In a revealing Jimmy Kimmel interview, Paul McCartney talks Ringo Starr, Wings, his family, Taylor Swift, Larry David and the unexpected stories behind his latest album.
by Paul Cashmere
Paul McCartney has revealed the unlikely chain of events that turned Ringo Starr’s spare drumming into their first full duet, while a wide-ranging conversation with Jimmy Kimmel also offered a rare glimpse of the man behind The Beatles, Wings and his extraordinary solo career.
McCartney was appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! to discuss The Boys of Dungeon Lane (Special Edition), which adds three previously unreleased songs and a new “flip mix” of “Home To Us”, his duet with Ringo. The expanded edition is released digitally on October 7, with the 2LP edition scheduled for December 9.
The Ringo story was particularly revealing because the collaboration almost happened by accident.
McCartney explained that he had been working with producer Andrew Watt when Ringo went to the studio and recorded some drums. Ringo subsequently told McCartney he hoped the recording would be turned into a track. It wasn’t, leaving Ringo “well pissed”, according to McCartney.
Later, while working with Watt, McCartney remembered the unused drum recording and asked if it was still available.
“Wait a minute. What about that drumming Ringo did? Have you got it still?” McCartney recalled. The answer was yes, and that became the starting point for “Home To Us”.
The Special Edition now gives that collaboration another twist. The “flip mix” swaps the original vocal parts between the two surviving Beatles. The three other new recordings are “City Fox”, “One Night Stand” and “Chelsea Boots”.
The conversation also showed how McCartney’s relationship with his past remains complicated. Kimmel told him that, growing up, Wings was the version of McCartney’s music that mattered most to him, rather than The Beatles.
McCartney acknowledged that Wings had operated under the enormous shadow of The Beatles. He deliberately avoided performing Beatles material and tried not to write songs that sounded like Beatles songs, a decision that made his post-Beatles career harder than it might otherwise have been.
Looking back through Man On The Run, the documentary about Wings, McCartney said he learned things about that period himself. Home movies provided a view of his life with Linda and their children in Scotland, where he embraced a more ordinary domestic existence after years in which other people had handled everyday tasks for him.
He recalled wanting to make his own Christmas tree arrangements and even build furniture, only to watch the documentary years later and realise how untidy the family home had been.
“We didn’t notice. We were young and foolish,” he said.
That willingness to laugh at himself continued throughout the interview.
Kimmel recalled a party at McCartney’s house in Los Angeles where the two men unexpectedly ended up talking in McCartney’s bathroom. McCartney joked that he knew Kimmel’s “type”, while Kimmel wondered whether McCartney had ever written a song in a bathroom.
McCartney had the obvious answer: “I’ve written a song about a bathroom window.” The reference was to “She Came In Through The Bathroom Window”, the Abbey Road song that has become part of The Beatles’ catalogue.
The conversation also moved into family life. McCartney is now a grandfather to eight children, something he said had recently made him realise he never knew either of his own grandparents because they died before he was born.
At his recent intimate Los Angeles show, Kimmel had noticed McCartney’s grandchildren singing and dancing at the front of the venue. For McCartney, that family connection is now part of his experience of performing.
There was also room for the less predictable chapters of his life. McCartney recalled being turned away from a Grammys party while with Woody Harrelson and Beck, demonstrating that even one of the most recognisable people in music can occasionally discover his name is not enough to get through a door.
Then there was Taylor Swift’s wedding. McCartney revealed that Swift asked him to perform “I Want To Hold Your Hand”. He told her she should join him and sing it to her husband, turning a Beatles love song into a very personal wedding moment.
What emerges from the Kimmel interview is a McCartney who remains remarkably connected to the details of ordinary life: family, old friends, awkward social encounters, domestic memories and the creative accidents that become songs.
That perspective fits The Boys of Dungeon Lane, an album that looks backwards at the people and experiences that shaped McCartney before The Beatles changed his life. The Special Edition extends that story with four more recordings from the sessions, including another musical conversation with Ringo.
The digital edition of The Boys of Dungeon Lane (Special Edition) is released October 7, with the physical 2LP edition following December 9.
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