Interview for TikTok

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As part of the promotional campaign for his forthcoming album “The Boys Of Dungeon Lane“, Paul McCartney took part in a live streaming event on TikTok, fielding questions from users — some submitted in advance, others sent in real time. He also responded to a pre-recorded question from the album’s producer, Andrew Watt.

The event ran for approximately 45 minutes. Thirty seconds of the opening track “As You Lie There” were played, along with snippets of “Down South” and “Come Inside“.

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From TikTok announces very special LIVE Premiere event with Paul McCartney – Newsroom | TikTok, May 22, 2026:

TikTok announces very special LIVE Premiere event with Paul McCartney

• The global TikTok LIVE Premiere event celebrates the release of his new album ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane’
• The LIVE Q&A will give fans exclusive insights from Paul McCartney as he discusses his forthcoming album and songwriting process
• Fans around the world can tune in live on TikTok on May 27 from 10.30am EST / 7.30am PST

TikTok today announces a very special TikTok LIVE Premiere event with music legend Paul McCartney (@paulmccartney), ahead of the release of his forthcoming new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane.

Broadcast live on TikTok on May 27 from 10.30am EST / 7.30am PT, the exclusive TikTok LIVE Q&A will give fans around the world the chance to hear directly from Paul McCartney as he discusses the inspiration and songwriting behind the new album and answers fan questions submitted by the global TikTok community.

The Boys of Dungeon Lane is Paul’s first new solo album in over five years and his most introspective project to date. Through deeply personal songwriting, the album revisits the formative years that shaped not only his life, but the foundations of modern popular culture — reflecting on childhood memories in post-war Liverpool, family, friendship and the years before the world had ever heard of Beatlemania.

Paul McCartney has built a strong and deeply engaged presence on TikTok, where he has more than 1.2 million followers, with fans across generations continuing to celebrate his music, storytelling and enduring cultural impact on the platform every day.

Tracy Gardner, TikTok’s Global Head of Music Business Development, said: “Paul McCartney is one of the most influential and enduring artists in music history, whose songwriting continues to shape culture across generations. TikTok is an incredible platform for fans to discover and rediscover iconic music, and we’re constantly inspired by the way new audiences continue to connect with Paul’s extraordinary catalogue, from the Beatles classics to his latest album.”

The event kicks off TikTok LIVE Premiere, the new flagship LIVE series designed as the ultimate destination for the world’s biggest names across music, film, sports and entertainment to launch defining cultural moments through exclusive livestream experiences. The series transforms livestreams from one-off broadcasts into must-watch global events, where iconic talent connects directly with TikTok’s highly engaged global community.

LIVE has become a powerful space that turns viewers into active participants, creating shared experiences where communities don’t just watch moments unfold, but react, contribute and shape them together.

We’ve seen how LIVE can bring artists and communities together in powerful ways, and we can’t wait for fans around the world to hear directly from Paul McCartney as he shares the iconic stories behind The Boys of Dungeon Lane.

Fans can tune into the LIVE event via Paul McCartney’s official TikTok account as well as @tiktok and @tiktok_uk on May 27 at 10:30am EST / 7.30am PST.

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Ross: I think I need to ask the first and most important question, because TikTok would not be happy if I didn’t ask this to you. Is Paul McCartney happy?

Paul: Um, yeah, I am actually happy. I’ve got an album coming up, and it’s a beautiful day here in London where we are sweltering. And that for Britain is pretty rare. So I’m happy — but don’t get me mad.

Ross: You heard that, guys. Don’t make Paul mad. So shall we start with some quick fire questions to warm everything up? So I have — this is from the username Vampire Oreo — and they have asked, what is your favorite color?

Paul: Blue came into my mind, and that is probably my favorite color. But I’m also reminded of my mom years ago — her favorite color was green, and I always thought why, and it was because she was from Ireland. The family’s from Ireland. So how about blue-green?

Ross: It’s giving the earth. And this question is from Daisy Cakes 4. What are your favorite pair of shoes?

