The Boys of Dungeon Lane: The online story behind the stories

It doesn’t happen every year, but when Paul is ready to make a new record, everything shifts.

Tours may be vast, global, finely tuned machines, but an album campaign is something else entirely. It marks the beginning of a new chapter. New songs, a new story to tell, and a new world to share. It’s in those early moments that everyone comes together to figure out how that world will take shape.

The last time we did this was in 2020, at the height of “Rockdown”, working on McCartney III. That was a very different experience, building a campaign entirely from behind screens. This time around, we had something we hadn’t had in a while: the chance to meet, to create, and to share moments in person, which opened so many more possibilities.

This is just a small part of the story behind the stories of working with Paul on his number one album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane. So, let’s go back to the beginning of the journey and share a little of what was happening behind the scenes at PaulMcCartney.com as we brought the album to you.

Mid-December 2025

For Paul, this album had been years in the making. He’d spoken about it here, there and everywhere, dropping little hints in our regular ‘You Gave Me The Answer’ Q&As. So, when the green light came through that he wanted to play us the album from start to finish, and talk us through the songs, the stories and the recording process, it felt like everything suddenly became very real.

Just before Christmas 2025, a small group of us gathered in London. A handful from Paul’s team and the record label, all in one room, ready to listen. At that point, we had no release date, no artwork, no campaign plan. Just the music, and Paul, walking us through each song, and the stories behind those stories.

Very quickly, it became clear what this album was about. A collection of memories and storytelling, and who better to guide us through it than the man himself. By the time we left that room, still a few days shy of Christmas, we were full of ideas. How were we going to announce it? When would it come out? What should we do?

Early-March 2026: Birds became central to everything we did 🐦‍⬛

A few months passed and, behind the scenes, things began to take shape. The album artwork was coming together piece by piece, while we were also deep into another project, the Morgan Neville-directed Man on the Run documentary for Amazon Prime. It was a busy start to the year, but it all felt connected, with different chapters of Paul’s story unfolding at once.

Then, as these things tend to do, everything aligned. The pieces fell into place, and a release date was locked in.

Dungeon Lane, as Paul had explained early on, was closely tied to his birdwatching, a place where he could take his bird book and disappear for a while. As we spent more time with the album, it became clear that birds weren’t just a passing reference; the same birds Paul would see on Dungeon Lane began to appear in the artwork, giving us a clear creative thread to follow.

Campaigns don’t always start with a big announcement. Sometimes they begin with something lighter. A small signal. A moment you might miss if you weren’t looking closely. Or in this case, an emoji.

A single bird 🐦‍⬛ began appearing in unexpected places. A social bio here, a caption there. Before long, it had spread across platforms, playful and just cryptic enough to get fans asking questions. We loved watching you piece together the breadcrumb trail.

We took it further with a themed playlist, a collection of bird-related songs from across Paul’s catalogue and by now, you knew something was happening. 

Then, the time had come to announce the album. To uncover it, we asked fans to comment a 🐦‍⬛ on Paul’s Instagram and shared a small but important sneak peek. That glimpse took you inside Dungeon Lane Café, a location we’d been keeping under wraps. It’s here that a short film unfolds: an intimate conversation between McCartney and Mescal, which we held back until closer to release.

With announcement day looming, there was one final piece to reveal: a return to L24. Some of you spotted it immediately. Dungeon Lane is of course a real place and, working with Paul's label team and Google, we hid a clue in plain sight. A young boy stealing The Boys of Dungeon Lane sign, captured on Google Maps. Excuse the pun but it really put the album on the map.

That moment of discovery was exactly what we’d hoped for. It was all giving you the puzzle pieces before we announced at the end of March.

April - May 2026: LA and Abbey Road Fan Playbacks

For Paul, it was always important that people didn’t just hear the songs, they experienced it and he wanted to share the stories from album with the fans. Which leads us to the Los Angeles fan playback. Once plans were in motion for an event in the very studio where parts of the album had been recorded, we were faced with a delightful but daunting question: who do we invite?

Some secrets must remain secrets, one doesn't reveal how we picked fans but it does help being signed up to the PaulMcCartney.com newsletter.  Running Paul’s digital platforms comes with its perks; we see the community, recognise the names and the fans who are always there, always engaging, always championing the music.

Selecting the #LA30 wasn’t easy, but what followed made it all worthwhile. Watching that group ‘Come Together’, not just as attendees but as a shared experience, and hearing that friendships have grown from it since is exactly why moments like this matter. From a desk in London to something that resonates all the way across Los Angeles, it’s a pretty special part of the job.

