The Boys of Dungeon Lane LA Listening Party (Days We Left Behind)

On April 16, 2026, a limited number of fans, subscribed to Paul McCartney’s official mailing list and residing in California, received an email invitation to attend an exclusive first listening session of his new album “The Boys Of Dungeon Lane.” The event took place on April 16 at producer Andrew Watt’s studio in Los Angeles, with Paul McCartney and Andrew Watt both in attendance.

On June 2, a video featuring excerpts from the session was released. It showed Paul McCartney and Andrew Watt discussing the album’s first single, “Days We Left Behind“, and briefly touching on the mixing process behind the album.

I had this little song which was memories, “I was looking back at white and black, reminders of my past.” So I was putting this song together, we started working on it, and I was playing on the piano, and I did a riff, it was a throw-away for me. But Andrew sort of said “oh, wait a minute, that’s good, you know”. So he put that in, and we built it up. And it’s a very gentle little track, which is the first single of the album. It’s about Liverpool, about my memories in Liverpool. It’s about the boys of Dungeon Lane, it’s where the title comes from. Dungeon Lane was a place near where I used to live, in Speke, a district of Liverpool, where me and George lived. That’s how I met George. I used to get to the school bus and we both went to the same school. So I would get the bus here, and the next stop, George would get on. So sometimes we sat next to each other. That’s how we got to know each other. And we just talked about guitars, rock and roll… It was just coming in, you forget that, there was a time where it was just arriving, you know. So that area was called Speke, and leading down from all the counsel houses, there was a lane called Dungeon Lane that took you down to the short, the Mersey shore. That’s basically where I was drawing from, for the lyrics of the tune, which is called “Days We Left Behind.”

You play every instrument on this song. No one else can do that, you know… Playing the bass and it sounds like bass. Playing the drums and it sounds like… And the guitar… It doesn’t sound like one person, it sounds like a band.

Yeah. There are a few who can do it… But not many [laughing]. It’s just something I’ve always liked to do, you know. And if you have an idea for something, immediately, you don’t have to try and sweat, in the sense “do this, do that”. It’s a shortcut, you know, in my mind. It’s a nice one. And you did a good production on that.

Thank you very much.

There is no one theme. They are very different, the tracks. And you know, when I’m doing an album like that, I sometimes kind of worry, “Shouldn’t I just have a theme all the way through?” But then, I remember Beatles album, you know… “She’s So Heavy…” “Blackbird singing…” All the songs were very different. We had a great time.

Easy time. And you mixed it too.

Yeah, and we mixed it. What you normally do these days is you send it off to a guy to mix, and he will make the kind of most perfect radio mix. You know, it’s very expensive, not that it is the main worry. But I told Andrew, “you know, in the Beatles, when you had finished a track, you just kind-of mixed it, and you mixed it yourself to your satisfaction. And so we did that, all the tracks, we mixed them. And then we thought, if everything needs something special, then we can do that, go outside mixing it. It’s a great job doing it.

Paul McCartney – In conversation with Andrew Watt

It’s always such a joy getting a call from my friend @paulmccartney and his incredible team to dream something up together. Especially when it means surprising unsuspecting fans with an intimate evening of storytelling, laughter, and brand new music from Paul himself alongside producer @thisiswatt

The first two episodes are out now on YouTube (link in bio). It was such a magical day hearing the stories behind Paul’s beautiful new album The Boys of Dungeon Lane and watching fans experience it all in real time.

Huge thank you to Paul’s amazing management team @scottquest @luciepanton @jaimefinkel and Ben Chappell at MPL Communications, and the team at Capitol Records for such an unforgettable evening.

And massive love to our incredible crew who helped bring it all to life.

Produced by @subtractive
Directed by @brantleyg

Director of Photography — @petermosiman
Camera Operators — @ericulbrich @hailey.enge
1st AC — @spencercgoodall
Sound — Brandon Loulias
Editor — @radums
Colorist — @aztechfilm
G&E — @pinkbox.studio

From Brantley Gutierrez on Instagram, June 4, 2026