He sent me back a version where he just added some lines to the chorus, so I thought, maybe he doesn’t like it. I rang him, and he said he thought I only wanted him to sing one or two lines, and I said I’d love to hear him sing the whole thing. So we took my first line, Ringo’s second line, and then we had a duet. We’d never done that before. Then we wanted some backing vocals and I had the idea it would be nice to hear girls. Chrissie Hynde said she’d do it, and Sharleen Spiteri, they’re mates. So they did it.”
Like many songs on The Boys Of Dungeon Lane, which was produced by Andrew Watt, “Home To Us” looks back on McCartney’s life with a heavy dose of nostalgia. The title comes from a line one “Days We Left Behind,” which references an area near Liverpool’s River Mersey where McCartney played as a child. It also reflects on the “secret code” he shared with John Lennon at his childhood home. “I stand by what I said,” he sings. “The promise that I made will never be broken.”
“This was a lot of memories of Liverpool for me,” McCartney told the press, “but also any days we’ve left behind. Everyone’s got them – school, old mates. [The song] has memories of John in the middle, that’s lovely to go back to.” When asked what sort of “secret code” he had with Lennon, McCartney laughed. “I’m not telling,” he said. “You make a lot of stuff up when you write songs.”
McCartney goes back even further in time on “Salesman Saint” when he sings about his parents. “I was born in 1942, in the war,” he said. “I was too young to appreciate that, but my parents weren’t. My dad was a fireman, putting out fires from the bombs. My mum was a nurse and midwife. But they carried on, because they had to. Like people in Ukraine, Gaza, and elsewhere now.”
“Down South” is a reflection of the early days of the Beatles, while “As You Lie There” touches upon an unrequited childhood crush on a neighbor girl named Jasmine. “I didn’t know how to approach her. I never spoke to her,” McCartney said. “The joke was, she did show up later that year and knocked on the door. I was indisposed – I was on the toilet – so I missed Jasmine!”
By cosmic coincidence, the very same day that McCartney met with the press in London to promote his new Andrew Watt-produced LP, the Rolling Stones were meeting with the press in New York City to promote their new Andrew Watt-produced album, Foreign Tongues. It features McCartney on one track, which was recorded at the Hackney Diamonds sessions in 2023.
The Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney have no dates on the books at the moment, and it’s unclear if the Stones have plans to ever tour again. But Ringo Starr – who recently teamed up with producer T-Bone Burnett on his new solo LP Long Long Road – is kicking off another leg of his All Starr Band tour on May 28 in Temecula, California.
