“You Do Miss Them. I Start to Get Very Sad.” Paul McCartney on Memory, Music, and the Friends He Never Forgot

Paul McCartney has spent most of his life turning memory into music. This week, with the release of his 20th solo album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, he once again opened the door to the past and let old feelings walk back in. The record includes fourteen songs, and somewhere in the middle of making it, the memories became impossible to ignore.

One of the songs, Down South, is simple on the surface. It tells the story of three teenage boys hitchhiking together: Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and John Lennon. It is a snapshot of youth, before the legend, before the loss, before the years changed everything. Today, only one of those boys is still here to tell the story.

That is where the sadness comes in. In an interview with The Guardian, Paul McCartney admitted that thinking about John Lennon and George Harrison can hit him hard. He said he gets very sad. Then, as he often does, he stepped back from the feeling and looked at it from another angle. Everyone misses them, not just him. Somehow, that thought makes it easier to carry.

“You do miss them. I start to get very sad,” Paul McCartney said. “And then I think, well, everybody misses them.”

There is something deeply human in that sentence. It is not polished. It is not heroic. It is the kind of thing a person says when they are trying to keep their balance while looking at the weight of a lifetime. For Paul McCartney, the missing never really stops. It just becomes part of the rhythm.

Returning to the Beginning

Another song on the album points back to a place even older than fame: 20 Forthlin Road in Liverpool. That house holds one of the most important beginnings in rock history. It was there that Paul McCartney and John Lennon first sat down with two guitars and started tossing ideas back and forth. One would sing a line, the other would answer. One would shape a melody, the other would push it somewhere new.

That room was small, but what happened there was enormous. It was the starting point of a partnership that changed popular music forever. Decades later, Paul McCartney still remembers exactly what John Lennon said in that room. He also remembers what he said back. Those words now carry the kind of meaning that only time can reveal.

He did not need to dress it up. In remembering that exchange, Paul McCartney showed that the most powerful moments are often the quiet ones. Not the stadiums. Not the awards. Not the headlines. Just two young men with guitars, trying to make something honest.

The Weight of What Stays

Fans often think of Paul McCartney as unstoppable, and in many ways he is. He has written songs that travel across generations. He has kept performing, recording, and creating long after most artists would have slowed down. But every so often, the human side of the story comes through clearly. The grief is still there. The friendship is still there. So is the memory of being young and full of possibility.

That is what makes The Boys of Dungeon Lane feel especially personal. It is not just another album release. It is a conversation with time itself. The songs look backward without losing their shape in the present. They carry laughter, regret, affection, and the kind of sadness that only comes from loving people deeply enough to remember them forever.

Paul McCartney does not pretend that missing John Lennon and George Harrison gets easier in a simple way. Instead, he seems to accept that grief changes form. It becomes part of the song. It becomes part of the story. It becomes something you carry while still moving forward.

A Story Still Being Told

That may be why Paul McCartney continues to connect so strongly with listeners. He does not just celebrate the past; he revisits it with honesty. He lets the sadness exist beside the joy. He lets memory breathe. And in doing that, he reminds people that even the greatest stories are made of ordinary moments, shared rooms, and voices that are no longer physically present but still felt everywhere.

In the end, Down South and the song about 20 Forthlin Road do more than reflect on old days. They reveal how Paul McCartney understands loss: not as something to erase, but as something to acknowledge and carry with tenderness. He is still the boy from Liverpool in some ways, still listening for the echoes, still surprised by how sharply the past can return.

And maybe that is the lasting truth at the center of this album. Fame fades into the background. Time keeps moving. But friendship, once it becomes part of your life, never really leaves. You miss them. You remember them. And sometimes, if you are Paul McCartney, you turn that ache into a song.