Ripples in a Pond

“Ripples in a Pond” is a track from the album “The Boys Of Dungeon Lane“, released in 2026.

In his Valentine’s Day message on February 14, 2023, Paul McCartney shared a photo of two red roses in a glass, placed on a mixing desk in a recording studio. The image appeared to reveal part of a working title for a song, showing the text “[…]ipples on a pond”.

A very upbeat song with McCartney’s vocals pushed front and center and with a bouncy pop production before delving into a spacy, inventive bridge. Written for and about Shevell, McCartney changed the song from third person, “she” to second person, “you,” to personalize it more for his wife. During the playback, McCartney even looked straight at his wife of 15 years as he mouthed lyrics including, “I love you more than I ever did before.” McCartney recorded the song in England and then sent it Watt to make it bouncier and dancier.

From Billboard, April 17, 2026 – From the “Boys of Dungeon Lane” listening session, April 16, 2026

McCartney described it as “basically a love song to Nancy,” to considerable awww-ing from the small congregation. He originally wrote it in the third person, about a “she,” “but I decided it is much better to just do direct. So I changed the ‘she’ to ‘you,’ so it just means a bit more.”

McCartney indicated that he thinks the production on this track is more poppy than the rest of the album — at his own instigation. “When we first met, one of the things in the back of my mind was, [Watt] has done Justin Bieber and a lot of kind of modern pop records. So on this one I said, ‘well, ‘Andrew, you haven’t done that… You’ve been a bit quiet… On this one, I really do think I’ll hand it over to you.” He gave Watt instructions to “make it a little bit more sort of dancey, a little bit more sort of up. So I saw another side to him… It’s a nice one and you did a nice production on that track.”

That led Watt to (presumably) joke: “I’ll do a pop remix of the whole album.”

From Variety, April 17, 2026 – From the “Boys of Dungeon Lane” listening session, April 16, 2026

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