On ‘The Boys of Dungeon Lane,’ Paul McCartney Is a Kid

Fifty-six years after the cute Beatle harshed Apple scruffs’ vibes by publicly breaking the news about their favorite band’s breakup, Paul McCartney’s past is ever present. The 2020s have ushered in an avalanche of McCartney chronicles: biographies, oral histories, podcasts, compilations of all kinds (songs, lyrics, photos), documentaries, streaming miniseries, biographical films, soundtracks, installations, seven-story museums. McCartney-cana isn’t a cottage industry; it’s a thriving multimedia sector. Ardent devotees of the most industrious Beatle could construct their entire media diet around newly released retrospectives about McCartney’s career. But it’s a rare, refreshing treat, in 2026, to encounter an entirely new work by the master of melody—even a partly past-focused one in which McCartney can’t help getting back to where he once belonged.