Paul: Favorite pair of shoes. That’s a very silly question, Ross, but I do like — I’ve got into slip-ons. Because, you know, when you go through airports and they ask you to take your shoes off, if you’ve got kind of lace-ups, it’s like — okay, five minutes later you’ve got things off. So with slip-ons — and I have a pair of black slip-ons that are my favorites at the moment.

Ross: Nice. And this question is from a username which is actually a load of numbers, so I won’t say that out loud. But they have asked — we’re going to talk a bit about the album here — you described McCartney in three words as “home, family, and love.” How would you describe Dungeon Lane in three words?

Paul: Memories, family, and love.

Ross: There’s a connection there with your first album. Miguel asks, “If John could pick a song from the new album, which one do you think he would pick?”

Paul: Well, that’s a good question. I think he might choose Days We Left Behind, because he’s in it.

Ross: And I’ve got one final question, and this question is from a special guest. For those of you on the TikTok live, you won’t be able to see this, but you’ll be able to hear it. It is from Andrew Watt, the producer of the album.

Andrew: Hey, Paul. So, everyone’s getting to finally hear this record. My question for you is — why the hell are you so handsome?

Paul: Oh, well — why the hell have you got a statue of some weird guy in your garden? That statue Andrew just showed — he was on holiday in Italy, I think, and someone had done this statue called Orpheus, but it was clearly my face. So Andrew ended up getting it and it’s now in his garden. So I think I’ll avoid that question with that answer.

Ross: I mean, you’re immortalized in stone there. Okay. We actually have a copy of the album right here to hand to you. I thought we could do a quick little unboxing. The album was obviously designed with you and David Lane. And inside we have a silk-screen collage done by Kate Gibb, and some extra help inside the album from Josh McCartney, and your daughter Mary on the portrait.

Paul: Yeah, it was nice the way it all came together, really. Because I asked Mary if she’d mind taking a portrait of me that we could use, because we knew Kate — the girl who did all the screen printing — would take that picture Mary took of me and make it into that, which I love. I love the treatment. So we did that. And I was talking to David [Lane], who was going to help design the whole package and the whole artwork, and I showed him some early photographs that I’d taken when I was a teenager, I think it was, up in Liverpool. And so he said, “Well, we should use all of them. We should get Kate to silk-screen them, screen-print them all.” And the thing I like about the idea is that it means you can look at this cover forever, which — I remember trying to, well, we did that with the Sgt. Pepper cover. We wanted you to be able to just pore over it. Because I always remembered going into Liverpool city center and buying a record — it would be vinyl in those days — and the half-hour journey back on the bus, you would just sit there and get into every little thing. And there’s a lot to look at on this thing — lot of childhood pictures of me, my brother Mike, and various friends. There’s John here, George, and we went on hitchhiking trips. And one of the songs on the album is called Down South, and that’s about me and George going hitchhiking from Liverpool down south. So I had a lot of nice memories of that, and that’s all incorporated into this. There’s some Hamburg shots.

Ross: I have a very important question. What is with the birds?

Paul: The birds. Okay. So Dungeon Lane — I was talking to David about it and he said, “Well, what is it, Dungeon Lane?” I said, “Well, where we lived in a place called Speke in Liverpool, it’s like millions and millions of council houses — like one of those big, house-the-people projects.” And right next door to it, because it was right on the edge of Liverpool, you suddenly — you walk a mile outside our council estate and there would be like deep countryside, and people’s accents would even change. It’d be a bit more Lancashire. And then you go back into Liverpool and it’d be back to that. Anyway, the way you could get out was via this lane that led down to the shore — to the Mersey shore, the River Mersey shore. And so I used to go down there often, and I had a little bird book called the Observer’s Book of Birds, and it had all the birds — it’s a pocket book, you know. So I used to take that out, and if I saw a bird I’d kind of look it up and read about it and stuff.

And my great memory there — so that’s what the birds are all to do with in here. These are all birds from the Observer’s Book of Birds. But my beautiful memory that I still have every time I think about it: seeing a skylark in a field. You know, I say to people, have you ever seen a skylark rise? And it’s a great sight, because they go up like in a perpendicular column. They tweet till they get to the top, and then they sort of stop, and then they sort of glide away. It’s a really great sight and a great sound. They glide away to a different part of the field, and you’re supposed to think, “Ah, that’s where the nest is.” Well, apparently that’s actually the opposite place to where the nest is. The nest’s over here, and that’s his job — distracting you away from the nest.

