Paul McCartney and Paul Mescal: A Beatle Meets His Future Self
Paul McCartney sits down with Paul Mescal, the actor set to portray him in an upcoming Beatles biopic, to discuss his new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane.
Over the weekend, Paul McCartney engaged in a conversation with actor Paul Mescal, who is preparing to portray the legendary musician in director Sam Mendes’ The Beatles: A Four-Film Cinematic Event, slated for release in April 2028.
The two Pauls met for The Boys of Dungeon Lane: In Conversation with Paul McCartney & Paul Mescal, which premiered on Monday (May 25) via Amazon Live and the Amazon Music app. The 11-minute discussion begins with Mescal asking, “How do you feel about being interviewed?” McCartney responds, “It depends if I like the person… No, I find if I like who I’m being interviewed by it comes easy.”
Mescal delves into the personal nature of McCartney’s songwriting on his new album (released May 29), inquiring how he transforms memories into new music while maintaining a sense of immediacy.
"I don’t know how I do it,” McCartney admits. “I haven’t got a formula. They used to ask me and John [Lennon], ‘How’d you do it? Who writes the music, who writes the words?’ I don’t know. To me, I think any story or song you’re gonna do, it’s gotta involve memory. With the Beatles, we always tried to write something different.”
McCartney shares his enjoyment of writing about Lennon and the late George Harrison, viewing it as a way of “revisiting them.” This is reflected in his new song “Down South,” which evokes his and Lennon’s early days.
The conversation also touches on the new album’s collaboration with Ringo Starr on “Home To Us,” and "Days We Left Behind", which Mescal describes as reflecting McCartney’s “full, brilliant, complicated” relationship with Lennon.
"Looking back on your life, I ran into this guy called John Lennon, and he was fighting life — he had a lot trouble, his dad had left home, his mom had got run over, he had a lot of trouble in there — so he was putting up a shield, so he was very witty, very biting,” McCartney says of Lennon. “When it came to writing, that kind of relationship stayed there, so on this record, I might even refer to him in my mind, as if we’re still writing together.”
They also discuss "Salesman Saint,” an emotional track dedicated to McCartney’s parents.
"I often remember that my mom and dad had me in World War II. I’ve always known that growing up, but at certain point you go ‘Wow.’ McCartney says of the track, which paints a portrait of his father as a cotton salesman and his mother as a nurse/midwife. “It occurred to me that it’d be good to just put down some stuff about them carrying on through whatever they had to put up with,” he says.
Watch the full interview here.
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