“Get back... Get back... Get back to where you once belonged.”
Nostalgia is an intoxicating emotion, and yearning for the past can often feel like remembering a place and time when things were seemingly simpler, better, more beautiful.
This form of sentimentality is central to Paul McCartney’s twentieth solo album, ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ - a reference to the route from Liverpool to the Speke shoreline, the area where McCartney spent his childhood.
It is released in a year when we’ve already had Ringo Starr’s latest solo album, 'Long Long Road', and fans have a new Rolling Stones album to look forward to this summer. Nostalgia runs deep in 2026, it would seem. But fair warning: harking back and potentially romanticising eras can be perilous, something the Greek origins of the word warns us - nóstos (returning home) and álgos (suffering).
So, is ‘The Boys Of Dungeon Lane’ a pleasant look back for the 83-year-old music legend, or a more painful homecoming?