Ross: Amazing. Okay, so we have some more fan questions that have come in. We asked some of the fans ahead of the live. And this one’s come from Malin. What feels most different about this new album compared to your previous ones? Did you go in with a clear vision, or did it evolve as you started writing it?

Paul: You know, tell you the truth, I hardly ever go in with a clear version of anything. I can make it all up. I was talking to Jeff Lynne one of those days and we were talking about how we never learned to read or write music — from the Liverpool invasion and all the groups then. And I said, “Well, we never learned.” And Jeff sort of said, “No.” He said, “We made it up.” And that’s the truth. We just made it all up, and we couldn’t have written it down because we didn’t understand notation. I think it’s a good thing. I don’t ever want to put kids off learning proper notation, but in our case it was really good because it was just person to person — there wasn’t a piece of paper in between. So if you had to learn a chord, you just had to show each other how it goes. And in the early days, we knew three basic rock and roll chords.

(plays guitar) Well, there’s A — you learn that — and then D, and then E. So that’s like a lot of blues based on those chords. Just knew them. And then one day we wanted to find B7, because that was in the E. We knew E and then A, but then we didn’t know B7. So we heard that there was some guy across Liverpool who knew B7. So we took the bus and went over, knocked on his door, said, “Excuse me, are you the B7 guy?” He said, “Yeah.” Said, “Can you teach it to us?” So he did. And that was basically how we continued — you went on to all the other chords, and gradually stockpiled all the chords you needed for the songs you were writing or the songs you were copying.

Ross: I think as we’ve been talking about chords, we should talk about how this album started, because it’s a great story.

Paul: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I went to see Andrew Watt — I was just going to meet him for a cup of tea. So I went to see him, had a cup of tea, and we started talking about songwriting. And he said, “Well, how do you sort of start things?” I said, “I don’t know. Sometimes I’ll just put my fingers on the guitar and just see what comes out. Even if it’s a wacky chord.” (plays) I said, “Well, that’s pretty wacky.” Kind of liked it. Said, “Well, I don’t know — that would start a song.” It actually is the first chord on the album. So then I change that note — just a top note changes. (plays) So that’s it. But the thing is, I have no idea to this day what that chord is.

Ross: So I wonder if any of you guys listening on TikTok Live might be able to help us figure out what that chord is.

Paul: Yeah, come on — somebody out there knows. Let’s do it again. (plays) It’s got to be something related to G, because it’s G. So I mean, I didn’t need to know what it’s called, but that set us off. So me and Andrew then started playing with those three chords, and it did inspire us into writing the first song on the album, called As You Lie There.

Ross: Well, I think as we’re on TikTok Live, shall we play the first 30 seconds of the song before the album comes out so you guys can get a sneak peek as to what the album starts with?

(plays snippet of “As You Lie There”)

Paul: “Do I ever cross your mind?” Yeah. So that was it. And it was great fun. The thing I said — that if I put a wacky chord in it might inspire me — was what happened.

Ross: And then the rest is history. Or in two days’ time maybe, when everyone else can get to hear it. Yeah. I think we will also play another snippet from the album in a second. I think I’ve got a really good question here from XO. If you could relive one day from the Beatles era, which would it be and why? Tough one.

Paul: It is. There’s so many great days, and it depends what you mean. It could be a very little day or it could be like a hugely important day. What came into mind was the rooftop concert in Savile Row. I think that would be kind of pretty cool to relive. So I’ll go with that as my final answer.

Ross: Okay, we’ll lock that in. You can’t change it now. And I think talking about memories and the Beatles kind of leads onto the other song I might play a snippet from — which is Down South. And this is all about you and George hitchhiking. And I think you’ve got a very funny story about George getting electrocuted.

