Paul McCartney’s first-ever duet with Ringo Starr is arriving this week: “We’d never done that before”
Paul McCartney has broken down his upcoming duet with Ringo Starr, due to arrive later this week.
The new track, which marks the first-ever time that the pair have duetted together, is titled ‘Home to Us’ and will appear on McCartney’s forthcoming album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane.
While fans will have to wait until May 29th to hear McCartney’s latest record, he revealed at a fan event at Abbey Road Studios yesterday (May 5th) that ‘Home to Us’ will arrive as a single on Friday (May 8th).
At the listening party for The Boys of Dungeon Lane, which was attended by 50 lucky fans, McCartney also previewed the track and provided the backstory behind it.
He shared (via Liverpool Echo), “Ringo went round to the studio and drummed a bit. I said to Andrew (Watt), we should make a track and send it to him. So this song is done totally with Ringo in mind.”
McCartney then revealed the heartfelt reason why he needed Ringo on the track, stating, “In writing the song, I’m talking about where we came from. In common with a lot of people, you come from nothing, and you build yourself up. Ringo was from the Dingle, and that was well hard. He said he used to get mugged coming home, because he worked.”
Reflecting on his early years, McCartney said, “Even though it was crazy, it was home to us. I made the song around that idea and sent it to Ringo.”
However, he was worried Starr didn’t like the song because “he sent me back a version where he just added some lines to the chorus”, which led to McCartney ringing his old friend and ensuring they were on the same page.
During the call, McCartney told Starr he wanted him to “sing the whole thing” rather than just a line or two, recalling of the process, “So we took my first line, Ringo’s second line, and then we had a duet.”
In addition to Starr, McCartney also called in favours from Chrissie Hynde and Sharleen Spiteri on ‘Home to Us’ because he “had the idea it would be nice to hear girls” on the song, which brought it to its completion.
Listen to a snippet of ‘Home to Us’ below.
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