A few weeks later, Paul brought it back home. Abbey Road Studios, of course, needs no introduction. There’s a sense of history you feel the moment you step through the doors. This time, we worked with a range of partners to invite guests, but we still kept a handful of spots back for Paul’s most engaged fans.

Another group of fans, another room filled with anticipation, and another chance to hear these songs in the way they were intended, surrounded by story, context and an atmosphere you simply can’t replicate anywhere else. It was a real privilege to bring the album to fans first and help give people a day they will never leave behind.

April 2026: Capturing the artwork coming to life

One of the most distinctive parts of this album lies not just in what you hear, but in what you see.

The artwork for The Boys of Dungeon Lane is a world, created by designer David Lane in close collaboration with Paul. Richly layered and deeply personal, it draws from a vast archive of imagery to create something that feels both intimate and expansive.

In April, we had the pleasure of stepping inside that world, heading to the studio of silkscreen artist Kate Gibb to capture the artwork coming to life.

Kate’s process is meticulous and entirely hands-on. From the cover through to the intricate inner collage, every element is carefully built-up layer by layer using traditional silkscreen techniques. The inner artwork alone is a multi-layered composition, created using more than 100 archive images, including previously unseen photographs from Paul’s personal collection.

Seeing these elements in isolation is one thing. Watching them take shape in real time is something else entirely. Sheets are pulled, colours are laid down, and with each pass, new details begin to emerge. What starts as fragments slowly becomes a complete picture, full of texture, depth and meaning. It mirrors the album itself, each layer contributing to a bigger story.

Capturing this process on camera brought a new dimension to the artwork. It allowed us not only to showcase the final pieces, but to reveal the craft behind them and the human touch within every print.

As Paul put it in our TikTok LIVE, the intention was to create something you could keep looking at forever… we did that with the Sgt. Pepper cover, we wanted you to just pore over it.

From concept to creation, it’s a reminder that the visual world of an album can be just as creative and considered as the music itself.

May 27th 2026: Live on TikTok it’s Paul McCartney

One of the joys of working on a new Paul album is that the possibilities feel endless. The challenge isn’t finding ideas; it’s choosing between them. So when we began mapping out the campaign, TikTok was an obvious part of the conversation. As soon as we had a clearer picture of the release, we reached out to explore what might be possible on the platform.

What followed was something genuinely unique: a special TikTok LIVE edition of the website feature ‘You Gave Me the Answer’. Watching it unfold in real time was, in a word, surreal. Thousands of questions flying in, fans from across the world tuning in simultaneously, and Paul right at the centre of it, relaxed, engaged and clearly enjoying himself.

Over one million of you tuned in, which still feels incredible to say. From our side, trying to keep track of everything was… an experience. But a very good one.

May 29th and beyond: This album is now yours…

And then, the moment finally came. The album was out in the world, in your hands. With a little help from our friend, and Paul’s nephew, Josh McCartney, we captured that journey in a short clip, taking the LP from Dungeon Lane right through to you.

What we’ve loved most since release is seeing how you’ve responded. The music, the stories, the memes on TikTok, the deep dives into lyrics, the Chicken Shop Date reactions, and the genuine affection people have shown for this album. It’s been a real pleasure watching it all unfold online, and an even greater privilege to reflect that back to Paul.

He’s been enjoying sharing in those moments too, celebrating with fans through fun videos and the cherry on top? Seeing the album reach Number One in the UK and even more charts around the world.
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⁠Wednesday 10th June 2026: It all goes full circle at the Roundhouse

So, let’s bring this full circle. For us, this campaign began last December in London, in a room with songs and stories. Now we found ourselves back in London again, this time at the Roundhouse. Instead of Paul and his team, it was shared with fans who had travelled from across the country and around the world to be there.

More than 1,700 people came together to celebrate the record they helped make a UK Number One Album. There were so many moments that brought it all to life, and we wanted to send this campaign off with a few small gestures for you, the fans. We made a few hundred postcards to hand out to those in the queue and brought along a now-famous sign so you could capture your own moments and carry the spirit of Dungeon Lane from L24 to NW1.

Paul’s storytelling journey through the album had a little help from a friend. Actor and comedian Rob Brydon joined him in conversation, helping take the evening into even deeper territory. 

As the event ended under the Roundhouse’s iconic circular roof, it became clear this wasn’t the end of this album campaign but the end of a marathon sprint.

From a single bird emoji quietly appearing online, to filming screen-printed artwork, global livestreams and intimate listening events, everything traces back to that same simple starting point: Paul’s storytelling. And if there’s one thing we’ve learned from The Boys of Dungeon Lane, it’s this, those stories don’t just belong to one place. They’ve resonated far beyond it.