Paul: Well, yeah. We were hitchhiking from Chester. So the song tells the story roughly of our route — we got a lorry to give us a lift down to Wales. So we were going into Wales, and we were now looking for the next ride, and along came a little old milk float — the milkman. It had the milk on the back, and those were electric cars, which were the first ones you’d ever seen. So, in other words, like a few years ago when electric cars started to really become something serious, I assumed they could all just do about four miles an hour like these little milk floats. Not true — they can now go zoom. Anyway, so we got a lift off this guy, and George jumped in — there was the driver, George jumped in, and then me and George had to sit on the battery of the electric car, which was in the middle next to the driver. So it was great. We were going along, enjoying ourselves, chatting to the driver, and suddenly George goes — whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s wrong? And he had a pair of jeans on which had a zip on the pocket at the back, and that zip had connected up the two points of the battery, and it had gone electric — gone red hot — and it burned him. And later when we found somewhere to stay, he showed me, and it was like a zip burn. It was branded.

The funny thing is though, about memory — I was talking to Olivia Harrison, George’s wife, recently. And she said, “Oh, I love that story where you got burned, you and George.” I said, “It wasn’t me — it was George.” So, you know, the memories have just morphed slightly. And in her mind, and in George’s mind presumably, it was me that got burned.

Ross: I’m guessing you don’t have a mark. I’m actually going to ask the fans now to help pick the third song we might listen to. So, would you rather hear Come Inside or Salesman Saint? Please drop a comment in the TikTok live and we will play that later. We’ve had some more questions come in as we’ve been chatting. This is from Eloise Marie. Do you have a song that fans gave a different meaning to than what it originally meant, across the whole discography?

Paul: Yeah. People sometimes — and I sometimes like the mistake they think they heard better than the actual lyric. With Wings, we had a song called Hi, Hi, Hi, which got banned from the BBC because it was too raunchy. Well, in it there’s a line — and I was in like my surrealist lyric period where the words didn’t have to mean very much. So I say to the girl in the song, “Lie on the bed and get ready for my polygon.” Now, what’s a polygon? I don’t know — it’s like a mathematical thing. It was just kind of a joke. But then people started to hear it as “lie on the bed and get ready for my body gun.” I thought, well, that’s better. “Ready for my body gun — come on, baby.” So yeah, they completely changed the polygon into a body gun. But I must admit I liked it.

Ross: I mean, that is funny. I’m always mishearing lyrics until I see them written down.

Paul: No, it’s right. Elvis Costello told me that his old manager Jake Riviera thought the beginning of Strawberry Fields — which is “living is easy with eyes closed” — he thought it was “living is easy with nice clothes.” It’s not wrong. It’s kind of nice.

Ross: Danny — it is his birthday today. Just want to send him some love.

Paul: Happy birthday, Danny.

Ross: This one’s from Carla Mara. If you were prime minister of the UK, what would you like to change?

Paul: That’s a big question. I would like to try and get things running efficiently for a change. People pay all their taxes and money into the government and I don’t think there are people in there that quite know how to do it. So yeah, I would like to get a bunch of people to work it all out and to actually make people have happier lives — have all these systems like roads and potholes and taxes, so that people could just feel a little bit better. You earn some money and you keep more of it. I mean, I don’t mind too much because I get taxed at a very high rate and I don’t mind — I figure I’m giving back. But people who don’t have that much money get ripped off. So we need to fix that. The National Health Service — we need to fix all these things.

Ross: Thank you. I’ve got some more questions coming in. The Real Kane asks, “When’s the last time you were in touch with Ringo?”

Paul: The last time I spoke to Ringo. Last week. We FaceTime each other a lot. He lives in LA, so he’s eight hours behind if I’m in England. But it’s lovely — him and Barbara, his missus. It’s just nice to catch up, see what he’s doing. And he’s having a lot of success now with his country music. He’s got his album out — Long Long Something — Long Long Time, I think. And it’s really good.

Ross: Would you ever do country?

Paul: Ringo’s the country guy — he always was in the group. We were more sort of rock and roll. But he was always country. He knew all the good country singers. So he could turn us on to that kind of thing. His first track on the Beatles album was Act Naturally, which he knew from his country scene. We never quite knew as much as he did. So yeah, I chat to him quite regularly. Lovely boy.

