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McCartney III: Five things to expect from Sir Paul's new album

Mary McCartney/MPL Communications
Mary McCartney/MPL Communications

McCartney and McCartney II, the classic solo albums from 1970 and 1980, arrived in a time of unravelling.

The first was born amid the fallout of the world’s biggest band, The Beatles, calling it quits. The second appeared as Sir Paul McCartney’s follow-up group, Wings, were disintegrating. And now we have the long-awaited completion of the trilogy, McCartney III, set to arrive on December 11. This time, it’s just the world that’s falling apart.

But if we do have the pandemic to thank for a new Macca album, at least there’s a silver lining. The first two took us all by surprise — McCartney was a lo-fi hotchpotch but had flashes of undeniable brilliance, while McCartney II was a left-field experiment in electronic sound, which took years to earn its critical appreciation.

What does it all mean for McCartney III? Let’s find out.

There’s going to be a lot of Paul McCartney on it

Both McCartney and McCartney II were children of isolation. The first was recorded in his St John’s Wood house in a hastily constructed cocoon to escape the post-Beatles fallout. And for the second, he escaped north of the border, hunkering down in his Scottish abode. It took a pandemic to get Macca back into isolation for this new album, but it means that McCartney III will be entirely his own work — like its two predecessors, the whole thing was written, played, recorded and produced himself, during a nine-week period at his Sussex home studio.

The Covid crisis will work its way into some songs

Will McCartney III be a slice of pure pandemic escapism? Not entirely. Sir Paul has confirmed that there will be “echoes of the pandemic” reverberating through some of the songs, but it won’t be all vaccines and face masks. The record focuses on “freedom of love”, he told Loud and Quiet. “There’s a varied lot of feelings on it, but I didn’t set out for it to all be like, ‘This is how I feel at this moment.’ The old themes are there, of love and optimism.”

There will at least one golden oldie on it

While the majority of the album will be made up of new material, some old, unreleased tracks have snuck onto the tracklist. The whole project was sparked by Sir Paul tinkering with something he wrote in 1990, the song When Winter Comes, which appears in a newly reworked form as the album closer on McCartney III.

It’ll feature some classic equipment…

Sir Paul brought out the big guns while recording this new album. Classic violin-shaped Hofner bass? Check. Mellotron from Abbey Road once played by the Beatles? Check. The double-bass used by Elvis Presley’s original trio? Check. It means that McCartney III will be something of a music memorabilia museum, and could hint at a return to a vintage sound.

...but some experimentation could be on the cards

This new record was “about making music for yourself rather than making music that has to do a job,” Sir Paul said. “So, I just did stuff I fancied doing.” He also told the BBC that “when you’re noodling around on your own, there’s just a sense of freedom”. It all suggests that maybe we should expect the unexpected — especially when you remember just how startling the new sounds on McCartney II were, all those years ago.