Ross: And I have a question from Enzo. What advice would you give to a 20-year-old Paul — after making this album, or a younger Paul

Paul: In life or in music or anything… What advice would I give? I don’t know really. Try and believe that all things are possible. And when you choose something, apply yourself, work at it. But if it’s music, play at it. I think with a lot of people I’ve found — myself, the Beatles, Wings — it was just a question of doing it a lot. Because you get better, you get more into it, and your confidence grows. So that’s what I’d advise. 20-year-old Paul.

Ross: I have a nice question from Jaket. You inspired them to become veggie, and they want to ask what inspired you to make the album Ram.

Paul: I was living in Scotland at the time — me and Linda had gone to escape the business world that we found ourselves surrounded by, and it wasn’t good. There was a guy we didn’t like who was running things and we thought he was a crook. So we just thought, great idea, let’s just go. And so we went up to Scotland. So whenever David sort of rang up and said, “There’s a business meeting tomorrow in London, 10:00,” I’d say, “Sorry, we can’t — we’re not there.” And so it was great. So yeah, that was why we were living in Scotland. And it was on a sheep farm. So I got into shearing the sheep with a friend, a guy who worked for us called Duncan, who could really do it. He used clippers — not electric, it was old-fashioned clippers — which is a real skill. And he showed me how to do it. He would do about a hundred sheep in a day. I would do ten if I was lucky. But I really enjoyed it — it was great seeing how you turn the sheep over and clip them and all that. So when I came to think of what the title was going to be for the album, just the word ram came into my mind. Because we’d been working with sheep, and I thought, well, it’s kind of nice because it’s got various meanings — ramming on, as well as the sort of strong animal thing. So it seemed to work. That’s how that came about.

Ross: Lovely. I have some great questions coming in here. Andrew the Derek King asks, “What is your favorite bird?”

Paul: Favorite bird. Blackbird.

Ross: Not hard to pick there. And Jamie asked, “What’s your favorite song on the new album?”

Paul: It’s always difficult because it changes. I would say that Days We Left Behind is a big favorite of mine. But then there’s one called Life Can Be Hard, which is kind of a little bit more surprising. So that would maybe be my second choice. But then I’m going to go to Salesman Saint, because that’s about my parents. And then I’m going to go to Mama Gets By, because that’s a different big orchestra thing. So the answer to the question would probably be Days We Left Behind.

Ross: Nice. And I have another one from Sophia — and actually someone else has also asked a very similar question. What do you think you would be doing if you weren’t famous or were never in the Beatles?

Paul: Well, when I left school, you know, there’s always like the careers master who tells you’re no good, you’re hopeless, I see no future for you. So — but I’d done not very well in my exams, but I had a couple of qualifications, and they told me I could maybe be an English teacher. So I could have been our friendly English teacher.

Ross: You hear that, TikTok — Paul could have been your English teacher.

Paul: I probably would have enjoyed that because I like that subject. I like English literature and stuff. So that was my fall-back position.

Ross: I can just see on the comments coming in that I think we have picked a final snippet to play, and that is Come Inside. Shall we play it?

Paul: Come Inside — that’s my other favorite.

Ross: They’re all your favorites, Paul. Really?

(plays snippet of “Come Inside”)

Paul: It’s a bit of a rocker, that one. It’s a wee rocker.

Ross: Yeah. Okay, well, there are even more questions coming through. So we’ll try and answer a few more before we finish up for the day. This one’s from Sheil. If you had a chance to go back in time — not Beatles, any time period — where would you go back to?

Paul: You know, it’s a creepy question, because the periods you go back to you kind of think of as romantic and wonderful — Dickens and stuff — but it was probably terrible. Probably the hygiene and everything. So I don’t need to go back that far. I would just go back to the ’50s. ’56, when Elvis arrived on the scene. That’s a bit more hygienic.

Ross: Don’t have to worry about plagues… I have a good question here from Oscar. How does it feel seeing your music go from playing on radio, TV, being played in clubs and on vinyl, to now being played on Spotify and being on TikTok? You’ve been across many different eras of music. How does it feel, always changing?

Paul: It’s great, I love it. As you say, we kind of started off with 45 records, and then LPs — vinyl albums — and went through cassettes, CDs, and then finally here we are with streaming. To me it’s okay because it’s another way of getting your music out. I don’t care how people choose to access it as long as they do access it — that’s all I’m interested in.

Ross: Back in the day, you never used to get music at the same time everywhere — not even that long ago. So now it going across the world on the same day, it becomes a bigger thing, doesn’t it?

Paul: It really is. Yeah. It’s massive. Yeah. So I know — it’s so easy. I use Spotify. It’s so easy to just go, “What are you looking for?” — and there it is. You can have it. Any type of music — African music, bossa, nova, rock and roll…

Ross: Anything you want. The whole music library in your pocket. I’m probably going to do three more questions. And this one comes from the Beatles fan club in Panama. After so many decades, what does it mean to see how much significance your music has to fans across the world?

Paul: It is phenomenal. It is really phenomenal. Because when we started out, we’re just kids, and rock and roll was just really coming in, and we thought — if we’re lucky we’ve got a couple of years. That’s how long people normally lasted; they couldn’t really sustain much more after that. So we expected maybe five max, and then that became ten — “oh yeah, you know, we’re still going and the scene’s still there” — and it became 20, 30, and now it’s right up there. So it’s great. It’s a lovely feeling that the music we thought would last for just a couple of years has lasted so long. And people will come to me and say, “My kids love your music.” And that’s something, you know — the kids, because you can’t indoctrinate them. They just either like it or they don’t. So it’s a good thing. I think the Beatles was the greatest band ever. I’m a fan.

Ross: I’m glad to hear it. It kind of works very well, because obviously you’ve been doing music for a while. This person has asked, “How do you carve out moments to protect your creativity and stay creative?”

Paul: I think you just make sure you get breaks and get rest from everything you do. I’ve been doing quite a lot — was in America, I was doing Saturday Night Live and then I was doing Stephen Colbert. So that was like a really packed week. And then after that I’ll come back to England and spend some time in the countryside. And that’s really nice because then you just forget about being a songwriter or an entertainer or whatever you want to call it. And you’re just yourself. And so after a couple of days of that, I start getting itchy — I start wanting to play a bit of guitar or a bit of piano. So I wait. I don’t rush it. I don’t sit down going, “I’ve got to do this.” I just sort of wait for that moment when I’ve got enough time and I’m feeling rested. And then something arrives. Something will happen.

Ross: If you’re always creative, you can’t stop it. And I think sometimes it is good to have a break to inspire.

Paul: No, I think that’s the thing. I think that’s what makes it more pleasant. You don’t try and do it all the time. Just try and take a little break from whatever it is you do, because otherwise it gets boring. You really don’t want it to get boring. You want to still feel very fresh about it.

Ross: I mean, this year alone, obviously we’ve got this new album dropping. We had Man On The Run. You’re always doing very different projects as well — so it’s always must be quite refreshing, jumping from the world of film to back to music. Is there any project you want to do that you haven’t done, or you’re thinking, “I haven’t done that yet and I want to dip my toe into a different creative world”?

Paul: I don’t think so. I think there’s so much going on — like you say, from various media — that I’m quite happy. I can’t think of anything. I start to think, oh, painting — because I used to have a lot of time for painting and I don’t have much time now because of all the music. But I think there’s so much going on, so much happening, least of all releasing a new album. So there’s always something interesting going around, and I love that. It doesn’t get boring because one minute you’re doing a sketch on Saturday Night Live in America, pretending to be Nigel the mechanic, and next minute you’re hanging out on the farm. So it’s great. I think the diversity really helps.

And by the way, Ross, I think you’ve done a very good job.

Ross: Oh, thank you. We actually are on our last question. So I think we just need to say goodbye to everyone on TikTok Live and just remind them what’s going on this week with a certain album.

Paul: Well, Ross, who’s been helping me here, has done a great job. And he’s passing me what’s going on this week. The answer is Dungeon Lane. There it is. It’s called The Boys of Dungeon Lane, and it’s my new album. Got a bunch of songs on it — quite different songs. But I think… I like it. So hopefully you will give it a listen. How’s that for a plug?

Ross: Thank you everyone. I think that is the end of our TikTok Live.

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